Marketing: A Traditional Printer Targets Digital Customers
When a company adds new products and services, a solid marketing strategy plays a critical role in its success. Who are the company's new customers? What is its message to them? How will the company communicate with them? A clearly defined and effective marketing plan addresses these questions and more.

The first part of this report features Associated Graphic Services (AGS), a Wilmington, Del.-based firm that employs 70 people and offers personalized, on-demand printing to pharmaceutical, manufacturing, gaming, travel and entertainment, government and education markets. In November 2004, AGS acquired DocuSource, a high-end digital printing company also based in Wilmington. AGS then offered high-end conventional printing, had no experience in digital printing, and had never implemented a formal marketing plan.

Karen Keenan, director of marketing at AGS, discusses how the company is now marketing itself. Keenan was the co-owner of DocuSource before AGS acquired it.

Cleaning Up & Assessing the Landscape
Before AGS could decide how to market both sets of services (conventional and digital printing) to new and existing customers, the company concentrated on its internal functions. "In a lot of cases [of mergers and acquisitions], there are two different workflows, and we concentrated on how we could integrate them into one," Keenan says. "We had two workflows located in two different buildings. So we first had to figure out where it makes sense to consolidate and where we can keep things separate." Keenan's husband Dave Zamorski, who is VP of Digital Operations and Customer Service at AGS, revamped the workflow.
Read the entire article

Kodak Introduces Printers to Compete With HP; Sharp Makes Debut
In a bid to enter the market dominated by Hewlett-Packard Co., Eastman Kodak Company introduced EASYSHARE All-in-One Printers, a line of desktop printers that use low-cost replacement ink cartridges. The printers, ranging from $150 to $300, print, scan and copy documents and photos. Kodak will sell black replacement ink cartridges for about $10, and color cartridges for about $15, approximately 50 percent less than its rivals. Full story.

Additionally, Sharp Document Solutions Company of America launched three monochrome models (MX-M850, MX-M950 and MX-M1100) that offer print and copier speeds ranging from 85 to 110 ppm. Built for heavy volume, the devices are controlled by a larger color LCD display for ease of operation and viewing. Full story.

Consolidated Graphics Reports Profit
Consolidated Graphics Inc. announced financial results for its third quarter ended Dec. 31. Revenue for the December quarter was $269.6 million, up 19 percent compared to a year ago. Net income for the December quarter was $16.4 million compared to net income of $9.9 million a year ago, a 65 percent increase. For the nine months ended Dec. 31, total revenue was $742.3 million, up 13 percent compared to the same period a year ago. Net income for the first nine months of this year was $43.8 million compared to net income of $28.0 million a year ago. Full story.

Deluxe Reports Q4 Profits
Deluxe Corp. said its fourth quarter profits rose more than 20 percent. Income was $47 million for the fourth quarter compared with $39 million a year earlier. Revenue for the quarter was $427 million, down 1.2 percent from the prior year's quarter. Full-year revenue was $1.64 billion, down from $1.71 billion. Full story.

Ward/Kraft Announces Promotions
Ward/Kraft Inc. announced that Michael Del Chiaro, senior vice president, has been appointed president of Ward/Kraft and all Kraft family-owned companies. Mark Tucker, VP and general manager of the Long Run Labels division, was named senior vice president of manufacturing. Tucker will be responsible for the operations of the company's five manufacturing divisions.

Printable Technologies Acquires Personal URLs Technology
Printable Technologies Inc. acquired certain assets of Prospect Smarter Inc. to create a variety of marketing campaign management tools. The acquisition combines Printable Technologies' data-driven direct mail solution with cross-media tools and workflow from Prospect Smarter to deliver a complete marketing campaign execution solution and the means to track the ROI of marketing campaigns, according to Printable Technologies.

Neenah Paper to Acquire Fox River
Neenah Paper Inc. signed a definitive agreement to purchase the Fox Valley Corp., which owns Fox River Paper Company LLC. Fox River is a leading producer of premium fine papers, including STARWHITE, SUNDANCE, ESSE and OXFORD. Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed. Closing is expected to occur in the first quarter.

Cadmus to Acquire LexisNexis Printing Operations
Cadmus Communications will acquire LexisNexis' conventional printing operations in Charlottesville, and its digital printing operations in Conklin, N.Y. Additionally, Cadmus signed a 5-year agreement with LexisNexis to fulfill its printing needs. LexisNexis provides information and services to the legal, news and business information markets. Almost all 90 employees in Charlottesville and 35 employees in Conklin will move to Cadmus. In December, Cadmus Communications and Cenveo Inc. entered into a merger agreement for Cenveo to acquire Cadmus in an all-cash merger at a price of $24.75 per share.

Region 5 Members Discuss Branding, Visit ASI Show
About 32 people attended DMIA's Region 5 local forum Jan.10 at the Radisson Newport Beach, Calif. Attendees visited the ASI Advantages Roadshow trade floor and participated in the region's local meeting. Regional Directors P.J. Quinlan of Ennis Inc. and Michael Faley of Pioneer Business Forms arranged the event.

Speaking about the importance of branding, Quinlan said companies should use "Martini monologues"--short messages about capabilities to market their companies in a limited time. Companies should be clear in their messages about who they are, what they do, whom they do it for and how they are different. They should enlist customers, friends and acquaintances as advocates of their businesses, he said. After a Q&A session, attendees networked and revisited the ASI show.

