Printers used to be a place you went to after you had done all the thinking around “what” you were trying to communicate and “how” you were going to communicate it. For example, if you were tasked with promoting a new service offering and you decided to execute a direct mail campaign. You engaged your printer at the point you needed ink/toner on paper for the direct mail piece.

Today our communication options have broadened, you have more choices on how you communicate and there are many ways to combine communication methods to increase their effectiveness. You still need to clearly define the “what” – that’s your communication message, typically falling into the categories of education, compliance, promotion, or information. Depending on your communication objective, the communication methods selected will vary.

Once you’ve defined your objectives (the “what” and “why”) – engage your printer at this point to determine the “how.” Print is but one possible communication method, obviously online communication is a growing option that continues to offer more and more diverse methods of getting your point across. Effective communication typically includes a cross functional approach – the utilization of several communication methods, ideally tied together in a coordinated campaign.

Navigating a cross functional approach can be overwhelming, DocuStar a Cincinnati based Digital Printing and Marketing Services understands all the options for communicating both offline and online. One of the keys to controlling the chaos of a cross-functional campaign is a single HUB for launching, tracking, and monitoring your project. Technology enables us to communicate in more ways today than ever before. Control of all these channels requires a platform approach to management - DocuStar’s MarketHUB+ puts you in control over the entire program, decreasing your level of effort and allowing you to do more with less time and people.