EPISODE 561
[INTRODUCTION]
[00:00:00] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the future of print, from physical to digital, an XMPie Podcast Conference. XMPie is shaping the future of personalization with its award-winning platform to streamline the communications workflow, and put the customer at the heart of the conversation. Wanting an advanced personalization? Take your direct mail into the digital age, offer more from your packaging services, automate your print ordering. We’ll cover all that and more. We hope you enjoy the show. Now, over to our conference host, the intergalactic ambassador to the Printerverse, Deborah Corn.
[EPISODE]
[00:00:42] DC: Hey, everybody. Welcome to Podcasts from the Printerverse. This is Deborah Corn, your intergalactic ambassador. This is the third of the fourth of the XMPie Podcast Conference. XMPie is a leading provider of software for cross media, variable data one-to-one marketing, they offer solutions to help businesses create, and manage highly effective direct marketing, and cross media campaigns. As I mentioned, this is the third of four podcasts. This conversation is going to focus on packaging and the tremendous opportunity when you think of a box, or a pouch, or even an envelope as a messaging device and an engagement strategy. To provide the intel you need to generate more business with your packaging service and more sticky relationships with your packaging customers, I am happy to welcome Lewis Evans from Vivid Laminating Technologies and our returning champion from XMPie, Dave Baldaro, the Marketing Operations Manager. Welcome, gentlemen.
[00:01:48] DB: Thank you, Deborah. Good to be back.
[00:01:52] LE: Thank you, Deborah. I’m going to enjoy being a guest on this. I look forward to it.
[00:01:56] DC: Excellent. Lewis, as you know, because I was pinging you last night, I was stalking your LinkedIn profile. First, I’d like to thank you for your service through your board position with the Independent Print Industries Association, which is also known as IPIA. I love that organization. It is all about customer centric and letting the print customers know what’s possible in the world. So thank you so much for participating in that. But to fill in some more of the blanks, can you please let everybody know a bit more about you, about Vivid, and most importantly, your technology patents? You are an inventor, sir.
[00:02:33] LE: Of course, Deborah. We are a family-run business, 30 years old. We manufacture finishing systems, whether it’s embellishments for foiling, or in the last few years, extremely popular, our VeloBlade range for digital cutting. We have our own patents on all the products, recently one that I did a pattern, we’ve just won an award for the VeloBlade range. So quite fitting having us on here. I’ve been at the business 18 years after I got expelled from school and fell into the print industry. So yeah, here I am today, not expelled from any schools, and high flying, and feeling good.
[00:03:15] DC: Well, you were the graduate of the School of Sales, as it says on your LinkedIn profile, which I also enjoyed very much, Dave, you were on our first conference podcast, but in case anybody missed that one, can you please share a bit about you and what you do at XMPie?
[00:03:31] DB: Thanks, Deborah. I’m Dave Baldaro. I’m the Marketing Operations Manager here at XMPie. Twenty-three, 24 years within the print industry, 18 years of that, I probably had XMPie running through my blood in one way shape or form. Either selling it, consulting with organizations about it, and now within the marketing team helping to drive the marketing, and the operations, or the demos, and try and advocate just how good XMPie is and where it delivers opportunity for our customers across the globe.
[00:04:03] DC: When you mentioned opportunity these days, and you’re talking about printing, you have to be talking about packaging. That is what the focus of our conversation is today. I mentioned to both of you prior to this podcast that I have a friend named Ira Jackson, and he is the President of Perfect Image in Atlanta, Georgia. He told me something so amazing when he was starting up his packaging business. He went to the marketers, and the advertising agencies, and design professionals, and he said, “The box is the new billboard.” It really stuck with me, because as somebody who is a print buyer, and a creative person, and who’s been around a lot of creative people, that is literally the movie poster of understanding exactly what the opportunity is without even having to say anything else. In a normal course of conversation, my next question would be, “How do I do it?” Not why. He’s already told me the why by just saying, “There is real estate here for you to create connections, and engagement, and messaging.” That’s, as I mentioned, even before he gets into the processes of what really needs to take place, and all the other opportunities, what they are.