Click here for pictures.

21st Annual NorCal Getaway Weekend
This year, the event is being held Feb. 22-24, at the Silverado Country Club & Resort Napa, Calif. The "keynote speaker" is networking--there are no speeches, just a great opportunity to talk with one another. Dinner will be at Bayleaf, a renowned Napa restaurant located just down the road from Silverado. Click here to download the registration form. Hotel cutoff is Feb. 9. For more information, call Steve Smith, CFC, of Mission Peak Business Products Inc., at (510) 475-9743 or Gail O'Roke, CDC, of IBG, at (510) 786-0600.

Are you Missing Important Email from DMIA?
As spam proliferates, email providers get more aggressive in the way they combat it. Some have turned to the use of Realtime Black-hole Lists (RBLs), which are lists of mail servers suspected of sending spam. Occasionally, innocent senders like DMIA get placed on an RBL accidentally and this can cause important messages to be deleted before they ever reach you. The best way to prevent this from happening is to "whitelist" all incoming mail from DMIA.org and PrintSolutionsMag.com. Your IT staff or tech support can do this, and some systems will allow you to do it yourself. Click here for more information on how to whitelist e-mail from DMIA.

Rand Offering to DMIA Members
Rand Associates is offering DMIA members a special rate in February and March. Members will receive a rate of 15 percent for any past due account greater than $300 that has at least one invoice dated in the last six months. For more information, call Judy Klindt at (800) 262-9450, or Bonnie Salamon at (800) 699-6910. Businesses may also outsource their accounts receivable functions to Rand.

New Member Profile: Print Management for Health Care Market
County Graphics Forms Management LLC offers print management and document solutions programs. Current customers include 25 major health care institutions. The company is located in Linden, N.J. to serve clients in the tri-state area with account representation, delivery and distribution.

Printing Processes & More
On-Demand & Digital Printing Primer provides fundamental knowledge of the printing processes for you to deal more effectively in the industry. It reviews process development, current technology, and associated terminology. Illustrations clarify concepts. Code: DIGIPMR. Member Price: $21.25. To order, click here or contact Tina Davis.

Sell Excess Inventory
DMIA's Excess Inventory Depot enables members to sell items such as excess inventories, blank forms and labels, pre-converted material, paper stock, converted material, new or used equipment and other business-related items. Take advantage of this offer and post your items for free. Find out what's for sale. DMIA members can view postings 24/7 at no charge.

Top 10 Unusual Source Requests Received by DMIA: Valentine's Day cards, bar code, mil cartons. See the complete list.

Documents with Personal Info at Great Risk
Distributors and manufacturers must understand and manage fraud risks in the industry, says George K. Phillips, CEO of ProDocumentSolutions, Verify First Technologies and International Security Products, companies that specialize in printed security solutions. Phillips has a technical background of 43 years in printing and manufacturing security documents, and has received 19 patents related to security printing. The three companies have more than $20 million in sales with two manufacturing facilities, which provide election ballots and security documents to 30 countries. Here are excerpts of his interview with Print Matters:

Tell us about trends in fraud.
Fraud trends are tracked on a broad basis and many organizations affected by fraud don't publicly disclose that information. Also, most of the losses occur at a transaction level between the public and small businesses. These also tend to be under recorded. But, in general the documents that are under attack continue to be documents that support financial transactions such as checks, money orders, traveler's checks, credit cards, gift certificates, identity documents such as birth certificates, social security cards, drivers licenses and college transcripts. And, there's the theft of the information that substantiates those documents. Read the complete interview.

Product: Hotel complimentary map/directory

Company: Pilgrim Plastics, Brockton, Mass.

Features and Benefits: The Marriott Long Wharf Hotel in Boston wanted an innovative way to entertain its guests. The hotel discovered through satisfaction surveys that many of the guests were avid runners. To increase guest satisfaction, Pilgrim Plastics helped the Marriott staff design a custom "sneaker" that contained a map and directions for places to run in the Boston Common area. The map hangs from the mini-bar in the guest room. Positive guest satisfaction surveys have since increased with the addition of the sneaker map.

Applications: Promotional purposes

6 C's of Marketing
These six C's of marketing go beyond the four P's: Product, Place, Price and Promotion:

Customer. It's about understanding the target consumer's wants, needs and motivations. It's about understanding why customers do what they do, when they do it and why they do it.

Consistency. A company needs integrated marketing communications to send a consistent marketing message to customers.

Creativity. This means laying aside the rules and using out-of-box thinking to grab customers' attention.

Culture. It's simple to assume that everyone else should understand why your product or service is great. Instead, research what's important to your customers.

Communication. Customers don't want to be "marketed to." They want to be "communicated with." Good marketing communication creates value with target customers, speaks in their language and tells your story.

Change. Your marketing must constantly change as society changes.

Source: Workz.com

Printing Without Ink
ZINK Imaging's technology allows users to print full-color digital images without ink cartridges and ribbons. Images appear on the ZINK paper without a drop of ink. ZINK paper contains dye crystals, which are activated by heat from a ZINK printer. The crystals then colorize, producing high-quality, long-lasting and affordable images, according to the company.

Survive By Selling More Than Print
Intra-Media Solutions constantly evolves as it continually enhances its product offerings. Read the full story.