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Online Print and Fulfillment Solution for Hologic, Inc.

Challenges

Hologic, one of the world’s leading providers of health care solutions for women, wanted to develop a more efficient way for its customers to order marketing and promotional materials that help promote its services. At the time, hospitals and doctors’ staffs were calling the company directly to order materials or requesting electronic files to print locally. This often required a huge amount of time to fulfill the many requests that came through on a daily basis. When customers did print locally, their costs were often higher because of smaller quantities and at times, branding or print quality standards were compromised. Therefore, Hologic was seeking an alternative process that protected its branding requirements and reduced the costs of order processing. They decided to look into online solutions, which they felt was the only way their requirements could be met.

Solutions

Hologic selected us to develop and implement an easy-to-use web-enabled print and fulfillment store. The store, incorporated directly into Hologic’s corporate website, maintains the “look and feel” of their corporate branding. Customers can use either a major credit card or submit a purchase order for payment. The customer can also buy static or personalized items directly, as well as accessing digital file downloads within a secure environment. The digital file downloads include customizable templates for press releases, letters, technology white papers, and PowerPoint presentations to utilize for their marketing efforts. Customers are able to add their facility names and contact information to the personalized pieces while maintaining Hologic’s branding guidelines.

With the online store now in place, handling customer material requests is fully automated. Hospitals and doctors are now ordering personalized marketing and promotional collateral that includes the latest branded corporate promotional materials and product literature to promote their business development efforts. Within 3 days the order is shipped directly to the customer’s door. By providing an online store, Hologic reduced the time needed for program administration, maintained brand standards and reduced costs by streamlining production. Full visibility of program costs and activities for ROI and forecasting was achieved with comprehensive 24/7 reporting tools, along with a monthly status meeting. Most importantly, Hologic’s customers receive their materials efficiently, affordably and when they are needed.

Features/Benefits

An easy-to-use web store with customized ordering capabilities to enhance customer experience
Maintain branding as determined by corporate guidelines
Reduce waste leading to lower costs.
24/7/365 access to corporate materials from any location, through a secure centralized hub that supports print production, ordering, assembly, fulfillment, inventory management and distribution, reducing costs and streamlining logistics support.
Cuts administrative overhead costs by reducing the time spent by internal administrative resources.

Customer Testimonial

“Audrey, President of Ferrante & Associates, worked with us to fully define our needs and budget requirements and assembled a ‘best in class’ team to design and implement our new web store for print and marketing collateral, order processing and fulfillment. Her attention to detail and strong communications skills proved invaluable to pushing the program to the success that it is.”

Nicole Athanas

Corporate Marketing Communications Manager, Hologic, Inc.

Additionally, one of the marketing collateral pieces that is available on the web store is the “Hologic MammoPad Select Customer Program” which recently won the 2009 MM&M Medical Marketing and Media Gold and Silver Awards for Best Direct Marketing to Consumers and Healthcare Professionals. The integration of superior design and technology made this program a winner for all involved.

Congratulations Hologic!

Best of Days to You,

Audrey Ferrante

Posted in Case Study, Communications, Internet, Print, Print On Demand | No Comments »

Personalized urls are NOT the magic “success” bullet for a direct marketing campaign!

It has been interesting to watch the ongoing discussions about the use of personalized urls (pURLs) and how many say that the usage of them will increase your response rates by double digits. I DON’T believe that. So there, I’ve said it. Doesn’t make me a bad person, does it?

What REALLY causes double digit response rates are strong messaging, great execution, and a well defined target market. The pURLs are only the enabler for the response from the initial outbound effort, whether it is using email or variable data print (VDP). The added value of the pURL is that it provides for the “real time” feedback on how the campaign is progressing, what the reaction is of the responder, and when you combine it with a response outbound such as email, it is a powerful tool for marketer to use to satisfy their customers’ goals for the campaign.

A cross-media campaign that includes print, email, pURLs, and social media can be a VERY powerful campaign…PROVIDED the messaging, execution, and market segment definition is well defined. Most people forget that it is NOT the media that makes the message, but it is the message that makes the success! Don’t be one of those who forget this.

By remembering these fundamentals, you can develop strategies and cross-media campaigns that can succeed beyond your wildest expectations.

Best of Days to You,

Audrey Ferrante

Posted in Communications, Integrated Marketing, Internet | No Comments »

Integrated Marketing…What is the right combination to use?

