What happens when a company lets consumers design and vote on their own products? In theory, at least, the firm's overhead goes down and profits go up.
The business model is based on so-called crowd sourcing, or community-based design. The success enjoyed by a T-shirt company called Threadless prompted other firms to explore how the model might work for them. Click here for the rest of the story!
The jury remains out on the issue; experts have lined up on both sides of the aisle. At Namaro, we believe print will have a place in the marketing world for the foreseeable future, but in order to be effective, it’s got to be a multichannel approach using print, digital media and the internet. People look to the internet for quick answers or background information. Typically, when they request a print brochure from a Web site, they’re ready to sit down and have a good look. That brochure needs to provide information that’s not on the company’s site, or you’ll lose the customer’s interest and, more importantly, the sale.
Here are a few sample multichannel campaign ideas to consider.
1. Use variable data to personalize a direct mail campaign (e.g., Hi Sam…big widget sale). Include a call to action that steers Sam to a campaign Web site (e.g., bigwidgetsale.com) so you can track how many Sams reacted positively to the post card.
2. Develop an eNewsletter that addresses the interests/needs of your customers. Include all kinds of irresistible information that may help them improve their business. Offer one idea per issue that links back to your company’s Web site (any more and you’ll scare them away). On that Web page, include a link to request a print brochure with detailed product/service information. eNewsletters are a great way to build your email database.
3. Create a free print-on-demand PDF catalog available on your Web site. Include links to other pages of your Web site as well as links to request print brochures with more detailed product/service information.
4. Advertise in a print publication such as a magazine, newspaper or trade publication with a call to visit a specific page on your Web site (e.g., abcompany.com/coolwidget). Provide general information on the site page with a link to download a more detailed PDF brochure.
5. Create an interactive version of a brochure, annual report or other piece you’ve traditionally printed and post as part of your Web site. Include helpful features such as a Search box, have detailed information/diagrams/price appear when a user rolls over different areas of the screen. Embed a video of your company’s president talking about exciting developments on the horizon.
Check out an example of an interactive presentation that we did for a meeting with a potential client.
1. Spitballs. My son should have the same opportunity to get in trouble at school as I did!
2. Paper airplanes. What will I do when then boss isn’t around?
3. Toilet Paper. Need I say more!
4. Confetti. What else would you throw on New Year’s?
5. Magazines. You can’t lug a computer into the john.
6. Bedtime stories. Cuddling with your kid under the covers will always be in style.
7. Degree certificates. How else would you brag about where you went to college?
8. Comics. Life wouldn’t be the same without Captain Underpants.
9. Dollar bills. Bling isn’t a practical way to pay for groceries.
10. Rock, computer, scissors simply doesn’t work.
"Closing a magazine is no more a sign of the death of the industry than the cancellation of a TV series means the shutdown of a network, or a haircut is a sign that you're going bald.”
—Hachette President and CEO Jack Kliger
“No one is saying magazines will fade into complete oblivion even as they restructure and find new legs. In the words of Marie Claire editor Joanna Coles ‘As long as people take baths, there will always be a monthly magazine.’”
—Dorian Benkoll and Dylan Stableford
“More and more people are turning to online media for their general information…even if it’s the website of that same newspaper.”
—Danny Thompson, freelance copywriter
“If you talk to the group at Barnes & Noble, there are more kids’ books being sold than any time in history.”
—David Granger, Esquire magazine
“My position is that if you look at Americans’ tastes, we never give up something for something else. We add something to the menu. There are people who said that television was going to get rid of radio. It didn’t do that, it just changed the way people listened to the radio.”
—Alfred Edmond Jr., Black Enterprise Magazine
“Newspaper readers respond to ads in their newspapers. 56% of the target market either researched or purchased at least one product they saw in the newspaper in the last month.
Readers rely on the Internet to perform further research on products they see in the newspaper. 67% of readers who researched products they saw in the newspaper did research online, illustrating how newspaper drives web traffic.”
—Google-commissioned Study
“Print is not dead, but I'm glad I'm not starting a career in the offset printing industry either.”
