What is ACCGC, you ask? It's the "Accrediting Council for Collegiate Graphic Communications." And why should you care? You should care because it's an accreditation program that ensures that graphic communications students have access to programs that will fully prepare them for a future in the printing and graphic arts fields.

For a school to gain this accreditation they must demonstrate that they are teaching up-to-date skills (camera skills and film stripping are becoming obsolete in the digital age) and promoting best practices. The future graphic artists and printers must have a wide range of competencies in addition to just knowing how to create files and run equipment. They need to be able to evaluate new equipment, implement quality programs, and be able to market themselves.

Enrollment in college graphic arts programs are declining because many high school students don't see the graphic arts as a viable career option. ACCGC is working to change that by helping to make college-level printing programs more relevant and promotable.

Cape Cod Regional Technical High School is helping prepare the printing professionals of tomorrow by incorporating RISO's digital duplicators and high-speed full-color inkjet printers into their curriculum. Students print all kinds of documents on both an MZ790 digital duplicator and an HC5500 full-color printer.

There was an article in the Wall St. Journal yesterday about how some textbook publishers have made deals with software companies to adapt their books for the electronic page. Is this the beginning of the end for printed textbooks? I don't think so and here's why.

While the popularity of e-readers like the Kindle and the Nook are growing, they are still not widespread and both have a pricetag of over $250. The iPad's basic model is $499. These are hefty pricetags for college kids and their maybe not-so-tech-savvy parents. We still don't know how much electronic versions of textbooks may cost but my guess is they won't be much less than a tradtional printed textbook due to licensing agreements.

But the biggest reason the printed textbook isn't going away anytime soon is that a hard copy textbook, that a student can mark up and highlight to aid in studying, is still preferred by students. Kaplan Publishing recently conducted a study that showed students still prefer printed textbooks and aren't embracing e-textbooks on their laptops.

Texbook companies can lower the cost of printed textbooks by printing them on cost-saving equipment like the RISO Comcolor full-color inkjet printer. They can lower the cost to students and still keep their profit margins high. It's a win-win for everyone!

This is a great free report from USA DATA that gives you five ways to improve your direct mail marketing campaign. The five tips they list in the report are essential to a successful direct mail campaign. If you are not doing any of this you should get right on it.

Here is a short summary

1. Revisit your entire marketing strategy
Think about the possibility of combining new media and old media. Instead of isolating each marketing method, maximize your ROI by utilizing both media.

2. Review your past direct mail mailing list metrics
Without measuring your results, there is no way to improve. Testing everything from design to messages can improve your response rate significantly.

3. Refresh your in-house mailing list
Check your lists with the National Change of Address (NCOA) database as close to the mailing date as possible.

4. Reach out to new recipients
Focus on the quality of the list more than quantity.

5. Revamp your messaging
Personalize your message and provide a more relevant offer.

Although the report gives you examples for schools, anyone who is involved in direct mailing should really follow these steps.

American Idol is back again, and our nation is looking for the next big star. Some lucky contestant, who was an average Joe yesterday, is just a few steps away from becoming America’s next biggest star. But is the winner the only one who gets recognition? No. It’s not always the winner who sticks with us and gets millions of views on YouTube, but it’s those who present themselves creatively.

It can be the same in a B2B world. It is not easy to go from being a “non-brand name” to a well-known company, but like the American Idol contestants a little creativity can make you stand out. I read an article about a company who wasn’t well known, but who successfully got attention and generated 190 leads with their first ever direct mail campaign.

Just like other companies, Truition, Inc. was looking for a way to have a great kick off for Q4. Their challenge was to get prospect’s attention, build trust and generate quality leads. They chose direct mail as their marketing method, but what they did differently was, instead of pushing a sales message, they created an industry report written by experts for their targeted audience to download for free.

The other creative part was the way they sent the direct mail piece. They used envelopes that simply said “DO NOT BEND” and “Inside: Your 2008 eCommerce Guide Brief for Brand Manufacturers”. The result? It passed the gatekeeper because it looked like the prospects ordered them and so it landed on their desk! Truition, Inc.’s ROI was more than 200% with a response rate of 1.98%, which is an unbelievable number (a 1% response rate is considered good).

