COLD SPRING, NY, July 5, 2005 — On July 20, the Customer Creation Coalition will present a free seminar, “Customer Creation: Generating New Sales Through 21st Century Marketing Technologies,” at the Holiday Inn and Conference Center in Fishkill, NY, from 8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Registration is from 8:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., and the program begins promptly at 9:00 a.m. Marshall Mermell, the founding member of the Customer Creation Coalition, says that the July 20 seminar—the first in a series—will present a combination of techniques that can accelerate growth through a new approach to marketing management. The Customer Creation Coalition is an alliance formed to promote the latest innovations in sales and marketing. Mermell is president of Marketing Works, a Cold Spring, NY company that offers risk-managed marketing services. “In a time when increasing standardization of products and services is forcing many businesses to compete on price alone,” says Mermell, “the Customer Creation seminar is designed to give entrepreneurs, business owners and managers a powerful new approach that can help them differentiate their businesses and increase sales with sustained momentum.” The Customer Creation seminar will include programs on risk-managed marketing, supply-chain management, advanced strategic sales techniques, and one-to-one marketing based on digital printing. The seminar is an outgrowth of programs that previously have been delivered to business owners, managers and print service providers in the NY-NJ-CT tristate area. David Tashji, director, worldwide marketing, Eastman Kodak, says that those in attendance on July 20 will include senior members of the Kodak organization. “The Kodak organization believes that innovative programs such as the Customer Creation seminar create tremendous value in helping businesses understand the impact of new technologies and how cutting edge marketing techniques can assist them in creating sustainable competitive advantages,” Tashji says. “Besides senior management, we’ll also be bringing some of our customers to participate in this unique learning opportunity.” At the seminar, Mermell will present the basics of risk-managed marketing, a technique in which the marketing budget is managed as a measurable investment to reduce expenditure risks and optimize profitability. Peter Winters, president, Winters Group & Associates, a hybrid company for technology, print, and supply chain logistics headquartered in New York City, will demonstrate the benefits of supply-chain management, a methodology that uses cyber libraries to manage sales and marketing materials. The process is aimed at reducing costs while enabling businesses to reach the marketplace faster and more effectively. “The seminar represents an unusual opportunity for both end users and print service providers to capitalize on the opportunities that exist with 21st century Web marketing technologies,” says Winters, a 20-year veteran of the print industry with a background in print sales and web-to-print technologies. Kevin Shulman, the principal of Shulman & Associates, a sales training and client development company with three training centers in New Jersey, will present a variety of innovative approaches including ongoing reinforcement sales training through an on-call coach. Coaching, says Shulman, “can help individuals and companies increase their client base and achieve a higher level of success over the long term.” He also will address the issues and goals of setting sales objectives that reflect a company’s overall marketing strategy. Personalized marketing pioneer Harvey Hirsch will discuss the advantages of one-to-one, personalized marketing, a technique made possible by digital technology. Hirsch, the president of Digital Dimensions 3, Inc. of Lyndhurst, NJ, operates the only service bureau in the United States with the ability to merge data to personalize three-dimensional marketing products on demand. One-to-one marketing, he says, “can result in response rates as high as 80 percent. It’s revolutionizing the ways companies make money, from printers living in a commoditized world to content providers and end users of all kinds who need to increase sales.”