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Engaging Marketing Teams with Production Printing

It's no secret that marketing departments are savvy when it comes to direct mail. It's a channel they've traditionally owned. However, when it comes to bills, statements, policies and other production print output, many marketers find it more difficult to navigate the terrain (if they even consider stepping onto it in the first place.)
Written by Doc , Contributor

Doc has written a number of times about how production printing (statements, invoices, etc.) can be used effectively as a marketing tool. But many marketing types are hesitant to engage in the production print process, considering it less sophisticated than "real" marketing.

So I enjoyed a recent article over at Digital Nirvana by Francis McMahon:

It's no secret that marketing departments are savvy when it comes to direct mail. It's a channel they've traditionally owned. They routinely work with vendors – whether it's a direct mail house or commercial printshop – who provide access to sophisticated tools for conceiving, creating, composing, personalizing, mail-merging, printing and delivering mail pieces to a designated set of recipients and then measuring campaign effectiveness. For direct mail, they have plenty of tools for interacting with the process, from uploading artwork and providing lists to measuring response rates.

However, when it comes to bills, statements, policies and other production print output, many marketers find it more difficult to navigate the terrain (if they even consider stepping onto it in the first place.)

Why do I think marketers are less engaged with production print?

For starters, there's the cultural dimension: IT and Operations versus Marketing. Historically production print has been the domain of the technology, operations or billing department, a silo neatly tucked away from creative and marketing types. As a result, many marketing execs simply didn't consider transactional documents as vehicles for their messages. As awareness grows, marketing teams and even CMOs are starting to recognize the value of the transpromo opportunity. This is especially true as they face mounting pressure to deliver more accountability and better results at a lower cost. However, because they're new to the game, they may be unsure of what executing a transpromo campaign entails, or how to engage with their traditional rivals in IT.

Francis has more to say on the subject, and it's worth a read.

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