He completely looks at this and hooks them on the possibility. The possibility is not just powered by the rate of printing, and finishing equipment, and software. It is also powered by people’s imagination, which is something that he really sparks. But when it comes to software, the name everybody knows is XMPie. Dave, in our first podcast, you and I discussed why customization and personalization is so important from a 30,000-foot view. But let’s really bring it down here and apply it to packaging. So customization is personalization, discuss.
[00:06:05] DB: Absolutely. I think when you’re talking about packaging, you’re absolutely right. I mean, the opportunities are immense, and it’s I think on several fold, because yes, you’re right, packaging is new billboard, absolutely. But in the same way, the economics of packaging, I think has shifted as well. So now you have organizations and companies looking to do short run. They don’t want to buy bulk. They don’t want to have to order hundreds of thousands of pieces. They want short run, they want to go to market quickly, efficiently. You’ve got those two elements to it.
Where we were talking about personalization in the first episode, you’re right, customization is key here. Because if I want to design a package, and let’s – I’m going to use maybe a coffee shop as an example, as we go through here. If I run a coffee shop, I want to be able to brand the products that I’ve got. I run my own coffee ranges and coffee flavors. I want to be able to create packaging for that. I don’t want to have to create hundreds of thousands. I want to do a short run, I want to do it now, I need a quick turnaround. Within this environment, it’s a perfect storm. We have commercial printers that have digital presses. Digital presses are capable of producing high quality packaging print. Then you have the finishing equipment that Lewis will talk about with Vivid, where they’re capable to complete and produce that piece of packaging on demand, in short run. Then you have the creative element to it, and this is where XMPie comes in. Because through the work that we do with Adobe, in fact, we plug in natively into Adobe InDesign.
It means that, as a creative, I can not only create the package, and the look and the field, the package that I need, but I can also customize it. This is what I mean. We talked about personalization, but if I need to create 15 different flavors of a coffee box, typically, a designer would sit and create 15 different versions of that particular piece, because that’s what they would do as a designer. What we’re talking with our customers, we say, “Well, you don’t need to do that. You could actually create one template inside InDesign.” That one template inside InDesign can then act as that as a template to then go through all of the possible variations and permutations of that piece of packaging. So SKU codes can change, barcodes can change, ingredients, copy, logos, flavors, colors. Everything can change, and that’s driven in this particular case, by data. Not by personalized data, but by data which has been used to customize the piece.
As a designer, I now have one template on the back of it, and that one template can then be used to create any number of permutations. I think that is incredibly powerful. When organizations look at, “Okay. How do I get myself into this market? How do I position myself above everyone else?” I think that’s the real opportunity.
[00:08:48] DC: Yeah. I mean, it’s a complete differentiation for a marketing agency, a creative person to go to their customers and say, “We don’t have to do it this way. We can do it so much better, and way more creative.” You mentioned something that is so important right now, especially as the supply chain is still writing itself and causing delays. Speed to market, a number one concern of any print customers I speak to, and even in some cases, that will influence their choices of substrates. I have preferred substrates not this week, because I need to get it out. Lewis, let’s bring you into the conversation and talk about speed to market.
[00:09:32] LE: So yeah, speed to market is a good one and Dave, you just said there about supply and demand. I’ll give you a good example of Vivid and XMPie working together recently, only two weeks ago. How quickly you can produce this with our technology and XMPie? We decided to put an event on with a manufacturer, a digital print manufacturer working with XMPie. We had a very tight deadline to turn this event around. We packed the [inaudible 00:10:00] European showroom with more people. We have around two weeks to prepare. So we got XMPie involved.
On that day, we introduced a new scratch card foil technology, you can do on our matrix digital foiling systems, or with variable data produced sing XMPie’s technology, finished on our VeloBlade, auto sheet-fed digital cutting system. Everybody that came to that event, we turn this around them. Like you said then, Deb, speed to market. While I’m mentioning this, it just popped into my head. We turned this around. We had the names of the attendees on Friday, the event was on the Monday or the Tuesday. When they arrived, everything was printed, ready, they were watching it all be done, all their name on personalized, it all made them release them endorphins, because that’s what it does when you see some finesse quality, feels nice, looks nice. It’s got your name on it, you feel important. That is the value. Everybody had that, and everyone had a chance to scratch off the foil and see if they won the World Cup Soccer Ball, it’s on next month.
[00:11:01] DC: Thank you for interpreting for the Americans.
