Run a quick check of the internet using your favorite search or decision engine and you will find that strategies for using data in customer-facing communication are the buzz. The role model success stories for both direct mail marketers and transaction print producers have been rolling out in blogs, articles, and in conference presentations for the past several years. The question: Is data-driven communication integrated into your 2010 customer communication strategy?

Let's start with a definition of data-driven communication. The baseline is the use of data in communication to your customer. In the case of transaction communication the data flows from customer transaction data bases and may be directly placed in the customer document (what you bought and what you paid). It may also be used to trigger formatting changes or the insertion of informational, educational or marketing messages. In direct mail the database provides the address, but in the best of situations is also being used to trigger different offers to different targets.

These are simple definitions, as current practitioners of data-driven communication will tell you. They do, however, lay the baseline. Once we agree about what is included in the definition of data-driven communication, the next step is to understand that it is a multi-channel communication technique. In the best of integrated customer communication strategies, the use of data to tune offers, alter formatting based on the gender or age of the recipient, and track trends is customer interaction is part of the plan.

That brings us to the question: what are you planning for 2010? Have you brainstormed with your Kodak team to see how we can help you communicate more effectively with your customers? We have team members ready to come and talk to you about how adding a data-driven communication strategy can add value to the services you offer (internal or external clients) and maintain your status as a partner to your clients.

If you haven't talked to us recently, come talk to us now!

Have a story to share? Drop me a note: pat.mcgrew@kodak.com - we'd love toshare your success story!

I don't have to tell you about negative pressure on pricing and margins. That we all know too well. The latest NAPL State of the Industry Report shows a record decline in commercial printing industry sales of 12 to 14 percent this year. While a modest recovery is being predicted for 2010, NAPL believes there will still be downward pressure on pricing. Add that to print services being increasing commoditized, and it's more important than ever to identify opportunities to reduce costs as a way to improve profitability. A sure fire way to do that is by integrating and further automating what are now independent systems to increase efficiency, and in doing so, drive down costs and grow the bottom line.

To that end, we've provided a unique set of easy to use interactive tools and resources to help you learn about what others are doing and find your own areas for improvement. Sure, we have a name for all of this—MeasureYourBiz.

Central to all of this is Kodak's Unified Workflow Discovery Tool. We're going to show you how to use this online, interactive tool so you can examine the areas of your business step-by-step to see how simplifying and streamlining your workflow will:

• improve production efficiencies
• control costs
• provide real time return on investment.

Interested? Join us for one of the upcoming educational webinars led by Jim Aust, Business Analyst, Kodak. With more than 15 years experience in the industry, Jim will use specific examples taken from his 150 visits to print shops each year. He will share with you his findings in helping these shops benchmark against industry standards and best practices, and how they turned those comparisons into action to benefit their businesses.

The MeasureYourBiz webinars will take place at 1 p.m. EDT on:

• Wednesday, Nov. 4
• Wednesday, Nov. 18

To register, and also watch a video preview of the webinars, visit: www.kodak.com/go/measureyourbiz. In addition, available for download at the website is a free white paper from InfoTrends entitled "Recession Realities: The Year for Digital Efficiency and Effectiveness"— which highlights the new technologies and strategies that businesses can consider in today's difficult economy.

On October 12, Kodak successfully introduced the new Trendsetter News Platesetter family at IFRA Expo 2009. Since Trendsetter News saw the first light of day at IFRA Expo 2000 as the first daylight-safe newspaper computer-to-plate (CTP) device, it has been and continues to be a very popular CTP device used every day to make plates for millions of newspapers with leading-edge quality from "O Liberal" in the Amazon, to "Het Laatste Nieuws" in the heart of Europe to "China Daily" in Beijing.

The latest enhancements for the new Trendsetter News were well received by customers and resulted in a number of orders signed at IFRA.

Hanuaer Anzeiger, just outside of Frankfurt, Germany, purchased two Trendsetter News S-AL units and will be printing their newspapers before year-end with plates imaged on their newly purchased thermal CTP's.

As this customer experienced firsthand, the Trendsetter News Platesetter's new compact footprint makes it easier than ever to fit parallel plate lines in small prepress rooms, and they will be making plates within days after rolling the equipment into the room.

Thanks to the thousands of customers worldwide who have successfully used Trendsetter CTP's every day for over a decade!

As a true Product Marketer l have a particular fondness for customer quotes. There's this weird equation that exists whereby anything that my customer says is instantly ten times more believable and more powerful than what I say - even if we use the same words. Funny that! So, when I have a new product launch coming up and a press release to write I'm always on the lookout for great customer quotes.

So here are my criteria. They should be:

1. Positive (of course)
2. Short and to the point, and
3. Preferably convey a sense of emotion.
4. Oh, and here was my dilemma recently, they have to be clean and printable!!

I was asked for customer quotes a week or so ago to include in this week's Kodak press release announcing enhancements to the Flexcel NX System. We've been doing some really interesting things recently in wide web flexo with Flexcel NX Plates looking at that age old issue of smooth and consistent transfer of solvent inks on flexible substrates and have seen some pretty phenomenal results. The new DigiCap NX Screening feature we just announced applies a micro screening pattern to the surface of all printing elements on the Flexcel NX Plates (tones, lines and solids) and as a result dramatically improves ink transfer - without compromising highlights!! It means you can get higher densities, with less ink, retain highlight detail and use more combination plates.

Sound too good to be true? That's what I thought. But it works, it really really works. So much so, that the results of some unbelievably challenging process color tests recently with designs that would normally have demanded split plates have generated some fairly emotional customer quotes.

My favorite was from a press operator during one of these trials a few weeks back. His two word utterance, as the color just came right in beautifully on start up, said it all and inspired the title of this blog. Loosely translated I guess he was trying to say "Gosh, darn it, I'm really quite surprised. This looks pretty spectacular." Okay, so it loses a bit of impact on transIation and of course I didn't get to use it in the press release .......... but it still gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to know that a new product feature can inspire such strength of reaction in a user. It's what makes all the hard work worthwhile.

Most marketing campaigns fail due to bad data bases, channel driven obsessions and forgetting who we are trying to replicate when planning a marketing campaign.

Data bases represent information and it is not a mystery to anyone that with bad information we can not identify the right target audience neither can we tell them what they want to hear so that they buy our products.

Channel obsession is a trend that is spreading very rapidly. When you start a campaign with a channel in mind often you will fail. Every time you show me that one communication channel is the best for something, I will show you that it is not the best channel for something else. In most cases the channel should be at the end of the process. I believe being market/product/value focused is more important than being channel focused.

Most channels in the market today will increase productivity in terms of contacting/impacting more individuals in a given period of time. Also, they will allow more contacts per individual in a given period of time. But, in most cases they will not reduce the amount of contacts needed to make a sale to one individual. Sometimes we are so convinced that one channel is the greatest that we obsess with that channel and limit the opportunity to see the bigger picture and build the best campaign possible.

Last but not least, we often forget who we are copying when advertising. We should be copying a sales person on a marketing/sale cycle. How come often do we say things that we would never say face to face? It is very easy to understand the fundamentals of Marketing and Selling. It is about saying the right thing to the right person at the right time in the right way. So, when you put your next campaign together think what a good sales person would say to whom, when and how. The What, to Whom and When to say relate to the information that you have. The How relates to how that information is used (sensitivity), presented (creativity) and delivered (channel).

"Advertising is what you do when you can't be there in person." - Fairfax Cone