Let me be the first to state that I am a big user of computers, email, cell phones, Internet, and all new technology for that matter.  In fact, I love what is going on.  First Edge Solutions is playing in each of those spaces and helping clients with the cross media platform and driving positive results.  

Certainly each channel has it’s place in today’s world of multi-channel marketing…along with your printed communications.  My one major concern is the potential misinformation of print hurting the environment.  Why for example do people say, save a tree don’t print this? 

Let me just offer some interesting quick facts to think about:

1. Reading a newspaper online for 30 minutes or more is harder on the environment than reading a printed newspaper for 30 minutes. 
2. Remember all computers, cell phones, and electronic devices need to get powered somehow…Where does all of that energy come from?
3. Google consumes more energy in one day than all of Las Vegas. 
4. Remember that for every tree cut down, 3-4 trees are replanted in it’s place…print is an absolutely sustainable, renewable resource!!

Here is an interesting read from a friend of mine, Heidi Tolliver-Nigro, in the DM world:

Heidi Tolliver-Nigro • It’s not just about being recyclable. It’s about deforestation. From stats I’ve read, do you know what the largest contributor to deforestation is? Agriculture! There is an advocacy group that makes an interesting point — when we see logging, our hearts recoil. When we see farmland, we think it’s beautiful. Yet logged areas re-grow, while forests turned to farmland remain deforested. So if we reduce the demand for printed products, what does this do to the commercial interesting MAINTAINING forestland? It’s an interesting question. I wrote a post on this for The Inspired Economist just this week:

http://inspiredeconomist.com/2010/07/22/quick-define-deforestation/ 

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The bottom line is that we all have a lot of work to do to help our environment long-term.  There is no reason for print to be considered environmentally bad if, in fact, that is not the case.   As it can be a very emotional subject, we must be careful to make accurate statements and draw appropriate conclusions…We all have too much at stake! 

I have written and blogged numerous times regarding the world of Cross Media Marketing and/or Multi-Channel Marketing.  We have just delivered a product to the market in the last month that will be taking that concept to a whole new level!!

Please allow me to paint a picture for you.  Currently, by and large, a Fortune 500 retailer gains a new customer through direct mail and other traditional marketing methods, radio, TV, etc.  Great, congratulations, they gained one new customer.  However, the real art is in making them become a brand ambassador/loyal shopper so you can calculate and maximize their lifetime value thus driving a higher ROI per customer.  So what is the retailer doing to keep the conversation going?  How can they help each of their customers feel like they have a local presence, voice, and know they are actually cared about?  Our product Meet-MeMe is a social media aggregator trading card printed and tradeable on-line at www.meet-meme.com and has major areas in which it can make a HUGE impact:

How it all began: 

Meet-Meme was launched at unGeeked (the SxSW of the Midwest), a digital and social media conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  The idea behind the cards (and soon the full online experience) is that your trusted online connections can be met offline. The Meet-Meme cards are a tool that aggregates personal online networks to use for offline experiences and interactions, that then return you back online to continue the conversation with new contacts.

The Meet-Meme cards can be a replacement for business cards or moreover in addition to because they are traded with people you know, you like, and you trust.  Please click on the link below to see our recent spot on Fox.

http://www.fox6now.com/news/witi-100617-social-media-cards,0,3313602.story 

We have received incredible feedback from CMO’s and CEO’s of Global Brands already as they see the immediate impact this can have with their customers as each day more people are tweeting, facebooking, getting LinkedIn, etc.

I look forward to everyone’s comments and questions…We have already had many from across the country pouring in and we know many more will be coming.  This is an exciting and a perfect tool to utitlize Social Media the correct way to help corporations grow market share and improve ROI!

At First Edge Solutions, we are proud to say that we are much closer relative to David than Goliath.  As we work in Direct Mail, Statement Processing, Document Management, and Cross Media Marketing, we find ourselves competing in many ponds.  Most recently, as we have been growing, we have been running up against the multi-billion players in our industry and performing quite well. 

In our sector (on-line, print, mail, digital communications, marketing), we are in a race with all of our competitors to be the firm posessing the ability to manage data and write our own software, output the end message to the recipient (print, email, text, social media), and measure the results…then repeat.

We are finding our big competitors are having a hard time adjusting as they are running their companies with an operational and cultural contraint from legacy systems and tremendous financial overhead burdens due to seismic marketplace shifts over the last decade/recession.  This has provided an incredible opportunity for our teams at First Edge Solutions to build and deliver highly successful campaigns and print programs for our clients as we are helping our Fortune 1000 clients (and smaller) because we think differently, more aggressively, and can act on the agreed upon solution faster to deliver immediate results to marketplace.  