[00:11:03] LE: Yeah, I’m on it today. I’m on it today, not with the football, soccer. We produced that on the day, and the day went fantastically. It’s one of the best events I’ve done for a turnaround and how smooth it was. The samples were amazing. They were embellished, they were personalized, they were – what you said about customization is personalization. They were exactly that. Everyone’s names on them. They were interacting them, scratching them off to see if they’ve worn with their name on. It had everything on it. It really showed the full end-to-end process, and that’s where it’s at. That is within such short turnaround.
[00:11:41] DB: I think what was interesting in that particular piece, we’re talking about speed to market. I think this is – going back to our first episode, Deborah, when we when we spoke about the importance of printers to understand the capabilities. This is where we’re helping certainly with the IPIA and other events. This is where we’re trying to educate and show organizations what is possible. They need to take that back out. They need to understand. Put yourself in the situation. Now, I’m using the example here, the guy that owns the coffee shop. Well, yeah, I want speed to market, I want to be able to put a Christmas range on my coffee on, not within three to six months. I want to do it within a week, two weeks, because that’s my turnaround. I don’t have a marketing team. I don’t have a marketing budget. I need quick turnaround.
I think what we’re doing here is putting this ability saying, “Look, you can physically produce these things.” The print capability is there, the finishing equipment is there. It’s easy to do this. What it’s also easy to do is to take this, and make it easy for the customer. Bob in the coffee shop. Actually, he can log on to a customer portal, his own marketing portal, he could choose which flavor box he wants to have produced. He can customize that box in look, feel, text, whatever it may be. He can then put that order in for 10, 50, 100 boxes straightaway. So that, the speed to market and the opportunity for printers to put that in place I think is huge.
[BREAK]
[00:13:05] DC: Print Media Centr provides printspiration and resources to our vast network of print and marketing professionals. Whether you are an industry supplier, print service provider, print customer, or consultant, we have you covered with topical sales, and marketing content, event support, and coverage, these podcasts, and an array of community lifting initiatives. We also work with printers, suppliers, and industry organizations, helping them to create meaningful relationships with customers and achieve success with their sales, social media, and content marketing endeavors. Visit printmediacentr.com, and connect with the Printerverse. Print long and prosper.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUES]
[00:13:50] DC: I agree completely, I just want to bring this down a little more. Just so I’m saying this for – because I need to say it. Coffee is a food product, so there are a different set of rules, and food barriers that are required in some cases, unless it’s in a bag going into a box or something like that. It’s a great example, but it’s not necessarily an example that everybody can achieve. However, the example that Lewis just gave is exactly where I believe these opportunities are. They’re with people who are not understanding that the box is the new billboard, that it’s a messaging device, and it’s a communications device, that it’s an engagement technique. It’s a way for customer loyalty and customer retention. Some people have even said, if you think about it, you go somewhere and you choose to bring something into your house. That’s a big thing. You’ve already made that decision that you want it.
Now, is it just sitting there or is it communicating with me? Is it leading me somewhere else? Is it enabling the company to market to me in different ways by being predictive. For example, if it’s something that has a certain amount of use to it, then they know in three months, I might need some more. So where is the marketing? Lewis, I’d really like to ask you, how are your customers creating packaging? What are the practical applications that they’re doing in small runs?
[00:15:27] LE: We have massive range of customers doing a whole world of different applications, and even more so other digital die cutting. Because from personalized runs of one upwards, anything you can create really in your mind, you can probably put that into a design very easily, personalize it using XMPie, and turn something even if it’s pop-up books for children, educational. I’m a massive believer in a lot of people – well, how do I word this? People will say, “Don’t call digital technology and don’t say print complements it and whatever.” It does, but sometimes, bollocks to that, we got to say that email compared to receiving something personalized through the post does not stand a chance when you compare to the emotional connection that somebody has something that’s personalized.
Back to your question, pop-up books for children, it’s far more effective than holding something interacting with it, reading it releases to feel good feelings, the digital screen does not do that, fact. Then you move on to luxury packaging. Then, the experience when you open the box, the billboards on the front, what’s inside. When you open the box, you’ve got then fabric, and foam, and soft materials that you can really, really make somebody want to keep that box and use it for something else for another year. That’s sort of where the value really is. Then, you’ve got greetings cards, lots of different things, what you can imagine, really. So many that we’ve done over the time. I mean, we’ve sold probably around 300 units in the UK last couple of years, then into all sorts of weird and wonderful places. So yeah.
