5 Things Digital Printing Can Do For You

5 Things Digital Printing WITH A KODAK NEXPRESS Can Do For You:

This post was written mostly for the sake of printers in Nigeria (or other parts of Africa) who are yet to start taking digital printing seriously.

It is also written for the sake of those who may already own or are interested in purchasing a Kodak Nexpress Digital Color Press, but don't really know how to use it. 

Yes, the Nexpress machine is without a doubt, the best digital variable data press in the world today. But if you haven't properly understood the kind of business you want to do with it, or what it is really capable of, then you will be more or less using your Nexpress to kill mosquitoes...unfortunately.

So with more than 6 years of experience marketing and promoting the Kodak Nexpress in Nigeria, I can share a few things to help any of you who may have stumbled upon this article online:

5 THINGS A NEXPRESS CAN DO FOR YOUR PRINTING BUSINESS:

(I have many many more examples, but I will only share these 5 for now in order to whet your appetite)

1. Short-run Jobs - Nowadays, some of your customers  want to print 10 jobs of 250 copies each, instead of one job of 2500 copies. 
This can also make you the ultimate publisher for not well known authors.

2. Texture Effects - Printed documents can add texture. So you can print an advertisement of a suede bag with the simulated feeling to match.

Kodak Nexpress Dimensional Dry Ink - Feel The texture of the orange on any kind of paper

3. 5th Imaging Unit - Apart from the Texture effects already mentioned above, the 5th Imaging Unit also generates unique colours, and does Security Printing - using inline watermarking for added security, authentication and protection. MICR is also available. 

4. Using a digital Nexpress together with Offset Presses - Acquire new customers with your unique Nexpress solutions, while retaining old customers with your high volume offset printing. This differentiates you from your competition without you losing out in any area of the market.

5. Nexpress With Digital Marketing Techniques - A digital press can help your customer's online marketing campaigns. Nexpress' variable data personalization will make your website's traffic much more relevant and targeted.

These and much more benefits from the Kodak Nexpress digital press will help differentiate your printing business among all the other printers all over Africa. 

Wouldn't you like to have people bring large jobs to you from other African countries?

5 BONUS BUSINESS TIPS ON HOW TO USE A KODAK NEXPRESS

1. STOP thinking like a printer - stop thinking about the cost of ink and how many copies a toner can manage. Instead think about Value and Differentiation. Ask yourself "what can I do for my customer that nobody else can?"

2. START thinking more like a business developer - A Nexpress is a very sophisticated machine. It does many things that your offset presses can never do. This kind of flexibility actually gives you the audacity to present yourself to your customer as a multiple solutions provider, not a just mere printer.

3. LEARN how to help your customers sell more - Because the more they sell, the more they print from you. But make sure you do this in a way that benefits your printing services.

4. GATHER and use DATA - data helps you know more about the customer - knowing the customer better helps you to sell to him. Everyone needs information about their customers to help in selling more effectively to them (even Pastors and Car Dealers). It is what makes any kind of salesman successful.

5. EMBRACE the internet - think of web 2 print services, building databases and CRM. The Nexpress can send highly relevant traffic to your customer's website. (ask me how)

Thanks for reading.

If you are a printer and are interested in purchasing a Kodak Nexpress Digital Color Production Press, you can reach me directly via Google+ or Twitter.....check the upper column on the right side.  


If you liked this article please be kind enough to share it on Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn. Also drop a comment in the comment box below. And mind you, I am very open to criticism. 
Thank you.

Online Marketing With The Nexpress Digital Press

Digital Marketing With The Kodak Nexpress

It goes without saying that anyone who embarks on a marketing or advertising campaign must first consider that he/she is now in the digital age, and must therefore account for the many dramatic changes in human behavior as it relates to communications.

This is the era where someone watching a very gripping show on TV and is suddenly interrupted by a commercial, instead of getting angry, automatically sees it as the perfect opportunity to inform friends on Facebook and Google+ about the exciting show he is currently watching. Chances are he or she would only be able to see the first 2 seconds of that commercial.  
This is a very common scenario in every home all over the world, and we can only imagine it would get more common. 

Digital Marketing covers many areas that can lead you to profitability in this changing world, from search advertising (or PPC) to social media campaigns, to blogging, and email marketing. But we really can't stop there: Digital printing also has a great role to play, and a lot to contribute to the most successful online marketing campaigns. 

The truth is that every ZMOT minded marketing strategist must consider every possible opportunity to find new customers and retain them. (for more on ZMOT simply search the phrase "zmot in Africa" on Google search and read my articles on it)

The level of connectivity we are seeing in this new digital age is astounding to say the least. You cannot continue to do your business, and especially the marketing of your business, the same way you have been doing since the late 90s or early 2000s. You need to start thinking of how to bring everything together to make the magic truly start happening. There is no point having all this power available to you on the internet and not using it. And chances are, your competition have started building their digital future already.

Kodak Nexpress In Lagos

The Kodak Nexpress digital press is a digital printing machine that has really changed the way I look at sales, advertising and branding. 
I honestly can't express my disappointment enough that only one of such machines is currently operational in this country. And of course, that is in Lagos.

The truth is that you can do a lot of wonders in terms of sales, or product/company branding with your website, if you engage with proper digital marketing solutions. 
But clever digital print campaigns can give you the added benefit of "lifting up" valuable targeted traffic "from the ground", and send them to your website using a Kodak Nexpress marketing solution. 

I recently wrote an article on LinkedIn about what i consider the nature of advertising waste, but I didn't mean to say that traditional advertising was now useless. 
No not at all.

