Business News
Marketing Pros Transitioning from Print to Digital Collateral Drive Growth for Zmags
Monday 11. May 2009 - Corporate marketers embracing Zmags Interactive Collateral Management Solution
Zmags, which helps marketers engage customers through Interactive Collateral Management (ICM), reported today that the movement toward digital collateral was a huge driver of business for the company in the first quarter of 2009. Corporate marketers are embracing Zmags in increasing numbers as they look for new ways to reach potential customers in impactful and measurable ways, while holding the line on costs.
Zmags logo
Zmags Interactive Collateral Management (ICM) solution is a means to digitise and deliver interactive documents to customers, and then measure reading behavior. Zmags can be used to share any type of collateral online – including brochures, catalogs, magazines, direct mail and other business documents – to help marketers lower production costs, increase reach and generate more revenue.
Todays marketers need to:
– Improve the customer experience as demand for rich online content increases;
– Boost revenue and identify new ecommerce opportunities;
– Reduce production costs and paper waste; and
– Measure and report on marketing results and ROI.
Transforming static print collateral into engaging digital format addresses all of these challenges.
Zmags roots are in digital publishing, where it has long been recognized as an innovator. The company is known for its exceptional rich media, analytics and SEO capabilities, and for its ability to give users wide design latitude within a framework of templates for virtually any type of document. Zmags customers span multiple verticals – principally retail, travel and healthcare – and include companies such as 3M,Chevrolet, IKEA, Microsoft and Volkswagen.
Zmags boasts 400+ new customers in Q1 2009; most are corporate marketers
More than 400 new customers signed on with Zmags in Q1, and most plan to use Zmags for ICM. “Were talking with so many forward-thinking marketers who refuse to retreat in the face of a poor economy – instead, they are looking for new, innovative ways to reach their customers online, at lower cost,” said Zmags CEO Jens Karstoft.
Among the new customers Zmags signed in Q1 are: Active Interest Media Company, Harvard Business School Publishing, John Deere, Penton Media Group, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., and Starmark, Inc.
Marketing agency Campbell-Ewald is among the companies now using Zmags primarily for its ICM capabilities. “As a full-service agency, Campbell-Ewald produces all types of great content for clients, including rich media content such as video,” said Joe Ferraro, Art Production Manager at Campbell-Ewald Publishing. “Zmags technology has opened up some opportunities with traditional print-media content that weve only dreamed about before. Innovations like online magazines allow our clients to engage with their customers in truly new ways.”
Marketing needs to embrace new tools to reach customers online
Media pundit Scott Gerschwer of Outputlinks believes that marketers, media companies and agencies are in the process of adjusting to a more consumer-focused world, and developing new models aimed at improving relevance, accountability and interactivity. “What I like about ICM is that it helps move marketers from a monologue to a more focused dialogue, while helping them collect analytics that can be used to improve future communications,” said Gerschwer, who wrote about the trend in his recent column, “Innovative Marcom: Digitizing Brochures Leads to Customer Action and Measurable Results.”
“Marketers who want to survive and flourish in the shift to online collateral – a shift thats rapidly taking place – need to embrace these types of tools,” Gerschwer continued.
Zmags Karstoft says that another big advantage to publishing collateral with Zmags is the ability to better leverage social media. “No one is going to look at a static pdf posted on YouTube, or tweet about a new static datasheet,” noted Karstoft. “But once video and other rich media is incorporated, your collateral is instantly upgraded into a whole new league, easily shared and discussed via social media.”
“ICM is a new frontier for corporate marketers – one thats relatively low risk and inexpensive to try,” Karstoft added. “Were very pleased to see so many marketers embracing the trend, and will continue to do our best to help customers make the transition to full-on digital collateral.”