Launching a new product is never easy, and it can even be more challenging when the product is one of a kind. It takes creativity, out of the box thinking, lots of elbow grease, a little bit of luck and persistence.

Little more than a year after its launch, you’d be hard pressed to find an iPad or iPhone enthusiast who has not heard about xPrintServer. While this product line – and the market opportunity for networked mobile printing– is in many ways still in its infancy, xPrintServer is well positioned to capitalize on the need for a cost-effective and easy to deploy networked mobile printing solution as more and more businesses adopt iPads in the workplace.

Our latest marketing blitz hit the market back in early November 2012, in preparation for holiday gift guides and promotions.

Lantronix and the xPrintServer were featured in more than a dozen national morning show segments on NBC, CBS, ABC, CNBC and more – thanks to Steve Greenberg, author of Gadget Nation and host of the TV show “Invention Hunters.”  From Chicago, Minneapolis, and Washington, to New York, Seattle, and Houston, the gadget-shows were seen by mobile Apple device users nationwide!

Key to holiday marketing success are “holiday gift guides” – and xPrintServer proved to be a popular stocking stuffer this year.  From British Airways in-flight magazine (Business Life) to Electronic House’s Back to School Cool list to Cult of Mac’s iPad Lover’s Gift Guides, we appeared in more than a dozen magazine and online guides. The result was that in the December quarter, Lantronix recorded increased sales in our device management product category – most of the growth in sales due to the xPrintServer product’s growing popularity.

Following our success formula from last year, we once again leveraged CES and MacWorld as platforms for launching and promoting the xPrintServer.  Prior to the events, we demonstrated the xPrintServer (Office and Home editions) to more than 1,000 members of the U.S. and EMEA press.   To complement the resulting hundreds of pieces of press coverage and product reviews, we also hit the market with print and online ads, building momentum for the live events.   MacWorld, iPhoneLife, MacDirectory, iBusiness Magazine, Network World,  and more all featured one to two page print ads – distributed and mailed to more than 2 million iPad and iPhone enthusiasts – from on-site distribution at CES and MacWorld, to newsstands, airports and electronics stores nationwide.  Not to be outdone by the xPrintServer, our president and CEO Kurt Busch and the Lantronix M2M story made the cover and feature story in EEWeb’s latest Pulse Magazine.

To complement the on and off line print ads, the Lantronix xPrintServer took to social media.  Our award-winning “I Can Print!” commercials have been aired on CNBC and Google’s online network of video sites, on YouTube, and even made it to a premier showing during Fashion Week in Toronto.  To further capture gadget and trend influencers, xPrintServer is being featured on the new OraTV channel – exposing the brand to more than 1 million viewers in March and April of 2013.   No online or social media effort would be complete without the endorsement of technology guru Leo Laporte (go to minute marker 16.00) and his team’s support of the xPrintServer, which was highlighted on several dozen TWiT.TV podcasts over the past six months.

The marketing campaigns laid the groundwork for MacWorld – which many show registrants and exhibitors said should be called “Lantronix World”!   We were the official mobile print sponsor – you couldn’t enter or exit the show without seeing or hearing about the xPrintServer, thanks to some aggressive field sales and marketing, complete with Lantronix-branded “I Can Print!” gear.

In addition to winning “Editor’s Choice” by The Mac Observer for the second year in a row, one of the most exciting aspects of MacWorld this year was the emphasis on Apple products serving the B2B market.  Our own chief technology architect, Dave Wagstaff, presented “Best Practices for Deploying Mobile Print Solutions in the Enterprise” to an audience of nearly 100 IT executives.

As we move into 2013 and beyond, more of our focus will be on leveraging the brand awareness we’ve built to drive enterprise adoption of the xPrintServer family.   The upcoming iBusiness Magazine road shows  should prove to drive awareness and sales into the small business market.  iBusiness has been a big supporter of the xPrintServer, and given the excitement and interest from their audience, our new xPrintServer Office Edition was featured on the magazine’s holiday edition cover — with more than 500,000 copies distriuted at CES and MacWorld.   We will also be partnering with targeting publications such as CIO Magazine, Network World, InfoWorld, Control Design, and more, to continue direct marketing to key decision makers and influencers for all of Lantronix’ M2M products, services and solutions.

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