Three Marketing Goals: Achieve Them and Succeed
By: T.J. Tedesco
For: High Volume Printing
Published: December, 1998

Printing companies can attract business opportunities with well-executed sales and marketing programs.  Business success derives from saying what you do in the marketplace and then doing what you say in the shop.  Before embarking on any sales or marketing program, graphic arts companies should develop strategies to attain three simple goals.

Sales activity can be divided into two categories.  “Event-based” purchases, such as cars, dining room furniture, refrigerators and other durable goods, depend upon successfully capitalizing on infrequent opportunities.  Since the next purchase may be a decade or even a generation away, sales success depends on closing the sale now.  Event transactions don’t rely on business relationships between individuals; instead, other factors like brand name, location and the “sales close” are critical.  Think of the last time that you bought a major appliance.  Did you hear from your sales representative after the purchase?  Probably not, because the sale was a successfully concluded event, not likely to be repeated in the reasonable future.  Immediately after an event-based transaction, sales attention should be redirected to the next prospect.

Contrast this to our “relationship-based” printing business.  The first transaction between a print buyer and sales representative is only the beginning of a relationship because far more potential exists in the future rather than the past.  If your competition has cut a corner, losing the first job may even be to your advantage.  Losing the battle is never fun, but winning the war is the real goal.  Printers must win repeat business or face dire consequences in the future.

Goal One: Win Top of Mind Position

Printing companies compete in super tough service-based business environments.  Winning top of mind market position is crucial for long term success.  If a key business influencer needs what you provide, and you immediately come to mind, then you own top of mind market position for that individual.  Does this mean you’ll get the business?  Not necessarily, but you will get an opportunity.  What you do with it depends on quality, service, technical expertise and the strength of your relationship.

Useful communication, regularly delivered to key business influencers at carefully targeted customers and prospects, is essential to win top of mind position.  Deploying a variety of marketing vehicles in addition to on-target sales efforts will keep your name at the “tip of the tongue” of important people in your marketplace.  “Out-of-sight/out-of-mind” is a very real phenomenon and can only be combated through regular contact.  Since many printers compete in job shop environments, it’s difficult to forecast exactly when customers will have business opportunities. 

The amount of marketing overload in today’s information-crazed business community is truly amazing.  Each day the average American is exposed to well over 3,000 advertisements and product names.  Unless you market your services and position your sales people effectively, you and your company will be quickly forgotten in the heat of the battle.  In hyper-competitive marketplaces, it’s important to avoid thinking that your market position is strong enough.  As Intel’s Andy Grove so succinctly puts it, “only the paranoid survive.” 

The “fallen angel” syndrome can quickly beset any printing company.  Sleeping market dominators have rapidly traveled the undesirable path of market leader, to wannabe, to has-been.  Just think of a formerly successful printer in your marketplace who didn’t adequately invest in prepress a few years ago.  (The latest PIA Quarterly Market Survey shows that prepress is growing 50% faster than any other graphic arts segment.)  Every major city seems to have at least one fallen angel.  No marketing program by itself will ensure that a company will continue being successful, but it can provide a steady stream of opportunities, even in rapidly changing markets.

Goal Two: Move The Battlefield Away From Price

Is simply getting a call good enough?  No.  Competing against other companies without moving the battlefield away from price means your printing services are simply commodities.  In a commodity-based world, tactics such as regular price-specials, loss leaders, dumping, gimmick-marketing, tie-ins and discounting are the weapons of choice.  Margins fall and opportunities must be found elsewhere. 

Does this sound like printing to you?  I hope not!  Our business is founded on relationships and trust.  If a print buyer can rest easily after giving you an important job, then you’re succeeding. 

Over the long run, price is rarely the true motivator driving purchase decisions.  Do buyers scramble for their professional lives when they award jobs to a reliable printer?  No.  How about when their company loses a customer because of a poor choice?  You bet!  Even though most print buyers pay a lot of lip service to low prices, their job security depends on reliability, quality and expertise … not price.  If you can position your company as the safe choice, you will move the battlefield away from price, earn a better margin and develop more customer loyalty. 

During the mid-1980’s I worked for Burroughs Corp., then the second largest manufacturer of mainframe computers.  I can’t tell you how many times I heard people say, “No one ever got fired for buying IBM,” even though IBM was more expensive.  Burroughs’ sales representatives sure knew that having lower prices was nothing to brag about. 

Goal Three: Create Irresistible Customer Relationships

If your customers say, “you’ve never given us a reason to leave,” should you be happy?  On the contrary – you should be alarmed.  Statements like this indicate that people are buying from you out of habit, not out of loyalty.  A thriving, service-oriented business should have many customers saying things like, “they’re the best printer we have,” or “they bail me out of tough jams.”  If you regularly hear statements like this, you’ve forged irresistible customer relationships.

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The Final Word ... When you win top of mind position, move the battlefield away from price and become irresistible to your customers, business skyrockets.  Keep these goals in mind as you develop your sales and marketing plan and remember that in printing, success isn’t an event, it’s a relationship.

T.J. Tedesco is a “hands-on” marketing, sales, coaching and training consultant to the post press industry. He is the author of Binding, Finishing & Mailing: The Final Word, and Win Top-of-Mind Positioning, both published by GATFPress and available at Amazon.com. T.J. can be reached at (301) 294-9900 or tj@growsales.com.