We have been repeatedly saying that the key to a successful direct mail campaign is to really understand the audience. For example, creating content that is relevant, and having a compelling offer and good call-to-action. Personalized mailing works because it’s about tailoring the messages and offers to the individual. So enjoy this season of American Idol and let’s get inspired by those who are creative and talented!

San Jose Mercury News columnist Chris O'Brien wrote a great article about why we love our printed materials and why the predictions of the paperless office will likely never be realized.

O'Brien spoke with an executive from a well-known manufacturer who gave some great reasons we continue to love our printed documents:

• The amount of items being printed continues to grow at a rate of 4-5% annualy since the early 1990's. Behavioral and ethnographic research shows no shift in our attachment to printed material.
  
• The executive told O'Brien, "That need is a pervasive human need that will stand the test of time. From the caveman to today, there is a need that will always be there. We like something and we want to share it in a very personable way, and printing it is still the way to do that."
• We do print a smaller percentage of "stuff" that we have, but what's changed is that we have so much more of it that the lower percentage still translates into an increase of printed material. Consider the following:

*Snapfish has 10 billion photos stored on it

* Facebook has 2.5 billion new photos uploaded every month

* Though many people now check their bills, bank statements, etc. online, a
huge percentage of people are printing them out rather than waiting
for them to come in the mail.

O'Brien writes about three distinct categories into which most printed documents fall. These are:

• Documentation: Many official agencies require printed versions of documents, from legal filings to mortgage agreements.
• Comprehension: It is often easier to carefully peruse a hard copy document and absorb the nuances and meaning than to do so online. For long documents it is often awkward and hard on the eyes to read from a computer screen.
• Cherishing: This comes from a central emotional need to touch something, like a photo, rather than seeing it onscreen. I don't know about you but I still print out important photos and put them in an album. It's often easier to share with others this way.
  

So the bottom line is that the technological advances make sharing information so much easier but the printed document will always have a place in our personal and professional lives.

For more information on RISO's great digital duplicators and full-color, high-speed inkjet printers, visit us here.

Before you spend more money on advertising why don’t you look at the existing mailing that you do every month? You can usually find advertising space in your monthly statements, invoices, and bills. It’s called “TransPromo”. By now you might be familiar with this word; it’s the blending of transactional and promotional messages, meaning adding promotional marketing messages to your transactional documents such as invoices, bills, and statements.

You might be surprised to see a recent study done by UK mailing systems. The study shows that companies are missing € 2.8 billion worth of free advertising by simply not using the space on invoices and statements. That’s a lot of money to waste. The concept also applies to social media marketing, where transpromo can be a cost effective way to start marketing and communicating with people.

Various studies show that transactional documents are more likely to be opened by readers. In fact, some studies even report open rates as high as 90%. More over, once they are opened, they are proven to get longer attention (ranging from one to three minutes) by readers. UK Royal Mail shows that twenty percent of them spend more than five minutes viewing these documents.

You might wonder whether people are shifting toward online statements, but surprisingly when it comes to statements, people prefer to receive them on paper. This provides a great place for this marketing method to grow. In fact, Infotrends forecasted that transpromo full color digital output will see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 68% from 2007 to 2012.

So why not start exploring the possibilities with your existing documents?

Learn about VDP & Transpromo Printing.

In-plant Graphics posted a story the other day about a judges' yearbook that had been sent to a prison in-plant for printing. The yearbook listed the names and phone numbers of the judges - obviously information you wouldn't want in the prison population! All hard and electronic copies have reportedly been destroyed and security measures tightened up. Though a prison in-plant is a great way for rehabilitating people to learn skills they can use once they are out of prison, someone needed to think a little more clearly about the jobs they were sending there.

This got me thinking about security and some of the great features built in to RISO's ComColor full-color inkjet printers, like:

• User Management: System administrators can set up to 300 registered users. Restrictions can be set as to which functions (copying, scanning, printing) each user can access.
• PIN Codes: Confidential documents can be assigned an eight-digit pin code when being sent to the printer to ensure that unauthorized personnel don't see it.
• IC Card Authentication Kit: This optional kit offer PIN-less access to the device via an encoded card. It also allows administrators to set maximum monthly copy limits to individual users.

Be sure to think about whose eyes are looking at your sensitive documents!