17+17>34

Beautiful card from Charta Design.

I have written before that creativity is often as simple as blending two older ideas together to create a new one. We seem to be right at the center of one of those types of creative episodes at Convertible Solutions.

As I have also mentioned in earlier posts, my company Convertible Solutions pre-converts paper for use in digital presses. Through a combination of cohesives, scoring and die cutting we make a variety of press sheets that can be used to create complex direct mail pieces, Panoramic books and double thick postcards.

Last fall, when we rolled out our 12 point Double Thick Impact Card stock for making 24 point postcards, we targeted direct mail and marketing applications. The paper we selected was nice, but economical, and is visually stunning when coated with a high gloss UV coating. It will drive up your direct mail response rates, but you probably wouldn’t sent out a wedding invitation on it.

Earlier this year, I began working on a different project with a group of young women who greatly appreciate art and design and are constantly on the hunt for pretty, inspirational things to share on their blog. They are particularly passionate about paper and printing and even named their site PaperMusePress.

This project and similar ones have heightened our awareness of the look and feel of traditional letterpress printing and focused our attention on creating that kind of elegance in the visual and tactile impact of our digitally printed products. We rediscovered a beautiful old paper stock that has been a favorite of high end printers for decades.

Mohawk Superfine Eggshell is the perfect surface for beautiful stationery and cards that invoke the richness of the letterpress era. The 120lb cover weight yields a respectable 17 point flat or folded cards. That's a nice thickness, but what if we used our Double Thick Impact Card process to create a 34 point card? That would be really impressive.  What if we put our cohesives on both sides of a center insert and stacked it between the other two creating a triple thick or quadruple thick card?

We haven’t formally announced a stationery-quality double/triple thick card product, but the test samples we have shown to selected clients have created quite a stir. It feels like there will be an impact on the market far greater than simply adding two or more 17 point sheets of paper together.

The product should be announced soon, but if you can’t wait to see a sample, let me know. I will make sure you get one.

Multi-Channel Step by Step

Double Thick Impact Card by Convertible Solutions

Multi-channel marketing is one of the hottest topics in the printing industry. Marketers and printers have discovered that combining direct mail with electronic media produces better results than either do individually. Smart printers are leveraging this knowledge to drive printing sales and promote their marketing services departments.

A successful multi-channel campaign can be conducted in many ways. This posts outlines some of the steps that can be used to introduce a new product or concept.

1.  Seed Interest - Weeks or months before the introduction, start including links to articles that would be interesting to prospects in your social media feeds. This works particularly well in Twitter where the interesting articles are likely to be posted originally by potential prospects. Retweeting those posts can help you build a relationship with those prospects long before the product announcement.

2. Perfect Your Website - When you are ready to launch, make sure that your website is attractive, current and the product is easy to find and well explained. The prospect who visits your website needs to be persuaded to purchase and has to know how to purchase your product.

3.  Create a Compelling Mail Piece - Direct mail is one of the least filtered ways to reach your prospects. You need to create something that has visual and tactile impact so your customer stops and examines it as soon as they touch it. Convertible Solution’s Double Thick Impact Cards can help provide the tactile impact. Once the prospect is compelled to look at the piece, the graphics and the offer have to compel action.

4. Personalized Landing Pages - Include personalized URLs on your mailing that link to personalized landing pages. For example, www.David.Williams.Double-Thick.com* would link to a page that welcomes me by name, explains the offer concisely and allows me to respond to the offer by simply checking a box. The personalized landing pages simplify the response process for the prospect and provide tracking information to the marketer.

5. Mobile Website - Personalized QR codes can be included on the mailing that take people directly to their landing page when they scan the code with their smart phone or tablet. Non-personalized QR codes can be included on trade show signs, brochures and point-of-sale materials. Make sure that QR codes always direct people to a site that is designed to present the information clearly on a mobile screen.

6. Triggered Email - The software that creates the personalized URLs can also send emails based upon how people have responded.  A thank you email should be send to anyone who visits the site and responds to the offer and reminder emails can be sent at intervals to those who have not yet responded. The graphics and message in these triggered emails should stimulate the prospect’s memory of the original mailing.

7. Press Release - At the time of the launch, send a well drafted press release to the editors of the publications that serve your industry and post the release on a news service like PR Web or PR Wire. Be sure to also post it in the news section of your own web site. The release should include links to the product on your web site.

8. Social Media Sharing - Post links to the news story on your web site to your social media feeds. Be sure to express your appreciation to any followers who retweet or share your news and join in on the conversation. If anyone blogs about your product or creates any other original content about it, be sure to include links to those posts as well.

These are a few steps that can be used in the creation of a multi-channel marketing campaign. If you include video, pay per click, television or radio, make sure those messages also tie in with your print and web approach.

Have you completed a multi-channel campaign?  How did it go?

Double Thick Impact Card with Portal by Convertible Solutions

 *This link is no longer attached to a personalized landing page.