Off The Press

Content marketing is the new buzz word in advertising, in short it encompasses all facets of marketing through sharing relevant data to engage the end user or consumer in creating “brand awareness”. I have been on a mission, sifting through information to ascertain the essentials, the building blocks of “content marketing”. What I have found is, number one it takes time and number two it takes time. Time in this economy is something we all feel is in short supply, as the revenue streams become smaller, every minute and dollar needs to be accounted for. I stumbled upon this in my quest for information.

Coca Cola Content 2020 Part One

Of course Coca~Cola knocks this out of the park with the “how’s and the why’s” of content marketing. If you are like me,  you look at this and think of the production cost to create such a comprehensive content marketing campaign and at the the end of the day if you devote the man power, what is the ROI. UGH! Overwhelmed yet, relax, we are in the process of launching our new venture in colliding your two worlds. The “Printer” which you have affectionately dubbed yourself and the other guy which you hardly speak of, the adventurous one, the one who set out and decided, today I am going to change my future, today I will set my own course, today I will gain my Independence. Today I become an Entrepreneur. You’ve already done it the hard part is done, come along with us in this journey to embrace your two worlds.

I ran across some interesting articles about this years “Social Media” model and it’s effect on the G.O.P. primaries. Interestingly enough, the person leading the Cyber Space Wars by a considerable margin is U.S. Texas Rep. Ron Paul.

The issue at hand however, is for all the interest and the hype. The excitement is not translating to votes. Where is the breakdown, we have to ask ourselves? We are being spoon-fed (this attack on print-media) that it is an antiquated means of  delivering information. And by the time the information is delivered, it’s ancient history.

Let’s examine this in the context of Ron Paul supporters and how this translates to action. Poll numbers prior to going into the primaries (using social media) has Ron Paul winning these battles. The excitement he generates in his campaign stops, coupled with his team of ardent supporters (burning up the cybersphere) should place him ahead of all G.O.P. candidates. However ,this is not the case. Dr. Paul is woefully behind in all showings of the key primary states.

Where did these “supporters” go? Did they have something more important to do during the primaries than vote?Like check out their new uploaded “Ron Paul & Me campaign stop (Idaho” pics) on facebook? Or tweet what they ate that day? Or Linked-in an “Alpha Contact”? Could it be that for all the talk of  ”Social Media” driving commerce, it’s just that, talk?

When you get right down to it , sure, I like people to talk and create a positive stream of information of the value I add to my sphere of influence. But personally, if my value is not adding dollars to the bottom line of the business we service, I have failed. Revenue drives commerce! That is the bottom line if you are spinning your wheels trying to figure out which tools to use to drive revenues, relax! We are going to explore all these newfangled options, plus a whole lot more on our new website called: www.ENTREPRINTER.com.

We are very excited about this venture – it has been years in the works, and our hope is to help you navigate the stream of information and to be a productive and successful “ENTREPRINTER”.

The Twenty Tweetable Truths About Magazines

Print meets Social Media

This was created in 2010 at the cusp of what all the experts deamed the last year PRINT would be relevant and yet here we stand. We have not as “Projected” gone by the wayside. Congratulations! You have survived, however I am here to tell you people it is not enough to survive, 2012 is the year we thrive and we place social media in the context it belongs another tool in the toolbox to forge lasting relationships with customers. To obtain the big “R” word it’s time roll up your sleeves and get back to work.

As we close out 2011 and clean out our offices to make room for 2012, I think a brief “Year in Review” would be relevant. I don’t know about you all, but I am still waiting for the death knell on”PRINT”.

Crickets yes, coffins “NO”. I personally believe the Printing Industry has suffered the most latent and brilliantly executed covert media smear since the techno age was conceived. We have suffered at the hands of a malevolent foe not seen since the creation of the cotton gin. If you are anything like me, you probably have an iPAD or maybe an iPHONE. In our Industry, I am most certain that you have an iMAC and perhaps an ITUNES account to listen to your music as you go about your day. Are you picking up what I’m laying down? We are pawns being hypnotized by a soothsayer and we are oblivious to our masters’ tune. We are buying into the “Oracle Speak” and if you read most Print Media projections and “Print Experts”, you would think they are the warriors beating the drums. Look up! No, I mean right this moment look up! Look around you. How many articles of paper and paraphernalia are you surrounded by with some kind of printing on it? We aren’t dead people, we just started drinking the Kool-Aid. It is time to take back this war on our livelihoods and regain some yardage in this arena. How come since the release of the iPAD, physical media subscriptions have gone up? How come in the face of the most overused words: “Social Media”, those channels are not conduits for net gain? How come with all the hype about ”Digital Marketing”, you still have to do some old-fashioned sales and close the deal?

I feel a bit relieved about closing out 2011 and the derisive abuse that we have suffered as antiquated means of doing business. You know this would not be the first time the Printing Industry saved civilization. You remember old Johannes Gutenberg? Without moveable type, we would have no Renaissance Period. Imagine a world without Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Ptolemy and let’s not forget our favorite explorer, Christopher Columbus. Perhaps 2012 will be the year that we will rightfully take our place next to industrialization, technology and pharmaceutical as saviors of commerce. Or perhaps we will just box up those fancy computers (in those fancy printed white boxes), direct mail those cute little printed calendars and maybe throw in one of those funny brand identity pens we all steal (note: all are printed products), all the while bemoaning our fate that “PRINT” is in fact “Dead”.  Please do not hesitate to sound off on this, we welcome your comments.