LEARNING CENTER

Executing a complex community survey is a challenge. Getting it into the hands of community members, generating excitement and interest, and getting those surveys returned and tabulated can be a daunting task.

That was just the job Stephan Gunsaulus, Cuesta’s Director of Marketing and Communications, was ready to tackle. Cuesta College was looking for an effective way to reach out to residents of San Luis Obispo County to provide input for the 2011-2016 Educational Master Plan. As an accomplished marketing veteran, Stephan knew an integrated approach, utilizing both print and digital delivery, would be needed. The question was how to execute such a strategy. Much to his delight, Casey literally walked in the door with the answer; Casey's new "cross-media" marketing solution.

Organic Growth? SMS? ROMI?  The Digital Marketing world has no shortage of acronyms and jargon. Here's a few of the more common terms to help you make sense of all the 'marketing techie talk'.

Ad Server – Database driven software that assists in the placement and management of advertisements on websites.

Auto-responder – A message (normally Email) that is pre-written and automatically distributes when triggered by some sort of activity. One common application of an auto responder is an order-confirmation sent to a consumer upon purchase from an e-commerce platform such as Amazon.

Oh the times they are a changin’

“Well I guess this digital thing isn’t just a trend,” I overheard "Fred" say as I walked the floor of Graph Expo last week in Chicago. For those who don’t know, Graph Expo is the biggest annual Print and Graphic Communication trade show in North America. For "Fred" and other career printers like him, this year’s expo must have been a total cultural shock. Certainly, the past two years have not been easy on the printing industry. However, what was glaringly obvious is that out of that struggle has emerged a bright new digital future for the industry.