Cross-Media 
and the In-plant

THE GRAPHIC communications industry is in the middle of an evolution to expand services beyond print to include cross-media and marketing. Unfortunately, the in-plant market is largely absent from the move, according to an Info-Trends research study The Evolution of the Cross-Media Marketing Services Provider. The key barrier keeping in-plants from making the transformation is that they don’t understand why or how to offer cross-media marketing services.
The goal of the study was to assess the current state of the industry’s move into cross-media marketing services and identify the best practices for successfully making the transition. InfoTrends defines cross-media marketing services as the use of two or more media types—print, e-mail, Web, mobile and/or social media (Facebook, Twitter)—supported by marketing services such as creative, campaign management and data analytics.

InfoTrends surveyed almost 350 firms, made up of 285 print service providers (PSPs)and 63 in-plant printing organizations. The research included in-depth telephone interviews with 30 firms that successfully made the transition to offering cross-media marketing services.

One of the overarching trends of the study was that the in-plant market is struggling with the transition, while the print-for-pay market is rapidly evolving. Close to 60 percent of print-for-pay firms reported offering cross-media marketing services, compared to 38 percent of in-plant respondents. Overall, 41 percent of in-plant respondents indicated they had no plans to offer cross-media marketing services (see Photos, Figure 1).

Adoption Road Blocks

Research findings indicate that in-plants have been slower to adopt cross-media marketing services for a variety of reasons:

• They don’t know where to start.
• Their technology infrastructure and skill sets are limited.
• They don’t understand how these services will fit into their business model.
• They face difficulty in creating awareness or convincing customers to specify these services.

In-plants that were not currently offering cross-media services (even if they had plans to start) were asked why they weren’t offering them (see Photos, Figure 2). The top reason was a lack of interest from clients (31 percent), followed by a limited technology infrastructure (23 percent), a belief that these services didn’t fit into the business model (23 percent) and limited technical skills (23 percent).

At the same time, in-plants making the transition are facing barriers in persuading the organizations they serve to embrace cross-media.

“We’ve made investments to offer cross-media marketing services, but it didn’t take off as we expected,” explained the director of a 60-employee university in-plant in the Northeast. “These services are in their infancy stages because it is hard to get buy-in from our parent organization, and they are generally slow moving.”

Why Offer Cross-Media?

Obstacles notwithstanding, in-plants recognize that offering cross-media marketing presents the opportunity to enhance the value of services offered and create stronger bonds with the departments they serve, making them less likely to outsource work over a minimal cost difference. Also, these services minimize the threat of outsourcing and create new and recurring service streams.

Summing up the importance of evolving into a cross-media marketing services provider, the manager of a 32-employee in-plant at a manufacturing firm observed, “Becoming a cross-media marketing service provider was necessary to compete, differentiate ourselves, enhance our offerings and enrich strategic relationships with our marketing group. As print demand is changing, offering an entire communications solution is essential to our future success.”

If in-plants continue to lag behind PSPs in adoption of cross-media marketing services, they will likely lose print work to outside firms that do offer such services. Furthermore, more corporations might be prompted to outsource their printing and close their in-plants. Getting into the cross-media game can enable in-plants to increase their strategic relevance and elevate their value within their parent organizations.

Cross-Media Boosts Digital Volumes

In-plants and print-for-pay firms offering cross-media services reported an increase in their digital printing volumes. In-plant respondents who did see an increase reported that the lift was 12 percent on average, while print-for-pay firms reported an average increase of 13.7 percent (see Photos, Figure 3).

The research identified a natural pattern of evolution for moving into cross-media marketing services. Successful providers started with variable data, mailing services and Web storefronts. Next, basic data services, online offerings and personalized URL capabilities were added. This was followed by expanding capabilities into more extensive campaign management, data mining and analytics, CRM, mobile barcode tracking, and marketing automation. Mobile will be the next stage in the services evolution, and its embrace by early adopters is on the rise.

