What's In Print @ Midtown

Our New Virtual Home

kparvis — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:36:13 +0000

We are excited to announce a big development at Midtown Printing. At the end of the day on Thursday, Oct. 21, we will launch our brand new web site that we believe will better reflect our progressive approach within the ever-changing communication landscape. Our goal with this site is to better engage, educate and showcase our array of services. In addition to an updated look, our new web site features a wide assortment of photos, videos and fully integrated social media platforms.

Part of this change includes moving our blog within the new website. So this will be one of that last posts with this address. But the posts will not stop. Visit www.midtownprinting.net and explore the blog’s new home. All those who have subscribed to the blog will continue to receive blog posts. If you would like to receive e-mail updates when new blog entries are posted, then subscribe on our new site. We will continue to provide engaging posts that hopefully stir the pot as well as provide pertinent information for the greater communication industry.

We hope you enjoy our new site and find it improves your overall Midtown experience.

Pay Per Click Advertising

rauffenberg — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 22:52:03 +0000

If you’ve turned on the TV or picked up a newspaper recently, you probably know that in a few short years, Facebook has gone from a small website run out of a dorm room to one of the most frequently visited sites on the internet. The worth of the company is estimated in the billions, yet Facebook as a social networking service is completely free. “How”, you might ask “do they make money?”

Though Facebook does not charge a fee for its 500 million + users, it does have access to much of their personal information and commands a great deal of their attention. This combination of attributes makes the social networking site an advertiser’s dream come true. Facebook has enabled businesses of all sizes to reach their target audiences with incredible accuracy and post ROI rates that often dwarf that of traditional mass media.

There are a few compelling case studies that can be found in the “Advertising” of their webpage. I’ve pasted one of their examples below.

StorQuest Self Storage

Facebook Ads makes it easy and cost-effective to quickly set up and manage your campaign. G5 found success setting up a series of Facebook Ad campaigns targeted to college students at 21 campuses prior to Summer break for StorQuest self service storage facilities. Real-time suggested bids for our auction-based system provided guidance that enabled G5 to hone ad effectiveness based on their various targeting filters (age, college level and location).

The results from StorQuest’s Facebook ad campaign were one of their highest performing online advertising efforts:

Over 50% increase in total rentals versus prior year at the same store.
10% conversion rate from visits originating from Facebook Ads.
On par with Google AdWords on a cost-per-lead and cost-per-customer basis.
$1.25 CPC delivered $10.25 cost-per-lead.
$100 average rentals; $600 average life time value per customer.

Have you used Facebook Pay Per Click Advertising yet? If so, how did it go?

The Paper Trail

kparvis — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 17:21:39 +0000

What do you know about the paper you use?

There has been a lot of consolidation of the paper industry over that past 10 years. There are less paper mills and less paper distributors. In the St. Louis area there were 12 distributors or so twenty years ago and now we are down to four. There has also been a consolidation of the number of sheets from which to choose. It has now been cut in half.

Is that good or bad?

Fact: There are a lot of different sheets still available.

Question: Were people using all those sheets that were previously available?

Most likely the answer is no. And sometimes in a free market economy consumers, through their choices, force industries to “clean house.” This is not always a bad thing but it does force companies to be more strategic in their thinking. And the old saying does come into play…what goes around, comes around.

So how does this impact the consumers?

Fact: There are still plenty of sheets from which to choose but you have to know the impact of your choices.

Question: Do you know what sheets are available locally?

The reality is that the distributors are now only stocking what will make them money. They are mostly keeping the sheets with the highest demand in stock to reduce overhead.

So how do you get the colored textured sheet with flecks that you like?

Fact: Most colored sheets are now considered “specialty sheets” and they need to be ordered directly from the paper mill.

Question: So what does that mean for the consumer?

This means that interesting colored paper that have unusual textures will take more time to be supplied to the printer and it will cost more. And keep in mind that mill orders have a minimum quantity of a carton. How many sheets are in a carton? Primarily there are 1000 text weight sheets in a carton and 500 cover sheet in a carton. And remember the sheets ordered are to size for the press. This may not be economical for a small quantity print order.

Does this new reality of paper impact your business decisions? Or is this just the price of doing business?

Fact: This is the reality of cleaning house.

Sometimes you lose the convenience of having everything at your disposal and you have to pay more for what you want when you clean house. You are forced to pause and make the decision of what makes the best business sense when choosing the type of paper used.

