May 26, 2009

Investment in digital marketing services scores $2.5 million in new contracts Transcontinental shifts focus to providing non-traditional marketing opportunities for clients

Transcontinental Printing has just signed about $2.5 million in new marketing contracts, thanks to years of investing in and gaining experience in the world of print to web and email marketing.

“We’ve been a strong printing and publishing company for years,” says Nicky Milner, Vice President of Premedia at Transcontinental. “But we recognized that in order to really help our customers reach their business goals we needed a stronger focus on non-traditional services. We were already strong in the creative sector but lacked channels.”

The company solved that problem with the acquisition of ThinData and Conversys in January 2009 and has since reorganized their sectors to facilitate the growth of marketing communication services. Transcontinental can now offer its clients a complete suite of services that can better target their marketing needs with database abilities, creative abilities and additional online and email marketing channels.

“No matter what your strategy is, we can help you accomplish it,” says Milner, who sees the process as a holistic view. “It’s not online or print, it’s online and print.”

More companies seeking digital media advice

The response from clients to this new strategy has been overwhelming, with companies like Purolater, the Shopping Channel and Reader’s Digest signing on to leverage new technology and services in order to enhance their marketing efforts.

Although more and more companies are now recognizing the value in cross-channel marketing, Milner says that Transcontinental still finds itself in a teaching role when it comes to digital marketing.

“I’d say that about 60 per cent of the time we are in a teaching role in terms of how businesses can use the digital space to reach their targeted audience. But we don’t force them down one path or another we offer suggestions as to how to combine the different channels for the maximum return on investment.”

Social media tools are offered to some extent in the form of comments, reviews and shared communities but Milner feels that including too much social media, which is mostly user-generated content, in your marketing plans can affect your credibility.

“We find that it’s good for things like ‘email to a friend’ or ‘share this page’ that helps ease the path for the sharing of information. But we don’t push it, we just make it possible.”

The next steps...

The next steps for Transcontinental’s growth strategy include an increased focus on building online analytics capabilities.

“We currently measure everything possible and provide reports,” says Milner, “but we haven’t yet connected the information to modelling to give insight and to predict future campaigns. We want to be able to offer our clients the opportunity to leverage the info we collect into future planning.”