By Kurt Konow, Production Print Marketing Strategist, Ricoh Americas Corporation
It’s been a few weeks since I shared with you my initial steps to implementing an effective multichannel marketing program. Hopefully you had a chance to think about the process and now you’re ready for my Four Key Elements for Ultimate Success! Ready – Set – Read!
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By Kurt Konow, Production Print Marketing Strategist, Ricoh Americas Corporation
I very much enjoy visiting customers and talking to them about their current business. I can be guaranteed that the topic of how to expand their portfolio in order to attract new customers and increase revenue is on their discussion list – and who doesn’t want to do that? One of the “hot” applications that I like to share with these forward-thinking businesses is multichannel marketing. While most theoretically understand the concept behind multichannel marketing, many companies are still challenged with implementing the strategy. Over the next few weeks I will discuss the strategy and steps it will take for you to start designing and implementing effective multichannel marketing campaigns. In fact, I will share with you a “live” campaign that I created and implemented at Ricoh – so, “YES,” I understand the challenges and effort it takes to deploy a multichannel marketing campaign.
Understanding multichannel marketing is fast becoming a requirement for commercial printers, franchise printers and print service providers of all sizes. The Internet and mobile technologies have triggered an explosion in the types of messaging media available, giving everyone no choice but to respond. For example, it has forced marketers to use different channels to attract different demographic groups in order to maximize the reach and response rates for their messages. The good news is of all this is that it presents print service providers with an excellent opportunity to expand their portfolio of products and services. However, there are a number of considerations to take into account when it comes to offering multichannel solutions broad enough to get results.
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By Scott Ginnett, Director, Digital Collaboration & Social Media, Ricoh Americas Corporation
Encyclopedia Britannica Ends Print, Goes Digital! They Were Ready For Change, Are You?
As we embark on our quest to embrace technology and find ways to improve our business with it, I came across this interesting article over my first cup of coffee this morning. It turns out even a printed tradition, something that has been on the shelves of millions of homes and libraries across this country, is moving on with technology as well.
Encyclopedia Britannica is going to end its printed editions and go to an entirely digital model. Now, this is no small change. Encyclopedia Britannica is the oldest English-language encyclopedia still in print. First published in 1768 in Edinburgh, Scotland, it’s moving to an all-digital version that will be available online. Talk about a dramatic change to this company’s business model!
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By Richard Romano, Managing Editor, WhatTheyThink’s Going Green
This year, WhatTheyThink’s Going Green is busily coordinating the 4th Annual Environmental Innovation Awards, which honor and reward printing companies that have implemented creative, forward-thinking, and—perhaps most importantly—quantifiable environmental sustainability initiatives.
Sponsored by Unisource, the awards are presented in four categories:
- Environmental Sustainability and Your Plant recognizes a company that is making environmentally responsible changes to their own facility, such as implementing lean/green manufacturing, adding unique lighting or ventilation, etc.
- Environmental Sustainability and Your Processes recognizes a company that has environmentally transformed their processes by incorporating inks, papers, consumables, waste management, or recycling in new and different ways.
- Environmental Sustainability and Your Community recognizes a company that is takes environmental initiatives outside their own doors and offers “outreach” programs that support both the environment and their community.
- Beyond Environmental Sustainability recognizes a leading- or bleeding-edge solution involving unique creativity; for example, a biodiesel “still” to create alternative power sources or installation of wind or solar power.
There is also a fifth award, a special “Thought Leader” prize that recognizes a company which best represents the “new green graphic arts company” among all applicants. Each year, the recipient is a truly innovative, disruptively-creative company.
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Feb 12
13
What’s That Device You’re Wearing?
