Open House--Should You Have One?

In-plants have found that showing off their capabilities to customers and senior management helps generate new business. Learn how UC-Berkeley went about it.

One of our primary obstacles at University of California-Berkeley Printing Services has been exposure to, and physical presence with, our customers—and, more importantly, those qualified campuses and agencies with whom we should be doing business.

U.C.-Berkeley Printing Services works for all nine U.C. campuses, three national laboratories (federally funded but administered by the university), several of the 20 California State Universities and a number of state agencies. Print buying within our system is not mandated; therefore, we must maintain a competitive environment at all times.

Though today's technology (fax, e-mail, Internet, digital file transfers, etc.) brings us more closely in contact with our customers and prospects, our physical presence is essential.

We have learned that perhaps the most effective way to have a collective audience at any given time is to have open house events. One of the secrets to a successful open house is to attract as many customers and prospective customers as you are equipped to handle. But don't stop there. Go after the top brass in your organization.

"Though the showpiece of the open house was our new six-color press, the coup was having the University's chancellor and two of our vice chancellors attend the event and speak on behalf of Printing Services," notes George Craig, director of Printing Services. "The political benefits cannot be overstated, and made the entire effort well worthwhile."

To make sure you get the best possible attendance, Craig adds, chose the date for your open house carefully.

"Hold the event away from a holiday, preferably on a Friday, when the University brass is available," he says.

Show Off Your Talents

During the open house, demonstrate your ability to produce a wide variety of products by utilizing as many facets of production as you have to offer. Show the total shop.

U.C. Printing Services achieved this by distributing an attractive self-promotion piece with a six-color cover, aqueous coating and a gold foil-stamped University seal. It was perfect bound around a lined writing tablet. As the attendees toured our plant, they saw this job in every area of production. The cover was displayed on monitors in Electronic Prepress, film was being processed on our 30x40˝ Scitex imagesetter and the plates were being processed.

As people toured the pressroom, they saw the same cover being run on our six-color 28x40˝ Heidelberg Speedmaster press with an aqueous coater, and being foil-stamped on our Kluge stamping press. In the bindery, the same job was being bound on our 18-station Muller-Martini RB5 perfect binder with an in-line trimmer.

This is what we mean by showing the total shop.

Our target audience for this event consisted of artists and designers from various departments, particularly publications, public affairs and public information. Also attending were print buyers from purchasing departments, higher-level administrative personnel and managers who might influence printing procurement throughout the campuses and agencies that we are trying to reach out to and educate.

Also, it doesn't hurt to get vendors involved.

"Heidelberg provided a press demonstrator, and the regional sales manager spoke at the event," says Craig. "They presented a Speedmaster Club plaque and also contributed significantly to the refreshments."

Don't underestimate the importance of refreshments at your open house. Feeding people usually puts them in a good mood, plus it gives them a break and a chance to discuss what they've seen.

Although we kept each individual tour group to no more than 15 people, with tours beginning every 20 minutes, there were still many questions regarding the coordination of all these areas of production to achieve the timely production of a quality printing job.

The attendees then began to realize that taking files from their disks or from our FTP server and maneuvering them all the way through the production process is no easy achievement. They also realized that U.C. Printing Services is up to the task.

"Hold the event away from a holiday, preferably on a Friday, when the University brass is available.

Follow Up With Workshops

With this successful open house several months behind us, we are now planning a succession of workshops and open house events to emphasize individual areas of production.

First, we will emphasize our bindery department, not only to display our equipment and capabilities, but to show that designing printing jobs with bindery issues also taken into consideration, will assist in creating a more pleasing final product. In addition to quality, thought must also be given to mailing requirements and regulations.

Second, we intend to do a joint workshop with U.C. Mailing Services, a completely separate department from U.C. Printing Services, but one with whom we intend to partner to serve the needs of our customer base. There are, of course, many rules to be adhered to if one is to take advantage of the potential cost savings with automatable mail.

Then, we will focus on our pressroom. With a diverse press division including the six-color Heidelberg, a five-color 251⁄2x371⁄2˝ MAN Miller Perfector, a two-color companion press (with same specifications), a two-color 20x26˝ Heidelberg Speedmaster, and a one-color 12x18˝ Multigraphics press, we are capable of many different configurations of size, run length and number of colors required.

Next, we will highlight our electronic prepress department. This is, perhaps, the most technological, mystifying, ever-changing, problematic, flexible and absolutely essential department of our multi-shift operation.

Designers have computers with which to create multi-faceted, ornate and detailed files. Our department must be able to accept those files on many forms of media, interpret the files, convert them to our system if necessary and make them work. Our customers (and our staff) are required to keep informed of the many changes and upgrades to the myriad different programs and applications. We continue to learn together.

Finally, we will introduce the capabilities of our Copy Services Division. Equipped with three Xerox DocuTech systems running two shifts a day, we are able to produce a tremendous number of orders for on-demand printing. With the ability to accept camera-ready copy, disks (floppy, Zip, Syquest, Jaz or optical), CD-ROM, digital tape or FTP, our customers need only create the files. We do the rest.

After each event, we intend to send response cards to each of the attendees. The purpose of these cards is to gather data regarding the successes and/or shortcomings of these events, and also to find out the specific areas of interest held by each attendee. This should help in planning future events so we emphasize the areas of production that hold the most interest for attendees.

On completion of this series of gatherings, we can then begin the cycle all over again. By that time, there should be enough changes at our department and/or personnel changes in our target audience to fill our shop again for our total shop open house.

The success of this open house has been measured by the response cards, and it has been very encouraging. Furthermore, we have been contacted by numerous people who were not included in our invitation list but asked to be considered next time. Word gets around.

The long-term success of these events is, of course, yet to be determined. We will continue our efforts of going to the campuses and agencies to meet with them on an individual basis in their offices. We have found this to be an essential part of our marketing efforts. We feel that open houses, work shops and seminars are an opportunity to show and teach what we accomplish here and do so on a collective basis in our surroundings.

"Don't underestimate the effort," stresses Craig, "but that should not be a deterrent to what is a very effective marketing and public relations tool. It is also an excellent excuse to thoroughly clean the shop and deal with some of those cosmetic deferred maintenance issues."

by Charlie Scribner