Were we living in excess? Do we now get from the earth what we truly need?

I believe the story is not fully written about the paper industry. I do not believe that we will be a completely paperless society in my lifetime. I may be proven wrong but I believe we humans are too tactile. What remains to be seen is what types of paper will be used in the future. I wonder what the ancient Egyptians would say about this evolutionary paper trail.

Top 5 Picks of the New Adobe CS5

kparvis — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 01:44:13 +0000

Adobe’s new CS5 has been out a few months and you may or may not have upgraded yet. I have found a good video demonstration by Terry White that highlights some of the new features. Terry does a great job of showing how some of the new features work. I picked and highlighted my top 5 favorite features to give you a taste of what’s new.

1. Photoshop: Refine Selection Tool and Content-Aware Fill

It has been very time consuming and cumbersome to get a clean edge in the past when selecting an object you want to isolate and/or move or extract from a image file. Now you can do a quick selection of an object. With the new refine edge command turned on, Photoshop can detect the edges and refine your selection to pick up the details that were missed. You can then output this selection into a new layer within the refine selection. Then when you extract an image, you can select content-aware fill and Photoshop now calculates what most likely would be behind the object and fills in the void. This makes it faster and easier when using the Healing brush for retouching within an image. When you want to remove unwanted parts of your image but you do not want it to be detected, this tool works like magic!

2. Photoshop: Puppet Warp

After you have an isolated image, you can select the puppet warp and pinpoint the areas where you want to adjust the angle (like a puppet..thus the name) and move without affecting the rest of the image. No more cloning, moving and all the things we had to do before to get this effect. Its a fun tool that quickly helps you get the exact positioning of elements within a photograph after it was taken; Photoshop’s own “Bend them like Beckhem” kick.

3. Illustrator: Perspective Drawing Tools

Now you can leave the perspective to the computer to keep. When the perspective-drawing grid is selected, you can adjust this to the size, angle and vanishing points you want. Then when you draw objects or bring in objects, they will automatically adjust in perspective if the perspective-move tool within the panel that is selected.

4. InDesign: Multiple Page Size

This is the feature we have all dreamed about and now we’ve got it. You can now create multiple pages (on the same plane) with different dimensions, so all those flaps and gate-folds can be created on the same plane. This can help you when you are designing to get the full view affect.

5. InDesign: Interactive Document Creation

This has got to be my all-time favorite new feature in CS5. Love it. You can be a designer (not a programmer) and develop an interactive file that can be saved as a SWF file and uploaded on a browser. This interactive document can be created 100% within InDesign. You can preview and flip through it to test the interactivity. You can add sound, animations, roll overs, slide shows and even add flash video directly into the document (with the same ease as you would adding a photoshop file) all without writing one line of code. Yahoo!!! This feature alone makes the new CS5 exciting for me.

Check out the Terry White’s video demos. If you have not upgraded yet, this may convince you to do so.

What do you think about the new CS5?

Direct Mail Benefits and Tips

rauffenberg — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 20:13:11 +0000

Whether you are operating with a large or small marketing budget, direct mail remains a fairly easy and cost effective way to grow business and increase awareness of your company. Below I’ve listed some benefits of using direct mail as well as a few tips to launching an effective direct mail campaign.

Benefits:

It’s Effective
Direct Mail generates one of the highest response rates of all marketing media. Studies have shown that 81% of households either read or scan direct mail.

High ROI
The average conversion rate for a direct mail campaign (percentage of recipients that turn into active customers) averages between 1 and 3%. For many businesses a 1% conversion rate on a 2500 person mailing would far exceed the amount invested in the direct mail campaign.

Sophisticated Target Marketing
Most other forms of traditional media employ a method of “mass marketing” that involves saturating the public at large with your message in the hopes that that will create a small percentage of converts. Direct mail allows you to hone in on your target demographic and reach your desired audience with much greater efficiency.

Tips for an Effective Direct Mail Campaign:

pURL’s
Otherwise known as personal url’s, pURL’s are unique web pages that can be specifically customized for each recipient of your email campaign. pURL’s make great calls to action and also allow you to track response rates to your mail campaign with much greater efficiency.
Further, once an individual logs in, the Web site can track the respondent’s activity and continue to tailor the information based on his or her behavior. This information can also be used to further tailor future print and Internet communications.

By combining both media, marketers can take advantage of the tangible appeal and quality of commercial print, plus the immediacy, tracking, and instant response of the Internet.

