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Delivering Documents, Images That Can Be Used

Written by: Andy Marken

Article Overview: Knowing the ins and outs of content management and distribution to the media can enhance your image with them and your scoring record.

Delivering Documents, Images That Can Be Used

While we are increasingly operating in a digital world, our feet are still mired in the analog past. Studies by researchers at Gartner Group show that 80 percent of all of the new documents and images companies and governments produce every day are stored electronically.

However, 90 percent of the world’s information remains on paper. Governmental agencies and companies around the globe maintain huge warehouses exclusively to retain the organization’s information and memory. Paper consumption continues to grow at 5 percent per year and firms spend three percent of their revenues on printed materials.

Maybe we haven’t made as much progress as we thought.

But the fact is that increasingly publications and organizations prefer to receive solicited documents, data and images electronically. Just in case you missed one of the key words, we’ll repeat it…solicited.

Unfortunately, according to editors, business partners, consumers and industry analysts we talk with too many marketing and communications people view the Internet as their private pipeline to the recipient. So these very creative people develop cute, animated announcements, brochures, flyers and invitations which are attached to emails for. They attach HTML sales brochures, marketing kits, press releases or worse yet complete press kits. They send solicited and unsolicited correspondence and releases with embedded illustrations and photos.

Dirty Little Secrets
You might be shocked to know that:
• they suck up bandwidth and individual productivity while they are being downloaded
• after the first 2 or 3 times they are sent they irritate the hell out of the recipient
• they are seldom opened because unrequested documents, images could hide vicious viruses. Rather than risk them the recipient has learned from painful experience (theirs or others) that it is safer to eliminate them
• in many instances even when the recipient tries, he or she can’t open the file or image because the sender didn’t understand how to properly prepare the material

As a result, the creative effort was not only wasted but also leaves a sour taste in the recipient's mind toward your email address and your organization.

But this isn’t a discussion of netiquette because those who get it, get it. Those who don’t, never will.

Make Your On-Line Press Room Useful
Instead, let’s focus on making your web site’s marketing areas and press room more valuable and useful to editorial, business partners as well as customers/prospective customers and gain a better understanding of the content delivery mechanisms and how you can use them.

Posting your paper data sheets news releases, white papers and position papers on the Web site means you’re going to have to make trade-offs in quality, download speed and file size. And when it comes to posting product, application, technology and key personnel photos for editors and readers to access there is even more to understand.

Before the first document is posted, one of the first things we recommend to a client is that they invest in the infrastructure at the outset. This means working with your IT people to see how they can help you by installing an interactive database for all marketing, sales and PR materials. People should be able to come to your on-line location and be able to key in a few key words "CD, Video” or “broadcast streaming video” and be able to view summaries of all of the pertinent documents, illustrations and photos in your site’s database.

Editors, reporters and customers don’t have the time to hunt through all of your gems to find the specific news, background, photo or product they are looking for. If it takes more than a minute to find the information they are only a mouse click away from someone who will give them the material they need. The result? No sticky eyeballs and you’ve lost another opportunity for your company and your products.

Stringy Documents
One of the posting techniques we have never understood is the flat file approach to putting product materials, especially press releases on the Web site. With press releases for example, the headlines are listed at the top in order of their issuance date. They are dropped in following the headline section.

When you find a headline or subject you want to review, clicking on the headline takes you down the entire file to the specific news release. Sounds reasonable so far right? Okay now decide that is the release you want to print out so you hit the printer icon on your screen.

You get not only that release sent to your printer but also every other news release in the file. It’s even worse when you are searching for specific product information and suddenly download everything the company knows about the product. This makes paper producers happy but it certainly doesn’t sit well with any editor, reporter or consumer we’ve talked with. An interactive database for the information will mean that the individual will only downloads/prints the specific file they want.

It may be a small thing but people are less likely to use your on-line resource if it doesn’t serve them efficiently.

File, Pipe Size
Next make certain your site visitors can quickly download the information and materials they want to use. While T1, DSL and cable modem installations are growing (big pipes) it is better to assume that people will be downloading files from your web site at modem speeds of 28K unless a large percentage of community that is interested in your company is located outside the U.S. If this is the case then it will be safer to assume that modem access will be at a slow 14.4K-modem speed.

What does this mean? It means that downloading big files will take a long, painful time.

This becomes most important in your on-line photo library.

