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From The People Who Bring You Snail Mail

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with Deliver Magazine – it is a magazine aimed at marketers that is riddled with great ideas for marketing using ALL forms of media – Internet,  print advertising, social media, mixed media, and direct mail.  The mail portion is not a surprise considering that the publication is copy written by the U. S. Postal Service.  What IS a surprise is how innovative and exciting some of the topics are.

One of the exciting things that print media has the potential to bring to the reader is interactive digital information as viewed through the eye of your cell phone, digital pad or webcam.  The ability to “see” more than the printed image by focusing that electronic eye on a particular point on the page and having software open up another form of communication – it could be static images, animation, video, audio or all three.  Cross Media Marketing assumes that your message reaches the reader in a number of ways; Augmented Reality (AR) tools expand the message that your reader receives.  Follow this link to the February issue of Deliver to see an AR example.

Some of this is still Star Wars on a number of levels – the investment in software tools to develop messages is still very high, and the number of “digital eye users” is still relatively low, but that will shift as the consumers of advertising messages become more reliant on this tool.  It is exciting to me in terms of preserving the value of print media to distribute a portion of the message, and it is exciting to marketers if it means that readers will hold onto pieces longer and continue to refer to them for a repeat of their message.

And it makes me hope that the Postal Service will not go broke as long as they are still providing such a fertile ground for research!  There is a great deal of good thinking going on behind the mail sorting equipment.

Cathie Cushing Duff

One of the third generation membership owners at Cushing, Cathie has been active in the organization since 1975. A graduate of the University of Toronto (St. Michael’s College) she attended the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and has been a guest lecturer at the University of Illinois School of Business. A Past President of the North Central Reprographic Association and International Reprographic Association, she has served on the ReproMAX Association and Chicago Family Business Council Boards. When not exploring print and digital communications, her passions are family, knitting and crocheting. Visit Cathie’s Google + profile.

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