QR Codes
We’ve mentioned QR Codes several times in previous blog posts. QR Codes provide similar benefits to pURL’s in the sense that they allow you to include an online call to action in your printed piece and allow you to track response rates and compile analytics reports.

Incentives
If you are going to the trouble to attract attention to your company, you most likely want to create as many new customers as possible with your direct mail campaign. Incentives remain one of the most effective means of turning prospects or leads into loyal customers. The most common form of incentives usually take the form of discounts, but you can also incentivize reponses by offering time savers, luxuries or special shopping expriences to drive new customers to your door.

What Makes Good Customer Service?

kparvis — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:01:33 +0000

Providing good customer service can be complex in its execution. There is much coordination and teamwork that goes into making sure a job is completed right. Many variables are in play, timelines are a factor, and quality is of utmost concern. Customer satisfaction in the final product is the ultimate challenge. So what is the best approach to doing it right?

If you peel the customer service “onion,” it is simple, be honest and real. Be upfront with your customers, keep them informed and manage their expectations. Smoke and mirrors do not work in today’s world. People want to work with businesses who are honest, transparent and reputable. Open communication is key. Your reputation not only depends on how you provide good service when handling the jobs that go smoothly but also how you manage the jobs that do not go as planned. No one is perfect and not every job goes smoothly. But if you are honest and keep to your word about timely quality work, it can go a long way in providing “goodwill” for the future.

In this economic environment, cost most certainly is a deciding factor in any business decision, but peace of mind can be just as important. Making things right, no matter what, is a huge part of the customer’s peace of mind and can ultimately make an impression beyond that job. What you do says a lot about the company. What approach you take when dealing with all aspects of a project provides the customer with a lasting impression. Make it be the right one.

As I am re-reading Chip Conley’s book, “Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo From Maslow,” I find myself reflecting that no matter what the circumstances of a business transaction, the end factor in the long run is how we personally treat each other.

Do you have that right “mojo” when it comes to customers’ hierarchy of needs?

Going Global : Can Entering the International Marketplace be a Good Plan for SMB’s?

rauffenberg — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 05:15:34 +0000

When I hear the term Globalization used in a business context, I usually think of large multi-national corporations outsourcing their manufacturing or customer support divisions overseas to keep their costs down. This practice is not without controversy. Detractors argue that companies who outsource are exploiting lower wage restrictions in other countries while denying American laborers jobs. However, proponents say outsourcing brings prosperity to developing nations and allows companies to grow in ways that would not otherwise be possible, thus ultimately benefitting the American workforce.

Lately, I’ve heard mentions of Globalization in a slightly different context as related to small business, specifically in the world of exports. In a USA Today article, Steve Strauss presents an amazing statistic that over 90% of the exports out of California come from small businesses. He says that much of those exports go to our largest trading partner, Mexico, whose small business sector is largely based around importing US goods. Further, he goes on to state that the Mexican small business sector generates as much as 80% of the nation’s employment.

Such numbers indicate that, for a small business, expanding one’s scope could be a lucrative endeavor. But this strategy is far from foolproof. Dagmar Recklies lists the following potential advantages and disadvantages for small businesses looking to go international in his essay “Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and Globalization”…

Though there are potential benefits, Recklies goes on to say that businesses considering international activities need to understand that there is more involved than simply finding new customers or suppliers in other countries. For a company to succeed in expanding into international markets, they must be open to profound change, willing to take risks, and have committed leadership. There is a high learning curve and a lot of bumps along the way, but those with the right product, intelligence, flexibility and perseverance stand to reap considerable benefits.

Discovering Talents of Coworkers and Their Families

kparvis — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 22:07:30 +0000

People are the spice of life and their talents makes life even spicier. We spend so much time with people at work yet do we really know and celebrate the life and talents of our coworkers and their family? I find it interesting that the more we know and care about the lives of our coworkers outside of work the more we are willing to extend a hand or help out when he or she is needing a helping hand.

Georgette, a coworker at Midtown Printing, is a proud mom of a bike racer. She is one of Alex’s number # fan, as all moms tend to be. You can tell how proud she is of her son every time she talks about his races and his training regiment. She tells the stories of his focus on eating right and his training program. It makes you tired just hearing about it. With the ease of video and photo sharing, we can all share in his journey. Alex is racing this Labor Day weekend at the Gateway Cup. Here is a short video that features Alex promoting the event.

