Old Trail Printing wins 17 awards for Print Excellence

Old Trail Printing is proud to announce it was recently awarded seventeen (17) 2014 Print Excellence Awards from the Printing Industries of Ohio / N. Kentucky.

Printing Industries Association President, Jim Cunningham stated how impressed this year’s judges were with the overall quality of all of the entries.  “Paul and Glenn are experienced judges and printers whose combined expertise spans more than 75 years of print.  Yet, even they were impressed with our members’ incredible work.  It’s easy in today’s fast paced world to just get the job done, but our Association members continue to demonstrate the pride and dedication to their craft that has made Ohio and northern Kentucky printers some of the best in the world!”

Each year, Printing Industries of Ohio / N. Kentucky holds its Print Excellence Awards Competition to reward Ohio and northern Kentucky printers that demonstrate excellence in 34 categories.  This year member companies submitted over 500 printed pieces and two out-of-state expert judges ranked them in a regional competition.  This year’s judges were Paul Schmitz, Schmitz Printing Inc. and Glenn Petry.

Each of the gold award winners in the regional competition are entered in an association-wide competition for Best of Category and Best of Show prizes that will be awarded in September 2014 at the Grand Ceremony being held in Columbus, Ohio.

Old Trail Printing won the following awards:

            11 Gold Awards

            6 Silver Awards

Founded in 1928 and one of the largest woman owned printers in the Midwest, Old Trail Printing has a rich history of servicing clients across the country. Our combination of offset and digital presses means we have the right equipment to handle a variety of projects. In addition to being recognized as an award winning printer, we have invested in technology tools that enable our customers to streamline their procurement processes, increase efficiencies, reduce waste and gain a higher return on investment with their printed communications. With our comprehensive list of services our customers benefit from using Old Trail as their single source for creative, printing, mailing, fulfillment and more.

Printing Industries of Ohio / N.Kentucky serves nearly 300 commercial printing companies and suppliers to the industry in its service area. The Association provides a broad range of products and services to its membership, including workers’ compensation and product discounts. Printing Industries of Ohio / N.Kentucky is an affiliate of the national Printing Industries of America, the largest graphic arts association in the world. For complete information on Printing Industries of Ohio / N.Kentucky and Printing Industries of America, please visit www.pianko.org.  

Jeff Lampert

Director of Marketing & Business Development

“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”  

 Maya Angelou

Benefiting From Customer Surveys

What could you learn by conducting customer surveys or focus groups more often? The number of doors of opportunity opened by the information gathered from these efforts might surprise you.

As part of its 1-1 marketing effort, the National Hockey League asked fans to register on its website and select their favorite team. One of the things the NHL immediately discovered was that 40% of its fan base lives outside their favorite team’s home market. That means that they can’t regularly attend local games, access highlights or view the games on television.

Imagine the opportunity for the NHL! Say the League identifies Detroit Red Wings fans that live outside of Michigan. If Red Wings games are not available on television outside of Michigan, the League could send these fans an e-mail explaining how they can watch their favorite team on the NHL’s Center Ice, its on-demand broadcasting service.

Reeling Them Back In

There is much you can learn from online survey forms or customer surveys of the type that has been so beneficial to the NHL. But there is much you can learn from surveying your inactive customers, too. Why have these individuals stopped shopping with you? Are they shopping somewhere else? What attracted them to their new supplier? Wouldn’t you want to know?

One of the techniques marketers often use to boost sales is sending special promotions to customers who haven’t purchased with them within a certain time frame. How much more effective would these promotions be if you could target the offer to the very reason the customer stopped shopping with you in the first place?

Say a high percentage of customers cite price as the reason for jumping ship. You could offer them a discount to bring them back on board. Or you could try a longer-term incentive, such as offering to enroll them in a customer loyalty program that would provide discounts and special deals over the lifetime of that relationship.

Find out what your customers think. While 1:1 print personalization, in itself, will boost marketing effectiveness, pairing it with relevance based on a deeper understanding of your customer base can send that effectiveness off the charts.

Jeff Lampert

Director of Marketing & Business Development

People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves, they have the first secret of success. 

Norman Vincent Peale