—N. Reid, Reid Neubert + Friends
You can see from the logo how much fun we had with this project! Namaro is proud to have donated the design of the logo and promo materials for the 1st Studio Views in Rhinebeck.
The inaugural Art Studio Views will present a self-guided, “not to be missed”, tour of 20 artist studios in the Rhinebeck & Red Hook area. Participating artists will collectively open their working studios to visitors and residents for the first time on October 18th and 19th, 2008. During those visits you will be able to meet and speak with the artist, see works in progress, purchase wonderful artwork or commission that special piece for yourself.
Participating artists feature acclaimed painters, photographers, illustrators, glass sculptors and stained glass artists, sculptors, textile, video and mixed-media artists, all making their home in the mid-Hudson Valley. However, their work and talent is nationwide in recognition - being found in public spaces, museums, and private collections. A user-friendly map and poster, beautifully designed by a local graphic arts firm, will guide visitors to the artist studios according to their own schedule and itinerary. Online links from the Art Studio Views website (currently under construction) will connect visitors with artist websites for a virtual preview of studios and introduction to artists’ work.
Spearheaded by local artists themselves, this initiative promises to put Rhinebeck & Red Hook on the map as a cultural destination in the region and reinforce the wealth of local talent that is in abundance in this area. As the Art Studio Views tour serves to showcase the cultural vibrancy of our creative community, it will also provide a new annual attraction for weekenders, tourists, and other visitors; and it will continue to help build a market of support for working artists and the Arts in Northern Dutchess.
Art Studio Views offers exceptional sponsorship opportunities to local businesses which will be featured prominently in promotional material to be publicized by the media and distributed to thousands of residents, tourists, visitors, customers, and prospective studio viewers. An opening private reception will be held on October 17th at the Rhinecliff Hotel to honor artists, sponsors, and VIP friends of the inaugural Art Studio Views event. Many thanks to James Chapman for sponsoring the reception. His restaurant will officially be opening up Labor day. I suggest you go and check it out. It sounds YUMMY and what a view. Go to www.therhinecliff.com for more info.
For further information, please contact Nadine Robbins, 845.876.3009 nrobbins@namaro.com
Our Guest blogger Paul Rapp continues to have a lot to say! This months article is an introduction to copyright law. See an excerpt below:
Every artist ought to have at least an elementary understanding of copyright law. Second only to an artwork's aesthetic qualities, it is copyright law that drives a work's value and integrity. This is so because copyright law establishes and defines what it is that the artist owns of his or her work, both while the artist possesses the work and after the work has been sold, or copied, displayed or performed. In future months, this column will hopefully shed some light on this deceptively complicated area of law, dispel common myths and misunderstandings, and discuss other legal areas that impact on the creative process as well as the business of art. Click here for full article.
Thanks Paul!
We look all over the web for great stuff to pass along and help you keep up with what's going on in the business of marketing, corporate communications and graphic design. Below are just some of the sites we use and review all the time. Happy clicking:
www.marketingprofs.com/ (general marketing articles. Pay for full access)
Wall Street Journal media and marketing (It's the Wall Street Journal!)
marketingvox.com (general marketing articles)
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ (interesting perspectives on marketing today)
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/# (general marketing articles)
www.ragan.com (corporate communications)
Also, I just found an nteresting article about the Olympics of Illustration!
Look for the newsletter next week!
If you don't want a printed promo brochure or an interactive/web solution for your marketing effort, why not try 3-D printing! In its infancy but an interesting new way to communicate. See below
Shapeways. The Dutch venture, which is part of Philips' Lifestyle Incubator, lets users upload 3D designs and have them produced on one of Shapeway's 3D printers. Customers can currently choose from four different types of rigid and flexible plastic, and their object is shipped to them within 10 days of ordering. Costs depend on size and mass, but smallish items are priced around USD 50–150.
You'll need to log-in for more info http://www.shapeways.com/login
Great news folks. There's a new search engine out there to rival Google. Here's a snippet and a link.
The Internet has grown exponentially in the last fifteen years but search engines have not kept up—until now. Cuil searches more pages on the Web than anyone else—three times as many as Google and ten times as many as Microsoft.
http://www.cuil.com/info/
View Nadine Robbins's profile