Post script for publishers
The news that Australia Post has pummelled magazine owners with a price hike this month (which will add about five cents to the cost of posting a periodical) has infuriated the publishing community. This with a mere one month’s notice, to boot.
To add insult to impost, the postage rates were announced three months before they were due to be reviewed. To the sound of bugles and clattering hooves, mailing outfit D&D – which handles many a publication’s mailing operations – is banging on AP’s doors to have the price rise withdrawn, reduced, or at least deferred.
I tort I tor a puddycat
If you’re not tweeting these days, you’re simply not up with the latest in marketing ploys. Magicomm blogger Rick Littrell is tweeting and twittering on about how printers should be promoting their services in his recently published “Printer Tweet Tips”.
Wise words from the literary Mr Littrell: “Establish your expertise. Market your services. Network with other individuals. Stay on top of industry news.”
His 14 steps take the great unwashed through virtually everything they need to know about setting up Twitter accounts and capitalising on its remarkable popularity.
CDQ tracked down
The story we broke exclusively last month on the recently developed CDQ estimating system for digital printers has evinced considerable interest from people wanting to know more about it.
Having donned a deerstalker, borrowed a bloodhound and got a magnifying glass to reveal all, I’ve put the clues together to establish that info@digitalcostandquote.com.au will do the trick.
This chick rocks, let me tell you
Having worked alongside Alison Stieven-Taylor in the frenetic fandango of getting the daily newspaper out “on the streets” at PacPrint, it was great to hear that her recent book, Rock Chicks – the tome that spills the beans about such ’60s headliners as Marianne Faithfull, Chrissie Hynde, Janis Joplin and Annie Lennox – is racing off the shelves at a bookstore near you.
New book stuffs it all up
A new book by mailing industry specialist Mike Porter puts some contentious document operations issues to rest under the equally contentious title of Take this Job and Stuff it. It’s full of practical advice for managers charged with getting corporate documents printed or into the mail, covering many an aspect of document workflow such as quality, productivity and cost control. It stresses the importance of considering the entire document workflow, from document design and material specifications all the way through to printing, inserting and mailing. Should be invaluable for people who want to stuff it without stuffing it up.
Urrls, Merrls and Schmerrls
The direct marketing industry is doing its level best to come up with solutions to the somewhat over-extended marketers’ direct mail efforts. The latest series of suggestions by Digital Nirvana’s Elizabeth Gooding is a package of PURLS, GURLS and CURLS (I kid you not!)
The first of these, a personalised URL, is a web page tailored to individual visitors to encourage them to visit a web page. The girlie component (GURLS) goes a step further: it’s a generic URL or blanket offer to a broadbased list either by mail or online. If one wants to tailor the offer to more socio-economic tailored characteristics, it needs to be customised, hence the ‘C’ type of URL. One could almost wax poetic with all these rhymes….
PODi Applications returning to Sydney
The 2½ day regional Forum is headed back to Sydney later this year. Sponsored by GASAA, the event has been an unqualified success in past years, with conferences and workshops dealing with digital developments and industry case studies. Not too early to drag out the diary for the dates, which are 14 – 16 September.
Look at moi…
Seems the real hot pic among the PacPrint “Hot Pick” awards was the happy snap of Print21 publisher Patrick Howard (who, at times, likes to have a go at me after trawling for what he considers journalistic transgressions). No fewer than 14 out of the 16 PacPrint award pictures in recent web page featured guess who?
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