Corporations are increasingly asking their agencies to provide them with an integrated solution when discussing their marketing requirements. It only makes sense to develop a plan that is more holistic in nature than the traditional approach to place a newspaper or magazine ad (do people still do that?), or run an ad on TV or radio. With the increasing importance of integrating your internet strategy with your outbound and, of course, inbound efforts, the options available can become overwhelming for most of the traditionally trained marketing specialists. What is the right media mix? How should you allocate your budget between the different implementations? How does social media play into the mix? How should search engine optimization be included in the mix? These are some of the questions that must be answered during the development of the strategy.

First and foremost, it is important to understand that people have a certain bias towards, or against, the various media. Many people today will completely ignore any of the advertisements that are placed in the traditional print media, such as newspapers or magazines. Additionally, there are recent studies that indicate that banner ads are losing their impact. There was a study published in 2004 by “The Chartered Institute of Marketing” that determined that we are exposed to over 1,500 advertising messages every day. Is there any reason for us to assume that number is lower today? We think not! We have all developed a mental screening of these ads now and their effectiveness is declining accordingly. Determining how to be the “One” that gets through is the tricky part.

There are two key elements in any integrated marketing strategy: 1) Recognize that the goal is now to develop a “pull’ strategy instead of a “push” strategy. This means that it is important to incent the consumer to WANT to interact with you and not just shove the message into their face from every direction for the goal of developing brand awareness. This is where social media is becoming increasingly used; 2) Develop a workflow that makes it easy and quick for the consumer to interact and communicate during the response phase of the process. These two strategies recognize that people don’t have enough time, or attention span, and different people will use different media in the process. Some like email, others will only interact using the telephone, and still others will only use the internet as their response mechanism of choice. Therefore, your strategy should be developed using multiple media for both deploying the message and the response to the call to action. You must make the messaging more relevant to the individual to incent them to take the time. Once you include these elements in your strategy, you have a much better chance of succeeding at your goals.

Remember, recognize that people have many options to choose from when communicating and that their time is valuable, so the communications must be relevant and add value to their lives. The options have become almost endless, but a careful evaluation and definition of how your target market communicates will increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and help you meet the goals that you set…You do set goals, don’t you? But, that is a discussion for another day!

Best of Days to You,

Audrey Ferrante

Tags: Communications, Integrated Marketing, Internet, social media
Posted in Communications, Integrated Marketing | No Comments »

Don’t miss the opportunity to integrate print and internet…It’s a winning combination

Much has been discussed about what is the right mix of media (or shall we call them channels?) when developing an integrated marketing strategy. There are lots of options, including print (both static and variable), email, search engine optimization (SEO), social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube to name a few), billboards (both digital and static), TV, radio, magazines, and newspaper advertising that companies can use. Should we add sky writing to the mix? As you can see, our customers have a lot of choices and are many times confused on what is the right mix for them to use to meet their business objectives. With many declaring that “Print is dead!”, it makes you wonder should you even consider using print? The overwhelming answer from the market is YES!

Print is still a viable solution for many marketing requirements, but we all have to think differently when we consider using it. A workflow, or shall we say strategy, that many use today is based on a more database driven implementation for both the print and web components. You probably have heard about personalized urls (pURLs), but you may not have leveraged this technology yet. Just to recap, a pURl is a microsite that is connected to a database and allows for the web pages to be dynamically reconfigured based on what is in the database or how the responder interacts with the microsite. Therefore, many campaigns are using variable data print (VDP) that includes a pURL for the recipient to go to as a response mechanism. The internet will provide the responder the “immediate” interaction that a printed product can’t provide. According to the DMA, over 30% of people respond to direct mail by going online. And I could argue that this number will increase as more people use an integrated marketing strategy.

Bottom line is that direct mail is still viable and becomes a stronger solution when integrated with the internet. Both are here to stay, we just need understand the best way to use them together and how consumers ultimately want to get their information and interact with your company. The two provide more value when used together than each can when they are used by themselves. I leave you with this thought…”Integrated marketing strategies are the ONLY strategies to use to grow your business opportunities!” To use any media as a standalone solution is short sighted and will limit your opportunities. It all becomes very simple when you start thinking like this. So, go forth, integrate and grow!

Best of Days to You,

Audrey Ferrante

Tags: commercial print, Communications, Integrated Marketing, Internet, Print
Posted in Communications, Integrated Marketing, Internet, Print | No Comments »