So is bigger always better??…Good question.  Perhaps the better means of asking the question is, “Who really wants to earn your business more David or Goliath?”  My vote is for David.

I am humbled to have the great honor to speak at Marquette University’s Business School Symposium tomorrow.  The panel will be moderated by Ed Carroll, former Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer of BonTon, a $3.5 billion retailer.

Joining me on the panel will be Steve Laughlin of the agency Laughlin Constable and Tad Hutcheson, Sr. V.P. of Air Tran Airways.  

We will be discussing relevant Direct Marketing tactics working in 2010 as well as the overall shift to highly targeted one to one communications…both on the Document Management side and the Direct Marketing side using technology as the driver.

I look forward to a great session as we just delivered a 1500% ROI on an $80,000 DM spend for a combined email/Direct Mail campaign.  That is not a typo…we delivered a 1500% ROI to our client, and it’s still growing…That is VERY exciting!!

We just finished an exciting, MAJOR national upgrade of our Monochrome Digital Printing Platform.  We invested in 4 brand new, bleeding edge technology Oce 6250’s.  They are the fastest cut sheet printers in their impressive suite of print solutions.  – The new Oce’s thrive in a work environment such as ours where we have 24 hour production needs with heavy data applications running through our equipment such as COBRA Statements, EOB’s, SPD’s, 401k Statements, other direct mail pieces, manual/book production, and other versioned and variable multichannel communications.  

These engines have been up and running very, very well at our plants and have already made a big impact in our efficiency. 

Thank you again for your continued comments on our blog as we work to make it better…I appreciate all of your feedback as always!

http://highedwebtech.com/2010/03/01/qr-codes-going-slightly-more-mainstream/

We at First Edge Solutions just finished our National Sales Meeting last week at our Phoenix plant.  It was tremendous!

We focused on our value proposition specifically relating to what the market needs in the world of constant communication.  We looked at our past to better outline where we need to go in the new economy.  It was an energizing and enlightening week.

We have built First Edge Solutions to handle the most complex data problems that relate to continual communication needs.  As a result, the production work we do such as printing, mailing, texting, emailing, and the like are are integrated into a bigger solution to make the entire process seemless to the ultimate recipient.  

I am confident to say that we have a World Class Sales Team across the country trained to ask the right questions to our clients and prospects so we can continue to grow and evolve First Edge Solutions as a Leader in Document Management and Direct Marketing.

I will continue working to blog more in the future (it’s one of my resolutions)…Thank you all for your feedback and push to write more!

Happy New Year.  Best to you in 2010!

What’s the best example of Multi-Channel Marketing? 

In the last 2 months, I have received 3 Direct Mail pieces from Google “enticing” me to sign up for a new marketing account with them and each has contained an offer of $100 off any keyword searches.

This is very interesting…Have they reached saturation on the web or perhaps just understand that Direct Mail is one of the important channels for communication within the flow of conversation? 

Google clearly has illustrated that Print and Direct Mail is important.  More important is how it is used and what other methods are complimenting those 2 channels such as Social Media, QRC’s/Tags, email, text messaging, etc.  How is the data being used and how good is it are other very important factors among many others.

Thank you to Google for helping illustrate the Multi-Channel Marketing world we have now entered.

First of all, Happy New Year to everyone…Amazing to think we are in 2009!…I hope you are all doing well.

I was honored today to be featured as a keynote speaker for a webinar hosted by Canon USA & InfoTrends regarding Multi Channel Marketing. InfoTrends’ Barb Pellow was the keynote speaker.
For anyone not familiar with them, InfoTrends is the leading worldwide market research and strategic consulting firm for the digital imaging and document solutions industry. They provide research, analysis, forecasts, and advice to help clients understand market trends, identify opportunities, and develop strategies to grow their businesses. Please see http://www.infotrends.com.

Based on all of our successful national programs at First Edge Solutions regarding Multi Channel Marketing, they invited us as the keynote presenter…A HUGE HONOR!

As communication with customers is now more important than ever in a highly competitive marketplace, Multi Channel Marketing is a great means to get an edge. It truly was a great session!!!

We would love to engage anyone looking to build market share regarding this topic or any others such as our Document Management capabilities to reduce your costs as well.

We will release the “official” powerpoint as a link once it is available to us.

Thank you to all that continue to call and email with comments…Once again, you can get me at (414) 297-9930 or rmk@firstedgesolutions.com.

Now that we have a blog site I have numerous topics I am thrilled to “blog” about.
Topics such as the Web 2 Print space, consultation over order taking, technology and change within our environment, globalization, the need to market and sell your services perhaps differently than in the past, and many, many others are ones I am excited to blog.

Before we get to all of those great topics, I do have a question for everyone that reads this…

How are we doing?

Now that our integration has been complete for a few months, I would love to hear feedback.