There is more than one thing that any print shop should take away from Print 17, but there is one thing that stuck with me more than any other. It wasn’t workflow. It wasn’t cloud production. It was Facebook.

The booth I continue to think about was DirectMail2.0. Tucked in the back corner away from the big name software and hardware manufacturers, the company offers a platform that started out combining direct mail advertising with call and mail tracking, as well as ad retargeting through the Google network. New at Print 17, however, was integration with social media, specifically Facebook.

This plays into the sweet spot of where print marketing is going. While there will continue to be print-only and siloed print programs, print is increasingly being integrated with digital campaigns, including social. Not just as a way to get the same message to an audience through multiple channels, but as a way to draw people into the funnel in the first place.