Fenske Media traces its roots back to 1957, when the company began as a general commercial printer. In the nearly 60 years that have followed, Fenske Media has adapted to the needs of its clients and grown to become one of the most advanced digital multichannel marketing and print providers in the world. Today, the company operates in a fully digital environment providing information services across many different and relevant media channels, enabling customers to build relevant and profitable relationships with their prospects, customers and employees.
The company creates highly effective campaigns by working with customers to mine the value of their data or acquire new data that precisely targets individual recipients and dramatically improves the response rates. With a substantial IT staff in addition to its complement of customer service, design, prepress and press professionals, Fenske Media is able to deliver these integrated campaigns while also providing comprehensive tracking and measurement that provides the knowledge needed to enhance their clients’ marketing activities.
“Our job is to convert intelligence into actionable insights that drive marketing results,” explains Dave Fenske, who along with his three brothers, owns Fenske Media. “We start simple and work to validate the existing database, then we look at the various touchpoints by running modeling exercises to see if we need outside data, and then we bring the two together to take advantage of where each customer is in that particular moment and why they make a particular purchase. Our programs are driven by this intelligence—not just seasons or dates on the calendar.”
Powering the digital print side of the business, as they have for many years, are Kodak Presses. Specifically, the company today operates a Kodak Prosper 6000C Press, a Kodak Prosper 5000XLi Press and a Kodak NexPress 3600 Digital Production Color Press; an 8-color Heidelberg Speedmaster offset press with coater handles the traditional litho needs. The new Prosper 6000C Press offers some of the fastest speeds and highest print quality on the market, making it easier for Fenske Media to profitably produce longer variable runs than the competition.
“The Prosper 6000C Press .... propels us toward even more effective campaigns”
-Dave Fenske, Co-owner, Fenske Media
Fenske credits the capabilities of the Kodak Stream Inkjet Technology in the Prosper Press line with changing the digital print model and enabling his company to efficiently produce completely personalized print of the highest quality. Everything the company prints is four-color with no imprinting in the process, on both matte and gloss stocks. He remarks that print is just a form of communication and marketers are competing in a very crowded market to capture attention.
“We have been an early adopter of Kodak technology almost from the beginning, and at every step of the way we have moved ahead of the competition with higher quality, faster speeds, and a very economical business model when it comes to digital runs in the mid- to longer range,” he notes. “The addition of the Prosper 6000C Press propels us toward even more effective campaigns.”
Co-owner Tom Fenske adds, “Our long standing partnership with Kodak, including superior sales and support, allowed us to get this press installed in record time before our busy season.”
One of the features that truly sets the company apart is the Fenske XM service, which combines digital print with online marketing to create cross-media marketing campaigns that combine variable, interactive pURLs, driving customers to an interactive experience. Fenske Media’s services also include transpromo that leverages existing customer relationships to upsell products and services. The company also offers personalized fulfillment and packaging for product delivery.
“Our long standing partnership with Kodak, including superior sales and support, allowed us to get this press installed in record time before our busy season.”
– Tom Fenske, Co-owner, Fenske Media
As the direct mail industry faced competition from other media, the Fenske team knew that digging deep into customer data and tailoring the outreach to each individual recipient was critical to success. “It’s clear that customers are increasingly comfortable with digital interaction and have many more channels on which they can interact with a brand or service provider,” adds Fenske. “Marketers must change from the current single channel-same message mentality that no longer works, and meet customers on the channels that are most preferred by them. With the Kodak digital print technology, we are perfectly positioned to continue the growth of our business.”
Automation at Fenske Media features a very high-tech data center to feed the Prosper and NexPress Presses through a Kodak Prinergy Workflow. The company also uses a Kodak Magnus 800 Platesetter with Kodak Sonora XP Process Free Plates, and Kodak ColorFlow Color Management Software.
Perhaps the most striking impression from a visit to the Fenske Media headquarters in South Dakota is just exactly how high-tech and automated everything is. The company has intentionally designed a cloud-based production environment that requires very little manual intervention, freeing employees to focus instead on the more important processes of understanding the goals of a customer’s campaign and coming up with a concept and design that will get them there. Fenske Media’s focus on sustainability practices is also evident, with over 50% of the company’s energy provided by a solar panel farm onsite, active programs in LED lights and paper recycling.
Dave Fenske concedes that digital technology is inherently disruptive and can be scary for marketers. His team is committed to making it easy for customers, from identifying the goal of a campaign to outlining the print and digital options to achieve the desired results. “The cross-media digital solutions we offer allow them to treat each customer as a household of one and evaluate success by measuring share of customer rather than share of market.”
Eastman Kodak Company
343 State Street, Rochester, NY 14650 USA
©Kodak, 2016. Kodak, ColorFlow, Magnus, NexPress, Prinergy, Prosper and Sonora are trademarks of Kodak.
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