The Strategic Transformation of Traditional Print Services
In a world where digital advertisements are everywhere, print has a unique opportunity to stand out and produce results. However, that won’t occur until printers take the initiative.
That is the main conclusion to be drawn from Print Power’s most recent piece about how automation and the integration of Application Programming Interfaces (API) are enabling real-time marketing.
Planning, quoting, design, approvals, and production used to take weeks for print. Additionally, it found it difficult to compete with the sophisticated dashboard-based reportability that agencies, CRM managers, digital advertisers, and performance marketers depend on.
Now automated direct mail can be set in motion with a few clicks – directly from the same marketing platforms used to trigger emails, SMS, or push notifications and even social media posts.
Automated direct mail, also called programmatic mail or triggered mail, is a highly effective, hyper personalised channel that can be immediately actioned by abandoned baskets, reactivation flows prompted by customer inactivity, welcome sequences, and loyalty campaigns.
Print can land on the doormat, or in the mailbox, as soon as the next day.
This dynamic approach drives significantly higher response and conversion rates, increased average order value, and achieves a tangible, brand-rich interaction.
It is being enabled by the following:
- Seamless integration with modern software connecting creative templates, CRM systems, customer data, and analytics into a single automated process. Direct mail performance can be tracked alongside digital campaigns by making use of attribution models to determine the trigger for online sales.
- An increased ability to measure results. For years, print suffered from the perception problem that it couldn’t be measured. But today’s data tells a different story and automated mail generates impressive returns.
- Greater focus on ROI rather than cost. Offline channels like direct mail tend to be more expensive than digital options but they often deliver higher conversion rates. Deutsche Post reported a 900% return on advertising spend, or nine euros in revenue for every euro spent. Postage, often the major cost in a direct mail campaign, can by reduced by using postal consolidators. These specialised service providers share deliveries at discounted rates.
- Enhanced software removing the complexity, with automated platforms managing templates, data cleansing, address validation, postal optimisation, and print fulfilment. For example, a single API that collects data, triggers campaigns and routes production.
Automation elevates print’s visibility in performance dashboards for marketers, CRM leads, and digital media teams. It is helping put print back on the radar.
Important too, for many clients, is working with a partner that provides a full-service approach to manage the complexity of print mailings.
For printers that have invested heavily in automation and production technology (such as next generation Ricoh digital print technology and FusionPro customised document creation software that creates unique, relevant, targeted communications) the next step is engaging with the world of CRM, marketing automation, and customer data.
Delivering a comprehensive service also helps attract first time users who see the potential of automated mail but need guidance throughout the process. If print is to reclaim its place in the media mix, marketers need someone to show them.
Now is the time for printers to reposition themselves as strategic partners and lead the way.
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