Going on then, from the greeting cards and the pop-up books for children. You can then look at occasional things, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, birthdays, where you can cut out bespoke jigsaws. We’ve got Christmas coming up, you can make advent calendars on them, incorporate that inside of a nice box, whether then build a jigsaw or whatever it could be using XMPie. A personalized image of your father, with his kids made into a jigsaw, all cut out, and finished, personalized, and you could have a QR code link that’s linked onto that jigsaw that sends him to his gift or his voucher, then that’s online, that is interacting with the present. It’s also then you’ve got that QR code link as well. Advent Calendars, you name it, lots of things incorporated with the online world for occasional is huge.
[00:17:56] DC: Well, it’s good to give people ideas about where they can start using this. Dave, you and I discussed in a previous podcast that it seems odd to me as a print customer that printers are adding so much more value to this communication that is happening through printed materials. But yet. they position it as – and it costs less money instead of really stressing that it’s going to be better for your business to do this. Therefore, if you get five more customers, why are we discussing that it should be less money? We certainly see if you go to any store, anything that’s going to be a high-end item is going to be in a fancy, fancy packaging. Even Apple boxes, which really are just white boxes. They’re not. Once there’s magnets, you open up, and there’s different compartments.
[00:18:50] DB: An experience.
[00:18:51] DC: Exactly. It’s an experience. How do we get out of that pricing conversation and really focus on the value? I mean, Lewis’ business is exploding because everybody understands that there’s a real opportunity here. I don’t want them to squander it away with price conversations.
[00:19:10] DB: Yeah. I mean, the value piece, the worst place you can be is talking about the price for something, and it’s dangerous. You’ve got to be looking at the value, and to understand the value, you have to understand what’s capable and what’s possible. I think there’s a perfect storm that’s hit us, and the best thing that came out of COVID was the fact that everyone now knows what a QR code is. I’ve been talking about QR codes for almost 15 years. People have avoided it for various reasons, but COVID came up with something good, and that was the fact that everyone now knows what a QR code is. That combined with packaging, and what you can now do with packaging. So yeah, the packaging is the billboard. I can make the package look good. I can make it an experience to open and behold in my hands. I can make it quick to go to market so it has a huge value to that. Add to that, that I can now turn it into an experience and turn it into a way to actually engage with my customer. That adds even more value.
We’re just like lightyears ahead, and sometimes, we got to start small, and we got to grow, but the capability is there. It’s now incredibly easy. I can create my box. I’m selling hundreds of thousands of these boxes – let’s say, thousands of these boxes in store, okay. Let’s say, I want to know who is buying them, I need to engage with them. If I’m selling that through a bricks and mortar retailer, I don’t know. I know how many I’ve sold, but I have absolutely no idea where they’ve gone to.
By putting a QR code, or even embedding it into an NFC chip inside the box, or allowing my customer interact with it, then I can bring them into an environment, into an experience. But that experience could allow them to give me data. This is who I am, this is what I purchased. And you know what, I know what you’ve purchased, because the QR code I put on the side that box was a generic QR code. So it knows what variation of that particular product you picked up and you purchased. So now, Deborah, I know which particular product you purchased. Now, you’ve just given me your name, and your details, and your information. I can now associate with that, and now I can talk to you as a consumer. Deborah, thanks for buying this particular product. You know what, because you did that, I got another flavor, another product coming in store next week. Here’s the offer for 10% coupon for you to come back in store and redeem it. So now I know who you are, I know what you purchased, I can talk to you as a consumer, I can offer you incentives, cross sell, upsell, and I can get you back into my store, and we can start having that relationship. That is huge.
[BREAK]
[00:21:40] ANNOUNCER: You’re listening to the future of print from physical to digital, produced by XMPie, the personalization platform that powers the print industry. Turn your package into a powerful marketing tool, add a trigger to create a follow-on digital brand consume dialogue. Connect your packaging to dynamic landing sites, emails, and personalized videos to add a high-value omni channel dimension to your business offering in this traditionally print-only field. Learn how at xmpie.com.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUES]
[00:22:13] DC: So in the scheme of things, one of the issues is that we really do need to get the end users, the designers to understand all the possibilities. Packaging is an interesting thing. I know that back in my agency days before there was any type of proofing, prototyping, really that didn’t cost like $8,000 to get one of something. When we did get that one, we saw that the eye of the person was in the crease of the box. And another flap, the image was upside down because you look at it flat. Until it folds, you don’t really understand what is going on. Now, Lewis, I was on your site and you have Zip Core technology. I really would like you to mention that. Then Dave, if you can tie in how this as an ecosystem works to help printers, again with speed to market is what I see here. Lewis?
