By Margie Dana

Don't shoot me, but sometimes print isn't enough. There, I said it.

When you want to attract new customers, talk to existing customers, promote your company to a broader market, or just set yourself apart, you are going to need a broader communications medium than just printed materials.

Print is but one medium, and a very FINE one. But there are lots of other technologies for you to explore. Figuring out which of these technologies to use is a challenge. Do you send e-mail blasts? Do you send direct mail? Do you create mini Web sites? How do you sort it all out?

At our recent conference, attendees got answers and new ideas about cross media options from speaker Rick Littrell, president and CMO of Magicomm LLC, in his November 7th session entitled, "Crossing Over to Cross Media - a Primer." I asked Rick a few questions about this session.

MD: Rick, for all the readers who may be new to working with the print industry, please define for us in plain English what "cross media" means in the context of working with the graphic arts.

RL: Using cross media is simply using different media (such as print, e-mail, and micro-sites) during a single direct marketing campaign.

MD: Are there certain components that are always part and parcel of a cross media campaign, or does it depend?

RL: There is never an always. Depends on whether a campaign uses mass or direct marketing techniques. The one thing that you must ensure is that the messaging and content across all the media used is consistent.

Magicomm strives to always add a response and a revenue tracking mechanism to our campaigns, which typically use direct marketing strategies leveraging digital print, e-mail and micro-sites.

MD: Give us a short example of the elements of a cross media campaign, if you will.

RL: Our typical campaign consists of leading with a printed component, usually using variable data printing, which will push them to a personalized URL (PURL). Once they respond, the responders will receive a customized e-mail and/or a printed component to reinforce the offer or the messaging.

MD: Can you measure the effectiveness of a cross media campaign? How?

RL: We try to track two levels of response rates. One is if they go to the micro-site (or call a phone number or send an e-mail), and the other is by revenue generated within a specific period of time.

The activity on the micro-site is the easiest to track. When it comes to the revenue generated, we typically have to work with our customer to capture that information and get it back to us so we can help them analyze it for the ROI of the campaign.

MD: On the customer side, who typically gets involved when planning a cross media campaign?

RL: We typically work with the product leader (either Product Manager, Director of Marketing Communications, or the Vice President of Marketing) within the company.

We also like to contact existing customers to help learn their interpretation of our client's value proposition. The more contact points that we make, both inside and outside of the company, the better we can design the messaging that will be most successful.

MD: What did attendees learn from your session on cross media campaigns?

RL: They learned that the communication methods that are available to them are changing rapidly, and that they should reevaluate the processes and strategies that they are currently using.

There are trends in our society that are bigger than our industry and we have to understand them and learn how to leverage them if we want to be successful marketers in the future.

© 2007 Margie Dana. All rights reserved. You may contact Margie Dana at mdana@bostonprintbuyers.com.

11/28/07