Even internet marketing needs commercial printing services. Websites that offer products for sale which require shipping must consider how they do their shipments and the containers thereof.

"You can quite easily utilize generic boxes and plain brown wrapping paper. But what does that say about your business?" asked Rick Aberle, CTO for Cerqa. "It says to your customer that you don't value presenting a strong brand. But when you ship out boxes printed with your company information, it indicates that you have a growing and successful business."

The internet’s largest retail companies do indeed ship in company-branded boxes. They know the value of keeping their information in front of the consumer and in front of people who may see the package while it’s being shipped.

"Image branding is what makes the world’s largest companies so successful. They make sure their company logo appears on everything they can get it on; bags, paper, boxes, containers," Mr. Aberle said.

These same companies have an Internet presence and are also on social media. But, they also actively recruit new customers outside of their online presence. A direct marketing campaign, especially a targeted campaign, combined with an online campaign will generate combined results which can be greater than either one by itself.

Mr. Aberle pointed to car dealerships as a great example. Car dealers advertise everywhere and in every medium, including direct mail and printed advertisements sent out. These print campaigns are targeted to the dealership’s sales area and work to spark a car buyer’s interest.

"A lot of people are not really thinking about buying a new car until they pull the flyer out of their mail box. They see a list of new cars, used cars and the prices, and they begin thinking it may be time to trade," Mr. Aberle said. "Sometimes these print campaigns carry added incentives like a key attached to the flyer.

One of the keys will unlock and crank a car and that person wins the car. But, a lot of the people who have a key that won’t unlock the door are going to visit the dealership to try the key. That brings people in so the salesmen can talk to them about buying a car anyway. Giveaways and, more commonly, simple promotional items like that work extremely well in direct mail, but not so well online."

Cerqa also prints large format items like posters and bulk items like catalogues.

"The most successful mail-order companies still put out catalogues. They reason once a customer does business with them, they need to remind the customer regularly about sales, special items and things the customers wants or needs," he said. "The advantage to mailing a catalogue is the recipient has to handle it. With email, a person can set incoming emails from a mail order company to junk and he’ll never see incoming email."

Cerqa can print, bind and even mail catalogues and other direct mail for a business. Since the company already has the setup, experience and Post office permits to do bulk mail, many customers find it more convenient to let the printer handle mail outs.

Cerqa does work for Dell, McAffee, Singer, Gibson and many more nationally recognized companies. For more information visit http://www.cerqa.com/ or call (512) 439-1281.

For more information contact
Rick Aberle, CTO
512.439.1242
http://www.cerqa.com/