Casey Printing looks to the future with CMS

The bromide, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going,” may be old, but
it fits nicely for what VMA members anticipate for the new year. To assess tactics for the New Year from our different member segments, Connected talked to the heads of design firm Belding Associates, LLC, San Francisco; printer Casey Printing, King City; and publisher String Letter Publishing, San Anselmo. Patrick Belding, Rich Casey, and David Lusterman were kind enough to share thoughts, insights and strategies. All three acknowledge that the current economy has presented challenges but each one plans to grow their businesses by evolving into appropriate new services using the latest technologies.

What do you anticipate for 2011?

A: “Volatility in the business community and more specialists needed in our workforce for a wide variety of deliverables from mobility, web, social media and other unknown areas,” says Patrick Belding. He explains that skill sets in the web design and programming world are becoming areas of individual expertise. As an example, Flash designers are now specialists. “Five years ago, anyone who could write HTML and do a little programming could handle a website. Today you need people who can create animation, program the back end and databases, and more graphically inclined people who can create the front end design,” he says. Rich Casey says, “We’re excited about the future of our industry. We see a slight improvement in the business climate and an overall rebound in marketing emphasis.” David Lusterman sees this year as one of continued development using the latest mobile technologies.

What technology do you find most interesting?

A: “Mobile publishing in tablet form is the most interesting technology to publishers these days,” says Lusterman. “We have five iPads in the office right now to ‘play’ with. We also have a mobile challenge team of eight people to come up with a mobile strategy for the Acoustic Guitar brand. We’re planning to release something in the spring.” Variable data and launching campaigns using print and pURLs are the technologies that have intrigued Casey. “These can be tied into almost anything,” he says. “We’ve dabbled a bit in the past in limited ways but now we’re ready to take a more serious approach,” he says. For Belding, the most interesting technology is “everything cloud based.” “If we are less dependent on our own servers, workstations and software purchases, upgrades and maintenance, it allows for more mobility, scalability and less infrastructure set up costs,” he says. For example, Belding says they are now using Google Apps for collaborative work with clients and that has enabled him to avoid installing another server. He notes that while cloud computing does involve a monthly financial outlay; it also offers the flexibility to vary the number of users depending on workloads.

What is the greatest challenge to your business?

A: “Like most businesses in this economy, our greatest challenge is to build revenues, but not at the risk of denigrating profits,” Casey says. “Commercial printing has always been a very competitive business, but the last couple of years have been brutal. One of the ways we are looking to improve the bottom line is to offer our customers value-added solutions that are based on helping them succeed, and not on who has the cheapest price for a print project.” Both Lusterman and Belding cite business growth, attracting and keeping good employees as their greatest challenges. As Lusterman points out, there’s no question but that the magazine publishing business is in a state of flux. “Young people don’t necessarily see the value in our kind of business,” he says. “They are attracted to things purely digital. They consider print publications as legacy media.” His ideal employee is someone “who has their feet in both worlds,” that is someone who can value magazines in a tangible form as much as a website. Since Belding’s work these days is roughly 5 percent print projects and 60 percent digital work like websites and the remaining work some form of electronic communications, he doesn’t have to defend legacy media. However, he does have to keep his creative specialists engaged and happy. “I have to be the gatekeeper for stress,” he notes.

Marketing Services Manager - Jasper Casey

What is going to be the most fun in 2011? What changes, if any, are you going to make to your business?

A: All three execs wove what they believe will be fun into the new products and services they plan for 2011. Belding says, “Producing more video and more multimedia deliverables and making many of our projects into programs where we and our clients can reap the many benefits of putting processes in place for the best overall results.” He explains that videos are often excellent replacements for case studies in a folder that are soon outdated. He also believes that costly studio set ups are no longer necessary. “It’s OK to shoot things with a Flip camera and have well designed front end graphics,” he says. “It adds a personal touch. We’re seeing companies in the Fortune 50 embracing it.” As an example, Belding tells how his company shot Cisco engineers in a space museum. The engineers were talking about themselves and future technology in a visually interesting setting of what was once future technology.

At Casey, the focus is marketing. The company has just launched a new division, Casey Marketing Services, and hired Jasper Casey, a recent Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Graphic Communications graduate to run it. And yes, keeping with the family’s business tradition, he is Rich Casey’s nephew and son of partner Bill Casey. “We will continue to invest in technologies and processes that enable us to help out customers be successful and reach their marketing goals,” Rich Casey says. “In addition to pURLs, we’re looking into doing more with mobile and QR codes. It seems the younger generations use their mobile phones for everything from getting pizza to getting directions. We can help our customers reach them.”

“I knew that finding that penny, heads up, in a grocery store, would lead to some good luck,” Stephanie Anderson chuckled. She was discussing the big savings in distribution costs she realized on the recent mailing of her publication, Ropers Sports News. The “good luck” she referred to was having Casey Printing help manage her distribution.

