Welcome to The Scoop, Kaleidoscope’s monthly newsletter. This month, we’ll be looking at ways that a strategic approach to print production can increase your ROI. We always love to hear from you, so please feel free to drop us a line at TheScoop@KaleidoscopeResults.com.


With all the buzz around viral marketing, experiential marketing and targeted search engines, print might seem a little bit boring by comparison. While press approvals may never be as glamorous as Live Spaces or YouTube, print materials, through their sheer physicality, remain one of the most reliable ways to engage an audience. Printed materials have staying power - well-targeted brochures, sell sheets and inserts create opportunities to deliver your message and build your brand over an extended period of time.

A solid understanding of print production along with a good strategy enables you to deliver more innovative products to your audience but can also dramatically increase your ROI.

Customer-facing, personalized communication is absolutely essential to delivering your message in an effective manner, and can increase response rates by as much as 400%. (Romano and Broudy) Personalized materials can range from using a first name on a form letter, to developing specific pieces for each segment of your target market. (please see our case study below) Digital printing processes now make it possible to develop sophisticated personalized materials at a fraction of the cost of conventional printing.

Develop materials with staying power. By including elements like calendars or reference guides, or by including timely, relevant statistics or trend reports, your pieces have a longer life cycle. For example, for one of our Clients, we developed a “scorecard” for a promotional sports pool. The pocket-sized card was designed to either sit upright on a desk or pinned to a bulletin board. This tool was used as a reference guide and to track results throughout the season.

Increase impact through a unique design, size or stock. While our mailboxes are not quite as full as our inboxes these days, consumers still receive a lot of mail. To make your piece stand out, you might want to consider an unusual size that “sticks out” from the pile, or a unique stock that people will want to pick up. This is often called “lumpy mail” as it stands out from other mail. This also helps to ensure that your piece reaches the right person, and doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.

This being said, never, ever, sacrifice your brand. A well-targeted piece can be printed economically, (see our Print Production Tips) but no amount of embossing, vellum stock or fancy die lines can save a piece that misses the mark.

Intrigued? Click here to view full article.

Challenge:

Open Access Limited is a leading independent Group Retirement Company in Canada. The company was looking to develop a revitalized brand, a stronger visual representation of their value proposition and flexible sales collateral that could be used for different segments of Clients.

Solution:
Strategy – Kaleidoscope worked with Open Access to segment their market and then developed sales materials for each of their primary target groups: Advisors, Plan Members and Plan Sponsors.

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