Peter Barnet plans to convert his sales and cross-media experience into start-up success.

Kannekt is a marketing services company that helps clients grow through print, email, SMS, social media and telephone.

Barnet moved into his West Melbourne office on 25 July after launching his businesses in May. He previously worked in a sales development role at Bambra Press and had stints at Print Impressions, Salmat and Heidelberg before that. He is also the reigning GAMAA Industry Overseas Internship Grant winner.

Barnet told ProPrint that there was a gap in the market for an innovative industry veteran to help printers evolve from commodity producers to value-adding suppliers.

[Feature: Will printers' multimedia hopes float?]

"I've got low overheads and having gone to America and seen this sort of stuff and talked to a lot of people about it, it seems to me that this is the natural next step," he said.

"You don't need to have printing equipment to be a printer. I just think there's a real need for marketers, because printers have got to have real control over their clients' marketing."

Barnet said his point of difference was Chameleon Group software through which printers can create online portals to manage cross-media campaigns.

"People aren't printing as much, so you've got to start doing other things, and if you listen to marketing people, this is what they [print buyers] want."

Chameleon managing director Dan Regan said the software helped end clients manage print collateral, print ads, signage, emails, websites and e-brochures.

He said the key to the portals was that they were personalised for the print buyer and more comprehensive than one-size-fits-all web-to-print systems.

"The whole trick to this is that it has to be set up as if the customer set up his own portal to deal with all the challenges of his business," he told ProPrint.

"You meet his needs and give him everything he needs to do with his communications and you'll be the beneficiary of more work."

[LinkedIn: What great cross-media jobs have you done?]

Update: Peter Barnet contacted ProPrint to say he had decided to wind down Print Innovator and was not involved in print management. The article has been updated.

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