How to Sell Print to Modern Marketers. One Main Takeaway.
What are my clients’ print budget this year and how can I get a chunk of that? Unfortunately, this is still the approach many printers use. They fail to understand their clients’ goals, pain points and how print fits in the marketing mix.
Marketers drive a lot of print business, but do printers know how to sell print to the modern marketer? Is there one holistic approach that works?
How printers used to approach marketers few years ago does not work anymore. Just like the print industry, the marketing landscape has also changed. Marketing decisions are fully revenue driven. The traditional 4 P’s of marketing are dead and should only be used to explain how old marketing worked.
Today, different marketers use a different marketing mix, tactics and pursuit different marketing goals. They use different mediums, strategies and technologies. Print plays a different role in each of your client’s marketing mix. That said, the same sales pitch won’t work. Printers need to dig deeper. Printers need to ask the right questions. Printers need to diagnose the patient before they write the right prescription.
If you don’t get anything out this article, get this. Today marketers make decisions primarily based on revenue -marketing ROI. Their job is to generate qualified leads, customers, retain customers, grow accounts, REVENUE, REVENUE, REVENUE. What printers need to figure out is how to help marketers get there. This is very different from simply supplying print demand. This approach is totally different. It requires insight and strategy.
Digital mediums and real time performance gave boards the ability to hold marketers accountable for results. Suddenly the job was to drive business and prove marketing ROI. Social media, Google Adwords, blogging and SEM have become popular playgrounds for marketers. Marketers know print works. It’s a unique medium with much potential. However, marketers need help integrating print into existing campaigns. Printers are responsible to close this gap.
Your goal as a printer is to drive value, clear value! Be a print expert, creative mind and strategist.
Printers need to bring creative ideas, solve pain points, and use the right technology solutions. They need to understand how print can be integrated with other components in the marketing mix to help marketers drive revenue.
First you need to ask the right questions?
What are your marketing/business objectives? Marketers will answer things like more signups, more qualified leads, new customers, sales, repeated business, and so on.
What are some of the challenges you face with print?
· Missing the right technology to carry out initiatives
· We can’t find a way to integrate print and digital mediums
· It’s hard to enable my sales team with the right marketing assets
· Designing, updating and deploying print takes much time
· Each store location carries a different marketing strategy that sounds and looks completely different
How do you think print can help? We want to reach 190,000 existing clients with a promotional incentive to boost sales next quarter.
Now you can ask yourself, how does print fit for this client?
Here an example of how you sell print to a marketer. Notice technology is key to bring print into the mix.
We understand increasing sales from the previous quarter is your objective and you need to track performance and ROI. No Problem. Here is an idea. We want each of your franchisees to send a mail piece to current customers in their local area. Using our platform, purls and coupon codes, you and franchisee managers will be able to track how many recipients trigger the incentive and calculate ROI. Our platform makes this process very simple. You upload the creative template and the 190,000 records to the system. Franchisee managers then access the system, personalize the piece with store and customer information and launch in less than 5 minutes. We produce and send mail prices. You can start tracking.
You need to dig deep to drive value.
Print combined with the right technology gives printers the opportunity to engage marketers in a new way. From the previous example, the right marketing platform, codes, purls, image personalization are ways to help markers drive revenue and measure it at the same time.
Printers must offer best in class technology that bring the best in print. Gloss, reflection, last name on print, that does not cut it anymore. Marketers need more from print to become part of the marketing mix.
Marketers care about REVENUE. They are receptive to creative ideas. Price, speed and quality are no longer differentiators. Printers need to approach marketers differently, ask the right questions, dig deeper, understand how print fits in the marketing mix, get creative, and help marketers achieve business goals.