Then there is Ryan, my fellow blogging collaborator who is in a band called Halsted. They just released a new album Life Underwater. He has been playing all over promoting his new album. It’s really good album and find it amazing how one can write and perform music. As my husband and children say…singing is not one of my talents.

I have heard of so many people who are in bands or training for a race or creating beautiful paintings, but do we really know the talent that surrounds us at work? You think you know a person when you work with them day in and day out, but there are so many talents and interests that aren’t that obvious.

Mostly the talents and interest of coworkers are not hidden, we just need to take the time to find out. I challenge you to make this a goal. Take the time to ask a coworker about their life outside of work. You may discover more spice in life.

Cross-Media Marketing Tactics: Increasing the Effectiveness of a Print Campaign

rauffenberg — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 00:28:54 +0000

The rapidly changing communications landscape has left many wondering where to spend their marketing dollar. Though spending on print has declined in recent years, it still remains a vital part of most marketing campaigns and has proven even more successful when coupled with new media. A recent InfoTrends study states that a traditional print marketing campaign has a 19% higher response rate when coupled with a web landing page. That response rate goes up to 34% over print media alone when coupled with a web landing page, email and Mobile Marketing. Here are a few tips on how to streamline your multi-media marketing effort and maximize ROI.

Data & QR Codes

Data is a crucial element of a successful marketing campaign and, traditionally, response rates for print media marketing have been difficult to quantify. However new technologies such as QR codes make it easier to receive detailed analytics reports on the effectiveness of your print or direct mail campaign. For those of you who missed Kathleen’s earlier blog post, QR codes are codes often printed on large or small format marketing materials that are scan-able by one’s cell phone and often direct a user to web based promotional content. In addition to routing users to supplementary online content, QR codes also provide marketers with detailed information on those who have responded positively to a campaign, thus adding a new level of measurability to your print or direct mail marketing effort.

Mobile Marketing

Mobile is the fastest growing platform in the marketing world and has proven to be one of the most effective ways to communicate with consumers. Open and read rates for SMS text messages dwarf that of almost all other forms of communication, even personal email. Including a call to action for the mobile-ly inclined in your print campaign allows texters to respond to you via their preferred medium of communication and also empowers you to reach those customers in a powerful new way.

Direct Mail as Follow-Up

One new way in which some marketers have been using direct mail is as a supplement to an online or Email campaign. Staggering your direct mail campaign to follow an Eblast can help you stay in the consciousness of those who opened and read your email, while also allowing you to approach those “Bounce Rate” recipients in a new way.

Timing Is Everything

The sooner you start viewing new media as a vital element in the big picture of your entire marketing plan, the better. Marketing is marketing. New media is not a supplement that exists in a separate dimension from your more traditional efforts. Rather, your traditional and new media campaigns should be highly interactive with each other and deployed strategically in a way that maximizes your exposure, interactivity with the consumer, and ultimately your ROI.

Should I Save an Image in the JPEG 2000 File Format?

kparvis — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:17:05 +0000

There is always something new and improved in technology that people may or may not adopt. JEPG 2000 has been out for some time (since 2000) but not widely used because a Photoshop plug-in installation was required to save in this format. Many do not like or want to take the time to install. But now I think it might gain some traction since it is integrated into the new CS5.

Here is a quick overview of the jpeg compression format so you can decide for yourself if this file format is for you.

What is JPEG 2000?

The jpeg 2000 file format, the new standard in compression, is an enhanced way to compress images and maintain a better quality reproduction than other or previous image compression formats. It compresses an image file and allows for better retention of image quality. It does not distort or lose much image information during compression allowing for better image output.

This format can help when using digital photos for graphic reproduction, helps solve the huge file size problem when bringing these images into layout programs and still maintains a high image reproduction. JPEG 2000 is now integrated as part of the standard CS5 Photoshop. If you want to save a file in jpeg 2000 format in CS3 or CS4 Photoshop, you must install the plug in from Adobe.

What is the Difference?

There are distinct differences when it comes to quality of a jpeg vs a jpeg 2000 compressed file. I have found the best side-by-side comparison sample on verypdf.com site.

As verypdf.com states, “…when high quality is a concern, jpeg 2000 proves to be a much better compression tool. Because of the way the compression engine works, JPEG 2000 promises a higher quality final image, even when using lossy compression.” This file format not only keeps photo integrity but tends to compress the file smaller than other file compressions.

For more technical information, go to the official jpeg 2000 web site.

Are you using the format? Let us know what you think of the new format and if people should use it or not.