By introducing new tools and technologies to their core business printers can be one step ahead of their competition and better communicate the value of printed communication to their customers.
“A single channel approach using traditional print in isolation cannot be used to capture data and learn about the prospect in a way that can be exploited to make follow up campaigns more relevant and effective,” states an article by Konica Minolta.
Web-to-Print, Programmatic & VDP
More and more printers are looking at web-to-print integrations as a way to provide their customers with a range of services to easily create personalized printed communications. Using web-to-print systems gives your customers the opportunity to submit orders online, proof online and have real time information and updates.
Personalization is a business imperative. With growing opportunities to integrate online and offline, adding customer-centered value to direct mail becomes more and more effective. Programmatic mailing for example, refers to online actions that trigger sending a physical mail. This can be an abandoned shopping cart, a purchase, or just the visit of a certain website. Programmatic mailing is an ideal way to connect the gathering of individual customer data with the valuable engagement that printed communications add to the communication circle.
To better serve their clients, many print and marketing service providers have adopted Variable Data Printing (VDP). It enables printers to produce highly personalized printed communications for their customers—like personalized maps.
Even if you don’t have much customer data, you can use your VDP solution to create personalized direct mail campaigns. locr helps print service providers by providing them a fast and effective way of integrating high-quality personalization to their communications. To use the locr geomarketing solutions in your products it just needs one thing: address data.
Data Management
Data capture and data management is becoming an essential component of today’s businesses. But still many printers and marketers struggle to gain the right data or finding the right data to use from a vast number of customer data that is collected online and offline.
“One key driver of mass customisation is the ever-increasing volume of digital data that is being held. Online business data is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 40% and with the right software and skills to drive it, exact segmented marketing, down to the level of individuals, can occur – either digitally or by printing. This is a great opportunity for printers to manage and analyse customers’ data for them, but few are taking up the challenge”. (Konica Minolta)
Listening to Your Customer
Digitization means that more and more business conversations and transactions are based online. Make it easy for your customers to do business with you by enabling online orders and a well-managed website that gives information about all the services you provide.
And whether it is online or in person, take the time to listen to your customers’ problems, challenges and the goals they want to achieve with their projects. This gives you the chance to focus on the pain points in their business and create a long-term customer relationship.