Print Solutions July 2006
Cover Story
Experiment No. 3:
Lorraine Press highlights its new digital press and VDP capability.
| In Brief |
A manufacturer creates a flipbook invitation for its open house to showcase its
new digital press and land 1-to-1 marketing sales. |
 "Obviously, if you want to intrigue people with variable printing, it's great to be able to show an example." Robert Miller, president Lorraine Press Salt Lake City |
Objective:
After years as an offset printer, Lorraine Press, Salt Lake City, Utah,
purchased its first digital press: a Xerox DocuColor 8000 Digital Press with
Creo Color Server in the spring of 2005. The company wanted to highlight its
variable data printing capability and attract 1-to-1 marketing sales
opportunities from current customers and prospects by holding an open house.
“But to my thinking, we weren't quite ready for the open house,” confides Robert Miller, president of Lorraine Press. The company hadn't had their new digital press equipment for very long “but the Xerox people were in the Salt Lake City area at the time so we had to
hold the open house. We did it a month earlier than what I would have
preferred.”
Hypothesis:
Lorraine Press decided to use VDP in its open house invitation by creating
personalized flipbooks on its new digital press. Miller says in the past, the
company had used static invitations for its open houses, but
“obviously, if you want to intrigue people with variable printing, it's great to show an example.” The Lorraine Press staff predicted that the flipbooks would help lead to 1-to-1
marketing program opportunities from prospects and customers.
Procedure:
1) Know your audience. Lorraine Press' client list includes ad agencies and marketing directors, so the company knew
the 1-to-1 marketing piece had to be creative and unique. The company was also
selective about its invitation list.
“We did not invite anyone who was not a customer already or a strong prospect,” Miller says.
2) Hire a professional. Miller decided to hire H Theory, a Salt Lake City-based
boutique design firm to create the open house invitations. The firm's clients include Overstock.com, Samsung and the Sundance Resort, where the
annual Sundance Film Festival is held. Miller says total production time for
the flipbooks was one to two weeks.
“We had a hard date we had to hit to be ready in enough time,” he says.
3) Consider witty ways to use multiplicity and personalization. With the help of
Lorraine Press' Creo Darwin variable information software and H Theory's Quark XPress, they were able to create four different versions of the
flipbook. But each book had the same theme – magic. “In each book we had a magician doing different things,” Miller says. “In one he was performing a levitation trick. In another he was opening the lid
of a magic box. The reason we did it that way is because we wanted to show the
power of making multiple presentations."In some cases, one ad agency got all four versions of the book. Miller says
personalization came into play with the name of the invitee.
“As they flipped the pages, we had the name fade in and out,” he says.
With the help of variable data printing, Lorraine Press produced four versions of a magic-themed flipbook for its open house. The books not only brought in 1-to-1 marketing work for the manufacturer but also won an award in Printing Innovation with Xerox Imaging competition.
4) Remember the call to action. Miller says he can remember the company making
only one mistake with the 1-to-1 marketing pieces, and he didn't notice it until well into the production process. “I think we would have had an even better response if we would have remembered to
include a reference to the open house in the flip book," he says. “We failed to incorporate the call to action.” As a last minute resort, Lorraine Press had invitation cards describing the
open house included with the flipbook in each mailing but,
“the flipbook itself was so attractive that some people paid very little
attention to the card. We didn't hear about it until later. You've got to be careful that you don't send something to people that is so compelling or so funny that they forget
what to do."
Results:
Despite being hard-pressed for time and forgetting to include the call to action
in the flipbooks, the invitation generated a whopping 50 percent response rate.
Half of the invited 300 customers and prospects attended the event and many
commented on the flipbooks. Miller says the open house also led to some new
business opportunities. The company still uses similar personalized flipbooks
for mailers to set up face-to-face meetings with prospects. The open house
flipbooks also won the
“Best of Show” award when in was entered in Printing Innovation with Xerox Imaging Awards.
Conclusion:
One-to-one marketing can definitely help net prospects. “The only problem I'm having is finding and educating sales or marketing people who know how to sell
this idea. That's key,” Miller says.