What most knowledgeable marketing/communications people do is set up two levels of photo/illustration access. Post a 72-dpi thumbnail of the photo or illustration. Even with slow connectivity the photo or illustration can be viewed very easily. Then if the site visitor the image for reproduction they can download the full 300-dpi image. Note also that while we’ll discuss file formats in greater depth later this is the minimum quality needed for reproduction. Anything less is a waste of time and effort.

File Formats
Before you go to all of the work of preparing sexy HTML documents of your materials, determine how they will be used and how you want them to be used.

Electronically printed documents like data sheets, annual reports and brochures that the company doesn’t want modified or annotated can be posted as HTML files.

But the majority of the materials you post in your web site you want visitors to use as resources for their purchases or articles (much as you might want, they are not going to download your releases and white papers and drop them into their print or on-line publication). This means storing the majority of marketing and communications materials including releases, backgrounders, white papers, case studies and other materials as text document even if you are including artwork such as block diagrams or application/ technical illustrations.

The color photography you post will also require some format posting decisions.

There are five image file formats you should be familiar with in your on-line activities.

• Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) – Most imaging systems store images in the TIFF format. It provides a number of different formats that are used in both black and white and color applications. Images that are posted in TIFF don’t need to be converted. Users with Windows-based systems won’t have a problem with TIFF files but Mac users may encounter some difficulties.
• Graphics Interface Format (GIF) – Initially a proprietary CompuServe format, GIF has become a commonly used format for bitmap graphics. Your system will display them using native technology.
• Portable Network Graphics (PNG) – PNG is a good alternative for GIF and can be used in many TIFF applications. Browsers display PNG files in their native mode.
• Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) – JPEG is the common way of storing and displaying photos. While the file is larger than a comparable TIFF file you can store lower density (dpi) files for initial viewing. One of the good things about JPEG files is that you can begin to view the image as it is downloading to your system. JPEG was developed for photographic images and if you’re doing line art in JPEG you’ll find that the line edges are slightly blurred.
• Portable Document Format (PDF) – If you looking to share a lot of documents and documentation with the press then consider the use of PDF. This Adobe format ensures that images are displayed the same way they were presented regardless of the recipients’ platform. The PDF file can contain metadata, tales of contents and links that can make the document even more useful to your on-line press room visitor.

No One Solution
We aren’t attempting to turn you into an IT or Web design expert but it is important for you to understand the way your documents and materials can be stored, accessed and used by members of the media and buying public(s).

Images that can’t be reduced to eight bits for GIF files or you can’t afford to lose precise accuracy as with JPEG then the use of TIFF or PNG are the best technologies to use. For photos, use JPEG. For line art, GIF is the preferred technology.

If you are incorporating PowerPoint presentations in your on-line marketing site or want some of the documents to look as good as actual printed materials then you’ll want to have them formatted using PDF. If the materials are going to be printed or documents will be distributed to a large internal and external audience as with your annual and quarterly reports then similarly PDF is the preferred format for storage and distribution.

We are past the infancy of the Internet and Web where infrastructure was everything. Today content, enhancing the Internet experience and stimulating/rewarding Web site visits have taken on a new level of importance.

Research firms have clearly documented that self-help customer support and help desks enable organizations to increase the number of customer inquiries and problems they can handle with web-enabled service/support and reduce service/support costs. But these aren’t the primary ways we measure the success of the company’s on-line marketing and communications activities.

Measure Your Communications Delivery Quotient
Instead, we measure the success of the advertising and PR location by being able to provide customers, partners, editors, reporters and analysts (as well as other members of the company’s audiences) with complete and accurate information and materials they need when they need it:
• A reporter on deadline half way around the globe can’t wait until you get into your office in the morning
• An analyst needs technology and application background for his or her report immediately rather than having to wait for you to finish two or three meetings
• Stockholders want the latest news immediately to determine if they are going to increase or reduce their holdings as well as their timing of the buy/sell action
• Customers and suppliers want to look at product applications and trends to make a purchasing decision or to determine how they can improve their service/support to your firm
• Governmental agencies (federal, state and local) want to ensure you are in compliance in certain areas or how they can improve their relations with you (facility relocation)

A good communications Web site isn’t about reducing the number of calls or emails you receive from your audiences. It’s about delivering information they need, when they need it and in the form they can use it. You don’t have to understand the technical details of the Internet and your Web site to do a good job but it does help to understand the concepts.

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