By Pat McGrew, EDP, Kodak

One of the fun things about this business is that many of us believe in the power of print, but we often struggle with how to prove our point. It becomes even tougher when we want to discuss what differences there might be between the perceptions of different print technologies. Response rates relative to costs, for instance, are something many of us have discussed over the years, but with precious little real data.

Our friends at RISO, including Bob Raus, Manager of Field Marketing, are working with the team at InterQuest and decided to jump in to find a few new data points for us to share. Their premise was that the response rate for a direct mail postcard campaign should be independent of the technology (toner versus inkjet in this case) but that the cost of the campaign would be quite different. With that as a brief, the team at InterQuest went to work and designed a campaign to test the premise.

You can read the resulting study here, and I would encourage you to take a look if you work in marketing, advise clients on direct mail campaigns, or offer direct mail services. While not startling, the results tell us something that we were already certain was true—there is no real difference in response rate between color electrophotographic printing and color inkjet printing; what is different is the cost of the print and the cost per response. That cost per response is critical to those of you who are tracking ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment). In the RISO-InterQuest study the results show a 62 percent lower cost per response using the RISO solution!

Some will argue that there are things you can do in offset or in toner that you can’t do in inkjet. This is absolutely true. If you need metallic inks, bright neon colors or you have difficult-to-match brand colors, inkjet may not meet your needs. And there may be campaigns that lend themselves to the use of dimensional coatings, such as those available on the KODAK NEXPRESS Digital Production Presses, to give texture. But, at some point, you may want to look at the cost of the communication against the real response received. For many of the things you create, it may be that inkjet is the most cost-effective solution. Certainly the study from RISO gives a hint of it, and the experiences of Kodak customers around the world spotlight the power of inkjet as well.

If you get a moment, visit the InterQuest website and take a look. And next time you are putting together a campaign, consider how an inkjet print solution might get you what you need at a cost that is more attractive. And, while you are online, come on over to the Kodak website and take a look at our dimensional solutions for EP (click here) and visit this page, where we talk about the power of our PROSPER inkjet print platform. Note that I’ve concentrated on print as the medium of communication. I still believe that print must be in the mix of all customer communication. Relying solely on e-mail and web-based communication shuts out many potential recipients for the message. The best solution will be to make e-delivery and print delivery work together…so let’s talk about that next time!

Pat McGrew, EDP, is the Data-driven Communication Evangelist at Kodak. Her email address is Pat.McGrew@kodak.com, Twitter is PatMcGrew, and blog athttp://patmcgrew.growyourbiz.kodak.com.