Promote...Or Perish

“I market for the same reason a pilot keeps his engines running once he is off the ground.” – William Wrigley Jr.

IS MARKETING taken as seriously as it should be by your in-plant? After all, you’ve got a captive audience, right?

Wrong!

You’ve no doubt heard about outsourcing attacks. I’m not about to tell you they’re all due to an absence of promotional activities. What I will say is that in-plants that create and foster a positive awareness program among their “stakeholders” have the best shot at being successful. For our purposes, I’ll define stakeholders as:

• Supporters: administrators and executives (a.k.a. decision makers).

• Clients: those who understand your value (or have no choice but to use you).

• Prospects: those who have not yet been convinced of your value and/or don’t use you.

Like you, I have observed many in-plants over the years through, at the very least, the pages of this magazine. We marvel at the successes and pity the failures. In many of those failures rests the underlying fact that communication with one or more of the stakeholders has been ignored and that somewhere along the line, the original value of the in-plant was lost.

Two Different Approaches

Glenda Miley of Auburn University and Joanne Rotert of the University of Missouri-Columbia both make sure that doesn’t happen at their in-plants. They were part of a panel at this year’s IPMA conference that focussed on in-plant marketing techniques.

A systematic approach is taken by both of them. In Joanne’s case, she uses her marketing background to the department’s benefit. Glenda utilizes marketing talent through a student internship from Auburn’s School of Business. Although specific campaigns differ at each institution, established professional marketing principles are adhered to by both. Promotion is viewed as an annually planned strategy with specific goals. Some activities reinforce the departmental brand, while others track and measure responses.

Marketing your in-plant properly is all about sending the right message to the right audience at the right time. Activities should be calculated to generate a specific response, or to instill a particular message, image or culture. As many activities as possible should generate reportable responses, which are not only then actionable, but have a plan in place to continue the conversation.

An ongoing positive brand awareness campaign is of utmost importance. After all, what good does a product promotion do you if the brand is not trusted? It’s like trying to sell an iPhone without Apple behind it.

Product branding at the University of Missouri-Columbia, for example, is spread throughout offset, digital, wide-format and ad specialty lines. Joanne Rotert explains that every response is tracked, and special offers are used as incentives. Departmental flyers are included with finished jobs, and follow-up customer satisfaction phone calls are not uncommon.

Miley boasts of her “CopyCat guy” mascot and brand at Auburn. One of many ways her department communicates its CopyCat image is through the use of a “bus wrap” graphic on the delivery van featuring their mascot.

“This gives us great visibility,” says Miley.

In fact, the in-plant’s mascot has become so recognizable, Glenda says when she’s wearing her departmental shirt (which, of course, has an image of the CopyCat guy) in the grocery store, people have stopped her to comment on how much they love the brand. The PR she gets is invaluable.

Glenda promotes the department with many other branded giveaways. These range from personalized note pads, on which a cartoon CopyCat guy “dances” like the old flip books (there I go dating myself again), to Ziplock bags filled with orange and blue confetti for use at football games.

Joanne has a marketing policy of touching her customers at least once a month. Whether it’s a hard copy or e-mail VDP promotion, a personal call or visit, or some form of collateral material, everything she does is calculated to generate a response.

Self Promo, Texas Style

Down at the University of Texas-Austin, Richard Beto also organizes many themed promotions throughout the year. Like Glenda and Joanne, he plans events in advance by using an annual marketing schedule.

Free food always generates a good turnout. Richard has used this to his department’s benefit by hosting an ice cream social every July and an annual barbecue for key customers. He has received many positive responses—all tracked and brought to the attention of upper management, of course. One of the additional side benefits is that staff involvement in these events also helps build fellowship and camaraderie within the team.

Another promotion at UT-Austin is something Richard calls a “random act of kindness.” His department periodically chooses a random order to be given away free. The word of mouth equity gained from this kind of promotion has proved extremely beneficial.

I understand that within some organizations graphic identity is controlled to a degree that creating a separate brand identity for the in-plant is taboo. Nevertheless, there are many ways to cultivate a positive image.

Benchmarking your services and reporting your findings is always a good way to reveal your value. Not only should you use a comparison to outside vendors as a way to make sure you’re pricing competitively, but the way in which you communicate this can extend far beyond reporting to your boss.

Beto publishes a broadsheet that stresses, “We’re not the lowest price on every order…Just most orders.” It shows how his in-plant’s prices compare against those of outside companies.

Get Help

Now let’s look at the stakeholder equation again. What you want to communicate, to whom, how often and by what method?

If you don’t have marketing expertise, get help from someone who does. Whether it’s from internal sources, interns, local professional organizations or from peers who have better resources, professional help is available.

“Supporters” need information in a timely manner. At the very least, monthly profit and loss statements, quarterly benchmarking metrics and annual business plans need to be presented, discussed and acknowledged. If you’re not collecting, comparing and reporting known costs compared with benchmarked charges, everything becomes anecdotal. This is the number one killer of in-plants.

Customer feedback and survey results are beneficial, as is the sharing of in-plant news in some form of press release or white paper.

I’ve had some folks tell me their administration doesn’t want them to promote the department. My comment is that if there is no support from the supporters, then your marketing priority is clear. Value has to be communicated consistently to the top first.

Clients are your bread and butter. Make them remember you and give them a reason to come back. In our business, note pads, calendars, posters and a host of other easily and inexpensively produced promotional materials always reinforce your image.

If you have in-house variable data capability, use it for your own campaign. Use your new digital device to produce pieces promoting your benefits and capabilities. But don’t get caught in a dead-end promotion that doesn’t generate results. Calculate the purpose of everything you do. Give incentives that generate responses.

Make it easy for your customers to respond and even complain. Customer feedback is invaluable. One of the best tools I’ve seen are customer feedback forms. They can go out with every job, or just a good representative sampling. Regardless, a simple rating system (1-5 for service, price, quality, etc.) and the chance to make comments, anonymously if they wish, can be a powerful part of your marketing toolbox.

Marketing to Prospects

I put prospects in two categories:

• New opportunities: faculty, staff, contractors, etc.

• Existing opportunities: employees who don’t use you and other organizations that could.

New employees should be inundated with freebies, supplied in their orientation packets. If you don’t have this in place, put this magazine down now, and get the ball rolling. (Just come back and finish reading it later. —Editor) Coupons for a free first set of business cards are a great promotion. And of course, once contact is made, have a plan in place to educate, consult and continue the conversation.

For those “opportunities” that don’t use your services but could, research is in order. Use whatever resources you have at your disposal to discover what work goes around you and where. Find out what’s behind the decisions to send jobs elsewhere. Once you have that knowledge, you have the power to act.

I’ll close with some thoughts from your colleagues. Glenda from Auburn says “Unique things make people remember us.” Joanne Rotert complements that sentiment with the old marketing axiom that you need to touch someone seven times on average, before they respond. Combine those two with a little intelligence and creativity, and you have a winning combination.

And to both of those, I’ll just ad my own comment: all the marketing in the world will not create demand unless you are serving your institution’s best interests and needs. A snorkel is of no use to a pilot…unless he doesn’t keep his engines running.