Stephanie, General Manager of the publication, had been searching for a way to trim costs, while still providing a very timely publication to her subscribers. Ropers Sports News, the highly respected periodical of the team roping world since 1968, uses a variety of methods to get their much sought after newspaper into the hands of eager readers locally, nationally and even internationally, as quickly as possible. These methods include First Class and Periodical Mail, and UPS.

With frequent increases in postage, Stephanie looked to Casey for a solution. While she insisted on the importance of timely delivery, she could not afford the luxury of high postage costs. The Casey team put their heads together, did some research (including analysis of the most current mailing regulations and several calls to the Mailing Requirements department of the US Post Office) and determined that Ropers Sports News could utilize the more cost effective Periodical Mail rate and eliminate the more expensive First Class Mail and the UPS shipments. In addition to that, the publication tightened their advertising deadlines, and with the help of Casey’s quick turn-around time in the production cycle, subscribers still receive their papers in a very timely manner.

“Stoked” is the expression Stephanie used when describing how she felt about the overall print quality of her publication, and the cost savings in distribution. She concluded, “if we keep the quality high, and the costs as low as possible, we give our readers more bang for their buck, and that’s what its all about!”.

Paper - The Green Choice

Not Using Paper Will NOT Save Trees

What do you say when confronted by someone convinced that online billing statements will save the environment from the damage done by the traditional paper statements we send through the mail?

We as consumers can challenge some of the inaccurate statements that are being represented as fact.

Statement: Register Online and Save Trees
You make choices all the time. Here’s an easy one with a big impact. Make a statement by registering for e-statements. When you do, you’ll help the environment by saving trees. What’s in it for you? You’ll have access to up-to-date account information online, receive monthly statement e-mail reminders, and save postage by making your payments online.

Response: Not Using Paper Will Not Save Trees

The fact is, by using paper, you will be encouraging the growth of forests. More trees will be planted and harvested to provide renewable and reusable paper. Once you hit the send button on your PC and “burned the electrons” to send this email to me, the environment will be forever marked by the emissions from the power plants needed to produce the electrons to power the internet, not to mention the landfills that will eventually hold hardware and other e-waste — as seen on 60 Minutes.

Paper on the other hand is made from trees. Trees can be planted and harvested in a never ending cycle that enhances the earth, creates a natural sink for the carbon dioxide generated to provide electronic communications and serves as a true sustainable economic engine across the world.

I am not advocating that we cease electronic messages. We have also moved many of our processes on-line to increase efficiencies, but we are under no illusion that our electronic process is somehow better for the environment than using paper. Not using paper will not save trees or the environment. In actuality, it will force family forest owners and other private landowners to use their land in other ways to generate income, which in many cases means permanently harvesting the trees with no plans to replant.

The point is - think critically, and make your own decisions regarding what is truly a “Greener” choice. Please, PRINT this message and share it with others. You will be protecting forestlands.

“Well I guess this digital thing isn’t just a trend,” I overheard “Fred” say as I walked the floor of Graph Expo last week in Chicago. For those who don’t know, Graph Expo is the biggest annual Print and Graphic Communication trade show in North America. For “Fred” and other career printers like him, this year’s expo must have been a total cultural shock. Certainly, the past two years have not been easy on the printing industry. However, what was glaringly obvious is that out of that struggle has emerged a bright new digital future for the industry.

Two years ago when I attended Graph Expo, the buzz at the show revolved around the Heidelberg booth. Heidelberg was showcasing the advances they had made in automated production and featured the biggest, fastest, loudest, and shiniest “heavy iron” on the trade show floor (or so it seemed to me). This year, Heidelberg did not attend Graph Expo. Instead, Hewlett Packard (HP) occupied their normal marquee place at the entrance to Graph Expo.

Digital Printing is the brave new world of the printing industry. It reflects not only a change in print production, but on a greater level a profound change in the print market itself. As the Internet continues to become more accessible, personalized, and relevant we are seeing those same themes become reflected in marketing and media as a whole. Digital Print has made possible the focused, localized, and personal print marketing campaign. The point is, print is not dead, it is adapting and becoming more sophisticated.

In addition to the wide array of digital presses being showcased were a number of software vendors demonstrating powerful tools to help facilitate print into a cross-media marketing campaign. As more and more printers adjust their position to become a full-service marketing service provider (MSP), this type of software becomes a tremendously valuable tool. Programs like XM Pie and MindFire will help allow the MSP to intelligently target specific markets and consumer groups, create segmented interactive print and online marketing collateral, and give powerful feedback and analysis with which to make intelligent adjustments to a specific campaign. While programs like Constant Contact have applied these capabilities to the realm of Email marketing for quite some time, these other programs allow and MSP to manage ALL parts of a marketing campaign including Email, Social Media, interactive print, and direct mail.

View from the floor

With the focus of the print industry turning to the realm of marketing services, a new sales model needs to take shape. A printer or MSP can not expect to win over customers simply by promoting the equipment or capabilities they have. After all, nobody buys print simply for the purpose of having print-there is a specific purpose in mind. Instead, sales staff must gain a better appreciation of their customer’s perspective and purpose in order to help them realize their end strategy. The MSP needs to be more than a supplier; it needs to be a partner. By learning to ask the right questions, and actively seeking to help a customer reach their marketing goals, this position can be filled. A printer or MSP that can help shape a customers marketing strategy and be seen as an expert resource will be one that will realize long-term success, not only for themselves but for there customers as well.

