Cross Media marketing for the Little Guy

Tweet Any business owner knows about economies of scale – the increase in efficiency of production that occurs as the number of goods being produced increases.  Typically, a company that achieved economies of scale lowers the average cost per unit through increased production since fixed costs are shared over an increased number of goods.

Economies of scale bring down the costs of all sorts of things, like printing and mailing if you are a large national corporation or nonprofit organization. 

But what if you are a little guy? Little guys still have profit margins and marketing goals to meet and along with those, the need for affordable marketing solutions.

Thanks to advancements in technology, direct mail driven cross media campaigns can be an affordable solution for small businesses and nonprofits.

Cross media campaigns reach an audience via traditional offline and online channels including direct mail, e-mail, personalized URLs (pURLs), landing pages, QR codes, and mobile messaging.  They feature personalized, relevant, and highly targeted messages.

Acculink is now the primary manufacturer of the InteliMailer formally called Transformailer.  This product transforms marketing messages into a complete cross media marketing campaign.  The InteliMailer offers small businesses and nonprofit organizations a unique way to increase response rates and achieve their marketing goals. 

According to a study by InfoTrends, marketers reported response rates of 20 - 35% when using cross media marketing campaigns over single channel print or email campaigns.   In addition, marketers reported an average lift of 50% in response rates using personalized, relevant and highly targeted cross media campaigns over static print-only campaigns.

Other research shows that combining direct mail with pURLs and well-designed landing pages, as well as QR codes and mobile messaging means higher response rates.  With the InteliMailer employing cross media marketing techniques, we are seeing lifts of 35 – 50% in response rates.  We are able to achieve this by offering a unique direct mail piece that gets noticed, opened, and acted upon thereby multiplying the results even further with personalization and variable data and then tapping into the power of the WEB and mobile marketing.

Until now, creating full color, personalized direct mail letter packages tied to cross media campaigns has been a time consuming and expensive undertaking.  Only large companies with big budgets could afford it.

With InteliMailer, now small businesses and nonprofits can send incredibly effective letter packages supported by pURLS, landing pages, WEB sites, and even mobile messaging in small quantities without any extra work and for only a few cents more than a postcard or self-mailer.

Because the InteliMailer can be produced in many versions, it is very versatile.  It can be a simple letter and outer envelope, both personalized and in full color. It can just be the outer envelope personalized with variable maps, coupons, or other relevant content without any inside sheets.   It may contain up to three personalized sheets and a reply envelope or reply card inside the outer envelope.  A membership card, affinity or loyalty card can also be part of the InteliMailer.  It can be produced in many different versions depending upon its intended use.

Unlike static marketing campaigns, the InteliMailer is supported by integrated on-line and mobile media.  It can be precision targeted, highly relevant, and personalized to a smaller list while yielding higher results than mailing to a much larger list.

For more information or samples please contact Ed Glaser, CMO at Acculink.  He can be reached at (252)321-5805 or at ed.glaser@acculink.com.

AccuLink Announces Another Milestone

Tweet AccuLink announces another milestone with the first installation in the southeast of the HP Indigo 7000 7-color digital press. AccuLink bolsters its competitive advantage in the marketing communications and publishing fields by adding the high productivity of this new press to the existing Indigo, Heidelberg and Kodak fleet of digital printing presses. AccuLink’s multi-million dollar investment in digital imaging represents an ongoing commitment to on-demand and short-run book printing, personalized color direct mail, high-value transpromotional statement printing and other custom printing applications. AccuLink has consistently ranked in America’s top 100 trade printers since 1994.

The HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press, with its powerful combination of offset quality and productivity generates 120 letter size pages per minute in full color or 240 ppm in either monochrome or two colors. This press has an image format of 12.48" x 18.26", and the ability to run IndiChrome and/or PMS specific colors to match the most stringent corporate color matching requirements.

In keeping with AccuLink’s mission of being Chain of Custody certified by FSC and SFI, the HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press has many features that make it an excellent choice in being environmentally important to that mission as well as helping to reduce costs:

• Power consumption reduction of 25% per printed page (compared to other presses we looked at).
• An imaging oil recycling system, enabling us to have a reduction of approximately 50% in consumption and waste.
• Longer lifespan consumables result in the generation of fewer waste materials.

AccuLink’s mission is to continue to add value to customer communication solutions with superior service, technology and expertise, as well as being environmentally sound in our business practices. AccuLink has been at the forefront of innovative printing technologies since 1980, and are true pioneers in the advancement of integrating traditional printing services with the need for multichannel communications. AccuLink is recognized nationwide for its investments and leadership in the world of variable printing as well as many other capabilities. Through the addition of this new equipment, we hope to continue expanding our offerings to our clients and our distributor partners.

R.O.I. Case Studies - Part 2

Tweet Today we bring you part two of a four-part series highlighting
successful cases from our portfolio of client work.

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Consultant Focuses On Niche, Avoids Moving:

Challenge: A sales management consultant to the insurance and financial industries competes with national publishers by customizing his sales activity planner books with his customer’s unique training tools. Some large accounts have thousands of sales people in the field while others may have only hundreds. There are instances when the consultant needs to produce custom books “on-demand” in order to test market a new concept or impress a prospect. Selling over 40,000 planners in various editions and quantities grew to be a logistical nightmare for his small staff and limited space.

Solution: AccuLink coordinates all print production and distribution for the client, thereby leaving him free to focus on his strengths of designing and selling his services. With over 25 years in the printing industry AccuLink manages the printing, bindery and fulfillment services in the most efficient process possible. Longer runs get produced on large sheet fed presses while short runs print digitally as needed. All orders are linked via the internet to the customer’s accounting system, enabling the customer to track in real time the shipment of every order placed.

Result: The sales consultant avoided a costly move to a new warehouse office complex and significantly reduced the labor, time and turmoil associated with managing 40,000 orders. In addition to reducing inventories with “just in time” printing services, the client has reduced delivery time and shipping expenses by 1/2.


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Tune in Monday for part 3: Large Employer Saves Time and Postage with Benefits Mailer.

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