Lessons from the Leaders

To help in-plants that are ready to start down the cross-media path, we’ve gathered some sage advice from the organizations interviewed for the research study (who asked to remain anonymous). Here is a synopsis of their advice for priming for success, overcoming obstacles and identifying best practices for making the transition to a cross-media marketing services provider.

Shift the focus from production to business. Success requires a focus on business development and marketing within the organizational leadership team. The leadership of in-plants that are currently offering cross-media marketing services was considerably more likely to describe sales, marketing and business development as a primary area of responsibility.

Expand internal education beyond technology. Educating and training staff beyond technical training was a common practice among top providers.

“Self-education is a critical phase in the evolution,” reported the president of a quick printing franchise with 25 employees and $3.6 million in sales. “Our team spent an enormous amount of time learning about all of the channels in a multi-channel marketing campaign. We all became experts in Web, digital, mobile, social, QR codes, etc. To be successful in the sales process, you have to understand the process and make it simple so that your clients understand it too.” This company relied on vendor education to get its staff up to speed.

Customers need proof of value and proof of you. Educating customers and demonstrating credibility are critical success factors in offering cross-media services. In many cases, customers are not asking for cross-media services because they don’t know what they are, or because they don’t know that the firms they buy print from offer these services. To fill in the customer knowledge gap, the providers Info-Trends interviewed incorporate a mix of self-promotion efforts that include:

• Developing educational events.
• Entering contests or holding competitions to gain recognition.
• Producing self-promotion pieces that demonstrate competency in the ability to deliver on all facets of a cross-media campaign.
• Documenting efforts in case studies that are accessible to clients and prospects.

Swim upstream and engage the marketing department. Many in-plants already have expertise in executing the print component of their parent organizations’ marketing campaigns. The next step is getting in on the conversation with marketing and sharing what you know and what you can do.

“We need to get to the marketing department to sell these services, but our department suffers from a credibility problem in offering services beyond static print and copying,” said the director of a 75-employee university multimedia and print center. “Our attack plan has been to win printed pieces of our parent’s cross-media campaigns so that we can get into the discussion on items we can assist with today and position ourselves to expand our role.”

Brace for a longer sales cycle. On average, in-plants reported that the entire process for selling cross-media marketing services took 4.9 months. This underscores the message that cross-media marketing is not an easy sell. It takes time to convince the customer and build the relationship.

The president of a cross-media marketing services firm with two locations in the Northeast pointed out that the longer duration of selling cross-media is because it is a consultative sell. He explained, “You must allow time to discuss objectives and challenges, and then you must develop a program or project directly related to those objectives.”

The talk track is problem solving. A common message among leading cross-media marketing services firms was to stop talking about print. Profitable firms acknowledged that print is a staple of their offering (which can’t be forgotten), but the trick is to focus clients on the actual solution and its potential results, rather than stressing the print component.

“Marketing people need to hear about how you will solve their business problems and meet their long-term goals,” said the manager of a 32-employee in-plant operation for a manufacturing firm. “They don’t want to hear about specifications for a print project and how you will meet those specifications.”

Team selling seals the deal. Successful providers of cross-media marketing services report that placing full responsibility for selling these services on the sales team has not worked. Instead, they are using a team selling approach that includes its various project experts (e.g., marketing, data, IT). This team sales approach was echoed by several of the firms we interviewed, who reported that it led to changes in job roles within their organizations.

A number of firms reported recasting sales responsibilities to have account managers focus on selling to existing clients, while sales reps pursued new business. A few firms reported moving customer service reps into account management positions—once the sale is complete, the idea is that these folks will take over the process of managing and growing the account.

Seek the help of your vendors. Industry suppliers and vendors recognize the evolution in the market and are developing services to assist you. Find out what your vendors can do to help.

And finally, get into the game. In-plants are lagging behind PSPs in terms of offering cross-media marketing services. In-plants that ignore the market evolution may face extinction if parent organizations choose to outsource print and cross-media marketing services to PSPs.