PODi 2013 Best Practices in Digital Printing Award Winners Announced

PODi, the Digital Printing Initiative, has announced the 2013 winners of the PODi Best Practices Awards for digital printing case studies. These prestigious awards recognize outstanding examples of cross-media and relevant direct marketing campaigns, self-promotion programs and communication applications successfully re-engineered for effectiveness and efficiency, all featuring the power and versatility of digital print. This year, in addition to the three Best Practice Awards and honorary mentions, a special merit award recognizes an outstanding digital print solution. Winners will receive their awards and present an inside look at their winning applications at the annual AppForum digital printing and direct marketing conference, January 28-30 at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas.

PODi accepts case studies for the Best Practices Award competition throughout the year, and entries are judged on a combination of criteria, including pre-defined goals and measured results, value proposition, increased effectiveness, improved output and process, relevance, creativity and innovation. The 2013 Panel of distinguished judges:

• Howie Fenton, Senior Consultant, NAPL

• Dr. John Leininger, Professor, Department of Graphic Communications, Clemson University

• Cary Sherburne, journalist, author, marketing consultant

• Jim Olsen, President, Imagination Ink

Best Practices Winner: Direct Marketing Category

Lyon College and CustomXM– “Lyon College Uses Cross-Media to Drive Applications”

Like many small private colleges, Lyon College was challenged with recruiting new students. This cross-media campaign incorporated direct mail, personalized landing pages, email and augmented reality. Within just four months of program launch, total applications received by Lyon exceeded the total number of applications received during their best recruitment year on record.

“College recruitment is always going to be a challenge, especially for the smaller liberal arts colleges like Lyon College. But having the tools in place to launch, manage, integrate and measure a complete recruiting campaign gives us a distinct advantage," says David Heringer, vice president for Administration at Lyon. "Combine that with the fact that we were able to showcase our campus with more personalized and engaged marketing efforts, our overall results today have exceeded our expectations.” CustomXM president, Paul Strack adds, "We knew that Lyon College had a unique story to tell to its prospective students, and we were excited that they took this next step to utilize a complete integrated approach in sharing it. We are proud to share in this success with Lyon College, and we are honored to receive the 2013 PODi Best Practices Award with them in recognition of this achievement.”

Honorable Mention: Colruyt, Symeta – “Retail Superstore Colruyt Makes Customer Promotions More Relevant”

Best Practices Winner: Workflow Automation Category

Manulife Financial Affinity Markets and Distributech Inc. – “Manulife Financial Moves to On-Demand Enrollment Kit Fulfillment”

Manulife Financial mails enrollment kits to prospects who visit their website or respond to a marketing campaign. Traditionally, these were standard format with limited personalization and included about ten pre-printed components, chosen from 2,500 potential SKUs, making fulfillment a complex nightmare. Their new solution has decreased costs by 22% while executing same-day fulfillment on relevant, highly personalized orders and eliminating inventory management issues.