Marchand--Good News / Bad News

I love those old good news-bad news jokes. In the best of them, the bad is unexpectedly derived from the good. On close examination, what seems at first glance to be good news turns out to be a mixed blessing, sometimes even a grotesque outcome. The humor comes from the disparity between what we at first expect and what we then learn.

Well, there's good news for marketers in the printing industry. And, predictably, the good news is also the bad news.

After two decades of struggle during the '70s and '80s, marketing won widespread acceptance in the printing industry. Few printing executives doubt the important role of marketing communications in helping increase sales. Everyone seems in agreement.

It is increasingly more difficult for reps without marketing support to keep customers informed about their companies' new and ever more complex capabilities. Moreover, print buyers are no longer the only people in customers' organizations with whom printing companies must communicate.

And it helps, everyone now agrees, if the printing company is a familiar name, branded even before reps initiate contact with a prospect organization. As a result of all this, printing companies routinely have a marketing line in their annual budgets.

Marketing is now firmly entrenched as a synonym for what in more innocent times used to be called self-promotion: capability brochures, publicity, direct mail, Web sites. Occasionally, it extends to advertising and a multitude of sins hidden in the term "customer communications." That's the good news.

At long last, marketers have gained respectability for their craft, or at least for parts of it, not only customer communications but also the tools of sales and marketing automation (so-called). Cause for celebration, wouldn't you say? Well, yes…and no.

The bad news and the joke lie hidden in an innocuous phrase in the preceding paragraph: "at least for parts of it." Some important pieces are missing, and without them, the creature printing executives call marketing is blind and deaf, if not stillborn. Cruel metaphors, but applicable.

If I'm right, fellow marketers, it's not yet time to congratulate ourselves. It's not the top of the ninth inning, nor are we 10 runs ahead. If we measure our efforts by the standards of other industries, what we call marketing lags considerably. And, it should be mentioned, those other industries include companies providing alternatives to print.

Our customers need print and will continue to need it. That's another piece of good news. But how much do we know—industry by industry, customer by customer—about the nature of their needs? Particularly in fast-changing industries. (I can't think of any industries that are not being revolutionized by digital technology.)

Have you noticed that marketing communications look and sound similar from one printing company to the next? How many printing companies address customers differently, according to the industries they're in? Few!

Printing companies routinely base their marketing materials on assumptions shared by the communicators. We talk to colleagues in our own organizations and to our counterparts in other printing companies, but how much information do we get directly from our customers, the print buyers? Less than we should, I suspect.

Are we telling our customers what we think they need to hear about our printing companies? Or are we communicating with them in their language about their needs as they perceive them? If it's not the latter, then perhaps the marketing dollars are much less effective than they might be, or even completely wasted.

I can hear a few of my readers now: "You hypocrite," they're saying. "After two decades of crusading for promotion, communications or whatever you want to call it, you're telling us we ought to fall silent?" Not quite.

My message is less drastic. We need to include seeing and hearing in our definition of marketing. To do that, marketing must be understood to include a range of activities still missing from most printing company programs.

Here are suggestions to make your company's marketing more complete and more effective.

• Industry Research. Review customer lists and the regional markets you serve, industry by industry. Identify the print needs and market potential of each industry. All the data you'll need are available on the Internet and in trade publications.

  Use the information to make choices, to select industries to be emphasized. Determine what the results mean for your company's mix of capabilities. Make no significant investment in plant and equipment without consulting the findings of your segmentation. This process should precede the assumption-filled cost justification work that is often conducted by many printing companies.

• Segmentation. Fit all significant customers and all potentially significant customers and prospects into the industries you have selected for your company. A single segment may include multiple industries or parts of more than one industry, structured and selected for how it fits with your capabilities.

  Examples: Automobile and computer manuals come from entirely different industries, as do corporate capability brochures, automobile brochures and even annual reports, but in each of these categories there are enough similarities to create a product group or market segment for your company.

• Customer Fit. Focus your marketing communications on segments. Use the imagery and language familiar to each industry. Make the timing and content of your marketing communications speak to their production cycles, times-to-market, advertising, promotional, packaging and documentation needs.

  Doing this entails a sustained process of customer research—reading their trade publications, listening to them in focus group settings, meeting with them one-on-one—and incorporating what is learned in your communications. This is an ongoing process; it never ends.

The good news, then, is that the communications piece of our craft has gained respectability. The bad news: Without good market intelligence, the communications may be ineffective and sometimes even damaging.

Better news will come as we recognize how much more powerful a role marketing can play by incorporating an intelligence-gathering function in its purview.

If the challenge to printing posed by other media is to be met, each printing company must gain a better understanding of the differentiated and highly specialized role played by print for its customers. Successful companies will address the issues segment by segment, and customer by customer.

What they learn will affect how their mix of capabilities is made to fit customer needs efficiently. Only then will marketing communications fulfill their potential: customer retention, new business and sales growth.

—Jacques Marchand

About the Author
Jacques Marchand may be phoned at (415) 357-2929. His firm, Marchand Marketing, provides strategic consulting services, research, market planning, segmentation, lead generation, positioning and marketing communications to help companies in the printing industry increase sales. Send e-mail to jmarchand@marchand.com. Information about the firm's work for clients is also available on its Web site, www.marchand.com.

Remembering the Obvious:
The Smaller the Company, the Greater the Gain

"Your definition of marketing is for large companies only. It's neither affordable nor useful for small companies like ours." I hear this plaintive cry from companies as large as $35 million in annual sales and, not surprisingly, as little as $5 million.

Not true.

Can't afford? With the information now routinely available on the Internet and a little bit of ingenuity, the smallest company can put together a systematic understanding of its markets. The benefit—a better use of limited marketing resources—is proportionally greater for little companies than large ones, which can waste and still prosper.

Not useful? This claim is usually accompanied by assurances that "we know our customers." In over 16 years of conducting focus groups for printing companies, I have yet to run one focus group that didn't yield information the client found unexpected and valuable.

If helpful, use a consultant to get started. The PIA and NAPL can help you find one.

Remember the obvious. The fastest mice in the wheel are still going nowhere. Do different. Get off the wheel. Bite into the marketing cheese. Become the mouse that roars.

—J.M.