Lexington, Kentucky USA -- WhatTheyThink.com today announced the opportunity for industry professionals to attend a free printing industry educational webinar. Harnessing Technology for Business Growth: Helping Marketers Unify the Customer Experience, which will be led by WhatTheyThink Senior Editor Cary Sherburne.  Sponsored by GMC Software Technology, the event will be held Wednesday, June 24^th, from 2:00 to 3:00 pm EDT (-4 GMT).

No-charge registration is available here.

“As marketers are increasingly held to ROI performance,” said Sherburne, “they are anxious to retain existing customers, increasing both loyalty and customer lifetime value.  Print service providers who have implemented integrated marketing services that leverage both print and alternative media are in a unique position to help marketers achieve these goals, improving both the efficiency and effectiveness of customer communications.  We are pleased to have experts joining us in this session who will share the secrets of their success.”

Sherburne will be joined by

• Darren Crawford, Managing Director, Data & Digital Services, The 4DM Group. Crawford has responsibility for the data and digital services division at 4DM. He is a main board director and shareholder of the company.  With over twenty years experience in IT, including time in the oil industry, paper merchanting, and software development, Darren has been working in the direct marketing industry for the last ten years. Darren's current role brings him into contact with customers, enabling 4DM to deliver a tailored service to meet their personalised communication needs.
• Richard Coulson, Founding Member, Incisive Solutions. With significant experience in marketing lead IT solutions Richard can claim to have pioneered many firsts – the first magazine with personalised inner and outer pages, development of the first mortgage statement to include personalised messaging, the first full colour magazine with variable personalised graphics as well as text. Previous positions include General Manager with Spectrum Data Services; Group IT Director with Communisis plc and most recently Technical Director with Capita Communications prior to being a founding member of Incisive Solutions.

“As the printing community moves to a broader base of services to compensate for the dramatic structural changes we are undergoing and increased competition from alternative media,” said Randy Davidson, President, WhatTheyThink, it becomes increasingly important to shift the focus to helping marketers solve the real business problems they face every day in a more holistic and media-agnostic manner.  The panelists in this session have done just that.  We appreciate the fact that GMC Software Technology is sponsoring this important session, allowing us to make it available at no charge.”

Attendees will be able to participate in a live question and answer session to get the most from the experience and will be able to view and listen to the presentation using a standard Internet browser with audio streamed via computer.

About GMC Software Technology

GMC Software Technology helps businesses implement high impact, personalized communications programs that increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, drive new customer acquisition, improve productivity and cut costs. Our award-winning PrintNet software is an easy to implement, end-to-end solution that provides full data integration and processing, design and composition, collaboration and approval, distributed output management and process automation for highly targeted print and electronic communications. GMC offers exceptionally reliable technologies and services based on worldwide ISO 9001:2000 certification and CMMI development methodology. We serve thousands of users worldwide and many of our customers are producing in excess of 100 million personalized documents per month — including direct mail, statements, bills, policies, catalogs, correspondence and transpromo materials. www.gmc.net.

GMC Software Technology continues to add to its tally of industry awards. Most recently, in March 2009, Xplor International awarded the company “Technology Application of the Year” for a second year in a row. In 2008, the European Digital Press Association (EDP) named GMC “Best Special Application Software of the Year.”

About WhatTheyThink.com

WhatTheyThink is the printing and publishing industry's leading media organization; offering a wide range of publications delivering unbiased, real-time market intelligence, industry news, economic and trend analysis, peer-to-peer communication, and special reports on emerging technology and critical events. WhatTheyThink also hosts webinars and live events that are timely and relevant o today's busy industry executives along with consulting and speaker services that leverage a talented pool of writers and industry analysts.

WhatTheyThink consists of flagship site WhatTheyThink.com, discussion forum site PrintPlanet.com, and industry blog PrintCEO.com.

About Cary Sherburne

Cary Sherburne has been a Senior Editor at WhatTheyThink.com and a marketing communications consultant since 2002.  She is a well-known journalist, author and strategic marketing consultant working primarily with the printing and publishing industry. Prior to launching her consulting practice, Sherburne was the Vice President of Marketing Communications and Outsourcing Solutions at IKON Office Solutions. She also served as a Director at CAP Ventures (now InfoTrends), an internationally known firm specializing in market research and strategic consulting for the digital document and print on demand industry, where she launched and managed the company’s Document Outsourcing Consulting Service. Sherburne has written six books, the last of which is No-Nonsense Innovation: Practical Strategies for Success, co-authored with Bill Lowe, the Father of the IBM PC, available on Amazon.com.

Sherburne can be reached at [email protected].