[00:23:09] LE: Yes, Zip Core technology is a design suite that we realized that would add massive benefits to our VeloBlade range, so you can produce one upwards completely personalized after sheet can be personalized. But when you link it with Zip Core, you can create the design, a 3D view, sent to the customer. They can look at it for 10 seconds, turning around. They can change their logo from there to there, so you’re not wasting. There’s no made ready, like you’re saying there with the high cost of minimum quantities. They can sign off that artwork, and then you can then have one produced that you like. Lots of customers behind, corporate clients will use it that way. Produced one, to 12, to 15 to hand around in a boardroom produced with Zip Core on the VeloBlade, and then they’ll sign off that 200,000 run.
[00:23:15] DC: Just Dave, before you comment. Lewis, are there standard sizes of packaging that everybody should start off with before they decide that they want to make something very bespoke.
[00:24:08] LE: So your standard boxes and standard sizes that there is a few that hold, say sweets, and then you’ve got, say, CBD oils, and CBD boxes, and things for vape, and things, or candles, and things like that. The smaller B3 models will do that beautifully. But if you want to start doing some larger work, and some oversized jewelry boxes, and some watch boxes, and look for luxury, then the B2 is better size, and then you can move up into the B1. We know a lot of the digital presses now can sometimes print up to 1000 millimeters in length, which the B1 size will give you that. Roll on sheet-fed as well. The opportunities are endless.
[00:24:47] DB: Just coming back to the Zip Core conversation. I think what’s now possible is there’s two sides of this conversation. One which is the getting to market, and the design process, and the approval process, and sign off. I think that Zip Core within that it’s fantastic. When you then take that, and what the output from that process gives you is essentially the format that you need to work to. You can then bring that into a design, you can take that design, you can put it onto an ecommerce system like XMPie. That then allows you to navigate through, select the boxes, select the elements that you want, customize it, and then also 3D preview it. Essentially, my customer can come on, look at their box, customize the artwork in the box, and let you say, sometimes. the eye is right over the crease, or because I can upload my customized live, and potentially personalized, I can then see the 3D preview with my artwork in real time on the system before I place the order. That again is huge for driving that productivity, and driving that speed to market. I haven’t got to sit for two weeks cycles. Send it in, have it, then I prototype, sent it back, have a look in my hands, look at it. I can do all this online and I can get to the market quickly.
[00:26:03] DC: I also think that digital embellishments have really changed the game here too. I mean, we used to send out for dyes. It would take a long time, and we would do tests, and it wasn’t deep enough. Then we if you deal with enough creative people, you hear the craziest comments about anything including embossing. “It’s not deep enough. It’s not high enough” and it’s like, well, we had to go to copper dyes, which got very expensive. When it comes to the fact that you can also use variable data on digital finishing, does that get too complicated for designers, or is it part of the same artwork file? I guess is what I’m asking.
[00:26:48] DB: I think you’re right. I think where you look at the design element to this, then – because we’re embedded inside Adobe, and specifically in this case, inside Adobe InDesign. As an artwork, I have complete control. Again, because it’s InDesign, if I want to work on an embellishment, and I want to use a fifth color, or a spot color, maybe a UV coat, or a gold, metallic, or whatever it may be, I can incorporate that within my design. Because XMPie is natively built into InDesign, if I want to drop personalization into that layer, I can do. So if I want to dry boxes with fluorescent colors, with variable data driven within that, that fresh with a UV spot color over the top of the variability, you can do. It can go to a very high end. And yet, sometimes that takes some time, and there is a cycle that needs to go through. Sometimes we need to understand what can be done.