But we just have to change the way we plan and execute them. I recommend that digital marketing professionals (especially SEOs or those who understand the ZMOT) be consulted before you start the process (if not throughout the process) of building a traditional ad campaign. 
These online marketers should also be consulted when doing your digital print campaigns and other printed marketing materials as well, if you ask me.

To promote anything (whatever it may be) truly effectively in this new era, you have to think about everything: tv, magazines, billboards, email, twitter, Google Search, Google+, Facebook, offers, promos, transpromo invoices, and yes, even greeting cards.
Everything has its own inherent value as a marketing channel.

I stress on the underrated value of printed marketing collateral because the proliferation of so many kinds of digital devices has left many people feeling the growing need to relax their eyes from constantly staring at LCD and LED displays and screens all the time. There is a growing trend of people now buying both e-books and hard copy of books at the same time. 

I would imagine that one reason why people would by electronic and paper copies of the same book is because the "experience" of reading the books from paper is something that many readers savor, despite the technological leap of digital books.
Not to mention that your hard copy book cannot run out of battery life.  

"Lifting Up" Traffic "From The Ground"

Printed documents and marketing collateral like flyers, brochures and even greeting cards now have the potential to play a truly magical role in driving high quality, high value traffic to your website in some very smart ways that will impress any sales man that has ever lived. It is all about synthesis. A great website does great things for your business. A powerful print campaign can serve as an on-the-ground army (see my post on the armed forces of marketing) of heralds for your website. 

Variable data printing capability is essential, along with high-end print and colour quality, to make the most of this synthesis. And the Kodak Nexpress Digital Color Production Press is perhaps the best of such machines to use to achieve it.

If you liked this article please be kind enough to share it on Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn. Also drop a comment in the comment box below. And mind you, I am very open to criticism. 
Thank you.

Internet Marketing With Print: Taking No Prisoners

There comes a time in every internet marketing professional's life, he has to consider the validity of those activities that he has been doing and those he has not yet been doing, as he wrestles with the tactics of selling the brands and products of the clients he works for.

Now I am guessing that practically all IM professionals everywhere realize how important it is to unify their online marketing strategies with their existing traditional electronic media campaigns (i.e. tv, radio, etc).

But I am willing to ante that only a tiny percentage of us understand how and where traditional PRINT factors into all of these promotional shenanigans of marketing.

The Armed Forces Of Marketing

I like to look at Printed promotional materials as the “Army” aspect of our marketing armed forces, where we can agree that the traditional electronic media (TV and radio) will be represented by the Air Force, and of course our dear World Wide Web would have to be the Navy. So please, do try to indulge me as I attempt to use this comical abstraction of mine to explain my theory as to why the internet needs print and why print needs the internet.

Print = Army

World Wide Web = Navy

Tv and Radio = Air Force

In modern wars, we often see air-craft take the lead, in terms of which of the forces is first deployed. But only those of us who really pay attention actually realize that at times those aircraft are in fact naval aircraft. At least, where the US armed forces are concerned.

They are manned by naval pilots who take-off from large naval ships called aircraft carriers, which are used to freight planes, tanks, artillery and troops. In other words, many great marketing wars can actually be fought and won entirely without the use of your usual cable/primetime TV or Radio.  So in this case your naval aircraft could be those powerful weapons that any internet marketer recognizes as Youtube, Dailymotion or Vimeo videos.

But most wars do not end with your enemy surrendering immediately after the air strikes or sorties, be it by navy or air force pilots. These only weaken the enemy’s defenses so that you can have relatively reduced resistance when you deploy the infantry part of your marketing campaign: The troops – the handbills, flyers, and other forms of printed marketing collateral.
It is often these “ground forces” that go on to finish the job. And at this point, it is fitting to introduce to you the most effective corps of marketing commandoes ever trained within the marketing army: Personalized Digitally Printed material.

From personalized greeting cards to transactional documents like bank statements or frequent flyer mile reports, personalized prints have the tendency to get into the endorsement halls of your target audience with such pin-point accuracy, and in such a way that no other kind of marketing can do. They are not as lifeless as paper handbills or flyers, where as much as 80% of them usually end up in the trash, as do the message they were conveying.

Indeed the result is totally different when your pre-disclosed target audience picks up the envelope by himself in the mail, and sees his name boldly displayed in lights, in the scoreboard of the football stadium in the greeting card that is greeting him, sent from your client.

As for Transpromo, well you are already getting bank statements with your name and addresses printed in them if I’m not mistaken, right?

Now imagine a full-colour, multiple page, document now carrying much more than just your bank statement for the past month. The bank have now gone ahead to include cleverly written and interesting information about other products that they think might be particularly beneficial to you (based on the information they already have on you).

In the image above, the words Bill and Mary asnd the date are dynamic text. In each print run, they could come out as Femi and Chioma or a thousand other different variations. 

The bank are also using several portions of your bank statement to carry rich and colourful advertisements of 3rd parties, where these 3rd parties are the reason why neither you nor the bank are not bearing any costs for sending you this new and sprightly bank statement that you are now eager to receive every month.

The new interest that such printed documents, greeting cards and even personalized desktop calendars can spark in the target audience, will easily give you yet another opportunity to further establish your brand, by smartly including things like special promos that can only be entered into by typing in a code within the document into some verification portal within company website.


Yes! The website. Hence you have your Prisoner Of War, whom your Army Commandoes just captured, being held captive in the Naval Command.
Obviously you can see that that becomes another opportunity to repeat the cycle for increased brand exposure. Obviously you can see why it is indeed of much value to you to consider the print army whenever you plan your online marketing campaigns for your clients.