Five Ways to Break into Marketing Services

If you look over last year's issues of IPG you will find articles about how in-plants are evolving from solely providing print and mail services to offering more marketing services. In the December 2011 issue, however, Lisa Cross of InfoTrends questioned the reality of that observation when she wrote, "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."

To some, the concept of printers and mailers offering marketing services is not just gaining momentum; it has become a runaway train. At this point, no one knows if it will be more like the train in the Woody Harrelson movie Money Train, filled with the promise of getting rich quick, or the one in the Denzel Washington film Unstoppable, speeding out of control as it headed for a disastrous crash. The obvious question about the perceived move to marketing services is how much of it is hype and how much is reality?

I agree with my old friend Lisa Cross. Truth be told, while many companies talk about offering marketing services, few commercial printers and even fewer in-plants have been successful in making that transition. Let's look at one issue that we believe may often hinder an in-plant's ability to offer marketing services.

The 'Pigeonhole' Problem

One problem encountered by both commercial printers and in-plants is that their customers start to think about them based on products they buy. In other words, customers stereotype or define them as a business card printer, a large-format or poster printer, or a printer/mailer. The in-plant becomes pigeonholed, based not on all the products or services it provides, but only on those the customer purchases. The customer uses Shop A for business cards, Shop B for brochures and maybe the in-plant for stationery—and doesn't look beyond that.

When your business has been pigeonholed, the customer has categorized it and shelved it away. Unfortunately, many companies have no idea how much they have been cubbyholed by their customers.

When we at NAPL are asked to assess in-plant performance, we take a 360-degree view of performance that includes operational performance, financial metrics and customer feedback. We analyze customer opinions on service, perceived value and competitive performance through surveys and focus groups. In the latter, we listen not only to compliments and criticisms, but we are also on the alert for certain trigger phrases that can suggest the business has been pigeonholed—expressions such as:

"I love the in-plant. I use them at the beginning of each semester. They do a great job with my course packs."

"I just send them my business cards, letterhead and envelopes."

"They always print our invoices."

Limited Awareness

In a focus group at one mid-sized university in-plant in the Midwest we asked three peer groups, "Are you aware that the in-plant offers e-mail marketing, large-format poster printing, pURLs and variable-data printing?" We learned that about 75 percent of those participating had stereotyped the in-plant, including one person, who seemed to sum up the problem: "I did not know that they offered e-mail marketing and large-format poster printing, and I don't even know what pURLs and variable-data printing are."

While focus groups are good for qualitative information, surveys help to quantify the issues. We did two surveys at this school, one focusing on competitiveness, the other on awareness and changing demands. The latter survey confirmed that between 40 percent and 60 percent of the in-plant's customers were not aware of all the services it offered. Fortunately, this survey also became a lead generation tool.

Many in-plants struggle with product and service awareness because they are discouraged from using salespeople, and one of the roles of salespeople is to update clients on new services or to counter claims from outside service providers. The fact that in-plants often don't have salespeople while outside providers are encouraged to knock on the doors of their customers is always a heated conversation.

If your competition's salespeople are the only ones talking to your customers, they are shaping your customers' perceptions of who you are, which could contribute further to your being pigeonholed.

Getting Out of the Cubby

The good news is that there are many ways to overcome being pigeonholed—and they're all based on getting your message out. Here are five ideas:

1) Train Your CSRs. Just because you don't have a sales force does not mean that you can't communicate to your customers about new products or services. Your customer service reps have ongoing conversations with customers. For the best results, schedule an afternoon training session with your staff, create some talking points, and have the group break out into small teams and practice.

2) Visit Customers. Just because we have a host of new electronic communications tools at our disposal does not mean that the tried and true techniques don't still work well. These old-school tricks include having a CSR or manager deliver items and talk to customers about what they are trying to achieve. For example, you could drop off some personalized note pads with the person's name on top of it saying "From the desk of…" and on the bottom saying "From your in-plant printer." It's not a new idea, but still a good one.

3) Invite Them Over. Another long-standing idea that still works is the plant tour. At last year's ACUP (Association of College and University Printers) conference, we visited the University of North Texas and were treated to a world-class in-plant tour. There were four tour guides who were well rehearsed. In front of each machine, there was an operator who was also well rehearsed in describing the equipment and his or her role. In fact, some equipment was also manned by a representative of the manufacturer or reseller, in case a visitor wanted more information. And the tour was enjoyably capped off with an excellent barbecue lunch served under a big Texas tent.

4) Customer Training Programs. By offering client training, not only can you introduce new services, you can position yourself as a reliable customer resource. The programs that seem to get the most attention are seminars, such as, "How to avoid cost overruns" or "Update on the latest features of InDesign." When I interviewed one customer at the Bethel School District, she could not stop raving about how the in-plant manager taught her to use InDesign. One higher-education in-plant offered a meeting every month in different buildings to discuss what new products it had created.

5) Walk the Walk. One more suggestion: Nothing says you know what you are doing more than proving it yourself. If you offer post cards, e-mail services and pURLs, use them to invite your customers to a seminar on cross-media marketing. Take your time, have it professionally designed and create a clever campaign.

The most effective programs combine presentations on marketing effectiveness, best practices and new technologies such as QR codes, social media and mobile marketing. PODi (the Print on Demand Initiative: www.podi.org) has some great examples of effective variable data campaigns that include case histories of how other in-plants achieved outstanding results.

If you really want to motivate attendance to a customer program, offer an incentive. Send them a link to a customized pURL, and tell them that if they sign up for the seminar or tour, they will get a customized mouse pad, calendar, T-shirt or even a Kindle. Remember, nothing motivates more than freebies and free food. IPG

NAPL Senior Consultant Howard Fenton works with in-plants to benchmark operational and financial performance to that of industry leaders. He recommends improvement strategies and coaches in-plant managers on how to increase the value of their operation and join the ranks of industry leaders. For more information, call Howie at (201) 523-6328 or e-mail him at: hfenton@napl.org