The combination of XMPie, the press capability, the production capability with Lewis and Vivid, and the capability that that provides, it’s all at our fingertips. Those huge amounts of untapped – Lewis has reamed off loads of potential opportunities. It’s a wash of things that you can do. If you haven’t looked at what can be done, just dip your toe, and you start to see that this is an ocean of opportunity, and all the technology, all the equipment is there waiting to be used.
[00:28:19] LE: Totally agree with Dave there. I say, some of us, the print geeks of the world. Hopefully, there’s a few people that will be listening to this podcast. Not calling you geeks, I’m sure you’re very cool people. But sometimes for me, I’ll be walking around shopping, and I’ve walked past the window, and I see boxes, packaging, nick ideas from Burberry storefront window, and take them back and use them as our own samples. Sorry to Burberry for that. Don’t sue me.
Then, we would also, yeah, get ideas from here, there, and everywhere just from when you walking about in everyday life. Then you can just turn it using Zip Core and XMPie into artwork from an idea. We even have a gold and silver embellishments section on Zip Core, so you can see how it’s going to look foiled before you even press print. Just like the event we did there at the European headquarters of Xerox the other week. We were printing artwork signing off the Vex Empire deals on a Friday, produced a whole lot by the Monday. When we say supply, demand, and speed to market, this can be done with what we’re talking about today. This technology, super-fast, like same day fast if you are set up to do it.
[00:29:28] DB: I think the great thing here is that the cost isn’t huge either. In order to get into this, to look at packaging. Yes, we’re talking about packaging, but Lewis has given us a huge amount of variety of products that aren’t a box, or aren’t a carton, no cards, books, jigs, the whole raft of things. To get into this, it doesn’t inquire hundreds of thousands worth or one hundred thousand of dollars’ worth of investment. Getting involved in this and getting understanding what can be done is easy, point one. But then just in the way that we’re talking right now VDP in episode one, use it, create something. If you have this capability, the digital print capability finishing, look at your customers and go, “Okay. Which are my top 10 customers? Which are my top 20 customers?” I’m going to create them something which is outstanding in a product packaging, a nicely packaged box which is personalized, which is how their logo, it sings to them, it contains products for them. That then helps sell. Give it to the sales guys.
When a sales guy goes through a call, create a box for the potential customer. Don’t just leave a nice chunk of samples with them. Put in a box, brand the box, personalize the box, deliver the box to the customer with the samples in. Show this is what we can do, I can turn this around within a day and deliver it to you tomorrow. That’s what we do.
[BREAK]
[00:30:52] DC: Printspiration is streaming across the Printerverse on the Project Peacock Network. Our mission to provide education and resources for print customers, students, and printers around the world has never been more accessible. Watch what you want, when you want, where you want. It’s free. Visit projectpeacock.tv to access original programming, and replays from our online events. Learn about the Peacock partners and companies featured in our shows. Join our mailing list to learn about new episode premieres, and series launches, and create a free account to make watch lists. Ready for your close up, get your peacock show on air by visiting projectpeacock.tv. and request your partnership proposal today. Peacock long and prosper.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUES]
[00:31:44] DC: To your most excellent point, there are so many presses on the market these days that all you need is the right substrate, and finishing equipment, obviously, and you can start a packaging service, if you have the right customers or you have the right strategy for attracting them. We’ve mentioned this, and Lewis said it perfectly before that, yes, you have the box, but don’t forget about all the stuff that can go in the box, and all of the marketing that can go around the box. What’s in the box itself if it’s something – if it’s a gift situation, or if it’s for an event, or I mean, there are still people making virtual event kits, and getting things to their home. All of that is a communication and opportunity for a longer relationship with those customers who might not always need boxes, but they’re all always going to still want to talk about other things.
So really, packaging is part of an omni channel mix, but not just in the lifecycle of a product. Or is part of an omni channel communications mix. If you are fortunate enough that you can have some sort of digital bridge on that packaging, and you can get me on social media, or on your website, there are further opportunities to then follow up electronically. By the way, that is not a bad thing. You follow up electronically and you get somebody in your ecosystem. The point is that you can show your customers that there were results. Once there are results, and there are victories, you can say what else we can do, or they will ask you what else you can do. Dave, what do you want to say about packaging as part of the omni channel marketing/communications mix?