My days at Graph Expo were an interesting study in contrast of the divide taking shape in the print industry. On one side were the old guard; industry veterans (most of whom dressed “to the nines”) clumped together around the “iron” vendors seemingly disturbed by the changes going on around them. There was even a dedicated area of the trade show for Newsprint, which seemed to be less of a showcase for emerging newspaper technology as much as a traditionalist stand against change. On the flip side were the people like myself; young, technology-minded, huddled around the digital equipment and software vendors. These examples are of course gross overgeneralizations, however they bring up an important point. In order to survive, the old dogs need to be willing to learn new tricks. I understand that this is not an easy thing to say or do, but it is necessary nonetheless. Print, as part of the greater communications industry, is still an enormously lucrative and healthy industry. It just looks a lot different than it did only a short time ago.

Corinne Van Buschbach of Lucia Mar School District is exceptionally please with the quality of service from Casey Printing.

Margaret Hennessy - Solstice Magazine

Margaret Hennessy of Solstice Magazine loves Casey Printing’s commitment to sustainable business practices

Twenty Tweetable Facts about Magazines (Magazine Publishers of America)

Magazines - The Power of Print (Hearst Corp.)

Connect with Casey Printing on Facebook to see more interesting videos, articles, and posts

Kelly Violini, Monterey County Fair CEO

Liz MacDonald, CSUMB

View Video: The Power of Print

Everyone tells me that print is a dying industry. Print can’t possibly survive when stacked up against the internet right? WRONG! Consider this; radio, television, beta-max, vhs, personal computers, cds, and dvds were all touted as industry killing technologies. Yet, print is still here. The Printing Industry is just one piece of the Graphic Communications pie. Print is a dynamic and forever evolving form of media that still holds a relevant place in any communications or marketing strategy.

The magazine industry was one sector that was supposed to abandon print in favor of online delivery. So what has happened? Consider the facts:

1. Magazine readership has grown over the past five years. (Source: MRI)
2. Average paid subscriptions reached nearly 300 million in 2009. (Source: MPA estimates based on ABC first and second half 2009 data)
3. 4 out of 5 adults read magazines. (Source: MRI)
   Magazines deliver more ad impressions than TV or Web in half-hour period. (Source: McPheters & Company)
4. Magazine readership in the 18 to 34 segment is growing. (Source: MRI)
5. Since Facebook was founded, magazines gained more than one million young adult readers. (Source: MRI)
6. The average reader spends 43 minutes reading each issue. (Source: MRI)
7. Magazines are the No. 1 medium of engagement – across all dimensions measured. Simmons’
8. Multi-Media Engagement Study find magazines continue to score significantly higher than TV or the Internet in ad receptivity and all of the other engagement dimensions, including “trustworthy” and “inspirational.” (Source: Simmons Multi-Media Engagement Study)
9. Magazines and magazine ads garner the most attention: BIGresearch studies show that when consumers read magazines they are much less likely to engage with other media or to take part in non-media activities compared to the users of TV, radio or the Internet. (Source: BIGresearch Simultaneous Media Usage Study)
10. Magazines outperform other media in driving positive shifts in purchase consideration/intent. (Source: Dynamic Logic)
11. Magazines rank No. 1 at influencing consumers to start a search online – higher than newer media options.(Source: BIGresearch Simultaneous Media Usage Study)

Let the record show, print is definitely NOT being killed by the internet. You can even argue that some areas of print are thriving thanks in part to the internet. Truth be told, print and digital are not competing forms of media…they are complementary. The best way to communicate any message is an all inclusive-cross media approach. Talk to the experts at Casey Printing to learn more.

Source Material: The Power of Print

Casey Digital Edition opens up a whole new world of readers and advertisers, multiplying the power of print and expanding the reach of your brand. It provides response opportunities, that when coupled with print and mail’s push marketing dynamics, are an unbeatable combination.

For a demo & more information, visit:
www.caseydigitaledition.com

In August, 2008 Casey Printing became the first business in southern Monterey County to be certified “Green” by the Monterey Bay Area Green Business program. As a part of this certification, program auditors followed a strict set of criteria, closely examining all production and business practices.

On February 23, 2010, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, in a special presentation at County Government Center, recognized certified members of the Green Business Program for their ongoing efforts to operate in an environmentally responsible manner. Chairman of the Board, Supervisor Simon Salinas, said this about the occasion: “The Board of Supervisors is proud of the voluntary nature of this program. We are happy to see that Casey Printing is committed to both sustainability and profitability. They are a great example of the kind of green business our county wants and needs.”

Richard Casey and Erinn Pozzi of Casey Printing, receive congratulations from supervisor Simon Salinas (far right) for Casey Printing’s ongoing efforts to operate in an environmentally responsible manner.