By Richard Romano, Managing Editor, WhatTheyThink’s Going Green
The history of computing since Day One has been to bring the computer physically closer to the user. Giant mainframes in computer centers were eventually scaled down to the desktop, and then compressed down to the laptop. Now, increasingly, our computer is the mobile device we carry around, be it a smartphone or a tablet. (Just to show how far we’ve come, here’s a link to an unintentionally funny photo of a 5MB hard drive from 1956—which weighed over a ton—being unloaded from a plane. It certainly puts that 2GB thumb drive into perspective …)
The next step, logically, would be wearable computers. And, actually, they have a very old legacy, dating back to the 1950s (although, one hastens to add, not with a 5MB hard drive). The “father of the wearable computer” is generally held to be Edward O. Thorpe, who, in 1955, conceived of a miniature computer that could predict roulette spins. He and M.I.T.’s Claude Shannon jointly constructed a working prototype and tested it out in Las Vegas in 1961, although a hardware glitch ended their betting prematurely, probably for the best, lest they fall afoul of casino owners who, uh, frown on that sort of thing.
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By Scott Ginnett, Director, Digital Collaboration & Social Media, Ricoh Americas Corporation
Leveraging Tablets for Your Business
In our first two installments of this blog post, we took a look at some of the reasons behind the recent trend toward tablet computers and compared several of the tablet choices currently in the marketplace.
With all that being said, the real question when it comes to tablets is: How can your business leverage this new technology for greater productivity and enhanced customer experience?
As we pointed out in part one of this blog, one of the key benefits of tablets is that they allow for wireless connectivity from any location through WiFi, 3G or 4G networks. This offers today’s growing mobile workforce agile and cost-effective access to network resources while away from the office. Whether giving a presentation, accessing a website or just checking email, tablets have a convenient functionality that supports business users on the go.
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By Scott Ginnett, Director, Digital Collaboration & Social Media, Ricoh Americas Corporation
We’re feeling like proud parents at Ricoh. It’s my pleasure to share with you the news that our flagship digital color press, the RICOH Pro C901, has passed the rigorous testing of IDEAlliance’s Digital Press Certification Program.
This is huge news for us. By passing, we can ensure our customers that the RICOH Pro C901 meets specific print standards which IDEAlliance has deemed worthy of a highly capable digital color press. Thanks to the Digital Press Certification, IDEAlliance ensures that the RICOH Pro C901 meets or exceeds established industry tolerances for excellence in Colorimetric Accuracy, Uniformity, Repeatability, Durability and Registration.
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By Scott Ginnett, Director, Digital Collaboration & Social Media, Ricoh Americas Corporation
We have some big news to share with all of our readers. If you’ve followed us on YouTube, you know that we’ve been posting videos to help our customers grow their businesses and also experience the latest in Ricoh production printing technology.
Starting in this year, we’ll be moving all of our videos to Ricoh’s official YouTube channel at RicohTV. You can still find all of our content under the Ricoh Production Printing Video Playlist. To learn more, watch this video. Hope to see you at RicohTV!
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By Scott Ginnett, Director, Digital Collaboration & Social Media, Ricoh Americas Corporation
In part one of this blog post, we discussed the many important factors behind the recent trend toward tablet computers. With a growing mobile workforce and the need for connectivity on the go, tablets offer a lightweight and convenient way to access a whole host of valuable resources from the internet.
Although the iPad still commands over 70 percent of the tablet market, there are plenty of other tablet options out there—and the list is growing by the day. So let’s take a quick look at the tablet landscape and some of the features to consider:
Posted in Technology Trends by .
Dec 11
8
Inkjet: De Trouble With Deink
By Richard Romano, Managing Editor, WhatTheyThink’s Going Green
If you have been to any industry event or read the trade press in the past two or three years, you know that inkjet printing is one of the hot topics (if not the hot topic) being bruited about today. However, for all of the advantages it holds for print providers, the impending growth of large-scale commercial inkjet printing has an environmental downside that researchers are busy trying to solve before inkjet volume swells. This problem was also the topic du jour at a brace of European conferences held in early November, the CTP’s Technical Conference on Deinking of Digital Prints in Grenoble and IMI’s 19th European Ink Jet Printing Conference in Lisbon.
The environmental problem—or, more correctly, the recycling problem—that inkjet poses is that of deinking (or de-inking, if you prefer that spelling) printed paper for recycling. We tend not to think about this, but when paper mills recycle paper, they have to get rid of the ink somehow.
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