[00:33:46] DB: You make a really good point. Okay, a box is a media, it’s a piece of media. Just in the same way we talked about print as being a piece of media. Just the same way we’re talking about email being a piece of the media. The danger here and as much as the opportunity arises with packaging, don’t look at it in silos. We’ve spoken about silos before. Don’t look at it as just the end piece. I’m just going to produce a box and that’s the piece. Packaging, the capabilities here, they’re part of a bigger mix, and it can be part of an omni channel mix as well. If I know that I’m sending eight boxes to consumers, and let’s say it’s an event kit, and I know exactly where those boxes are going. Send them an email the day before. “Hey, Deborah. Keep an eye on your doorstep tomorrow because you’re going to have a box.” It can be part of – the box, or the packaging, or the whatever it is I’m producing can be part of that journey, and it’s inherently linked into it. This is where, again, XMPie comes into play, because the same data is being used to drive the print piece, to drive the packaging piece, to drive the pieces in the box, to drive the experience that goes after the box, and all the other pieces there in between. We drive the whole piece. So don’t look at it as just an individual piece. As brilliant as that is, and as much opportunity there is, it can also be part of a bigger mix.
[00:35:05] DC: Lewis, we’re going to wrap up the podcast. I’d like you to share your best advice to the printers out there listening for taking the leap and starting a packaging service.
[00:35:16] LE: I would lead with the thought process, and the feelings, and emotions of your customers, and what they might feel when you provide them with a product, and then come up with products that serve that both most, have a lot what you like receiving the most through the post, through your letterbox. Just on a 10-second serious note, something that’s advertised digitally on your phone, sometimes it doesn’t even open. Sixty percent of it opens actually, and around only 30% of the total percentage is actually taken in in the brain digitally, because you were in a scrolling world. So I think can lead with products that counteract that, and offer a solution to that. If you send something in a nice box, or something personalized, or something unusual that activates the brain and thinks, “Hey, I don’t normally see that.” That gets 100% engagement, and 80% of people will interact with that. If it’s a scratch off foil, in a luxury packaging box, it’s on a magnet inside, they got to interact with it. So what they’re doing now is holding, and looking at that product 10 times longer than if it was viewed online. It’s anything that revolves around holding that customer’s attention longer than anything in the digital world will win and succeed.
[00:36:37] DC: If a personalized package is an engagement experience, how is XMPie supporting customers in starting these services, and maybe even helping them generate new conversations with their customers?
[00:36:53] DB: I think the packaging opportunity that arises or presents itself right now is new and it’s growing rapidly. We are trying to show in many possible places what is possible, through our collaboration partnerships with people like Vivid, with the press manufacturers to show what is possible now. And challenging the norm as to what packaging is, and there’s labeling as well, and what is possible. With that in mind, we’re right there, we’re talking to, we’re trying to educate. And I guess, for anyone listening, I would say, challenge us. Challenge or come and say, “What can I do?” Because I have rough ideas, Lewis has a ton of ideas. So between the people in the market space that know what is possible, reach out to them and say, “Look, these are my customers, what can I do? How can I do it? What do I need?” I think that’s what we are trying to do. We’re trying to bring that to the market as quickly as possible.
[00:37:55] LE: When you spoke a moment ago, as we wrap this up, I would like to just a minute, that I would ask myself, actually is. If I emailed 100 potential customers and asked them if I could send them a box, how many would reply? One if I’m lucky. If I sent 100 customers 100 luxury boxes personalized to them, and then I emailed them afterwards, ask them if they liked the box, how many would reply? I would say maybe 50%, 60% upwards. That stat there alone shows you how powerful packaging is.
[00:38:28] DC: I love that example. I’m going to steal that and quote you moving forward, sir. Thank you both so much for really helping us unbox – see what I did there – the massive digital printed packaging opportunity. Our final podcast in the conference is up next on your playlist and features Phil Gaskin and Felix Blackburn from XMPie, and two really cool printers that they’re bringing along. We’re going to talk about the ecommerce revolution. Until next time, everybody, package long and prosper.
[OUTRO]
[00:39:03] ANNOUNCER: The future of podcasts from physical to digital, an XMPie Podcast Conference was produced by XMPie, and presented by the intergalactic ambassador to the Printerverse, Deborah Corn. If you liked the show, tell a colleague, or leave us a review. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn at XMPie. Our team is standing by to answer questions and help you solve your communications challenges. Get in touch with us at XMPie.com.
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