Plant Tours Open Doors —Sherburne

SINCE MY columns in PRINTING IMPRESSIONS started about a year ago, we have discussed different ways you can improve the marketing of your business—driving an associated increase in sales. One thing we haven’t talked about that can be important in the marketing mix is your facility. Do you ever think about your facility as a marketing tool?

Sure, it is important to ensure that the operation is clean and inviting, and that the reception staff is friendly and considerate. And, it is always nice to display awards, recognition and samples of your work. But how else can you leverage that investment as a marketing tool?

I recently paid a visit to Daytona Beach, FL-based DME, and that visit sparked this line of thinking for me. A visit to DME’s plant certainly does not disappoint. First of all, it is quite large, occupying six buildings on an 11-acre campus with total space of 120,000 square feet under the corporate roof.

When you enter the lobby, which is a fairly small space with a significant portion of its available wall space devoted to recognition of employees, the receptionist has you sign in and takes your photo. She then creates a badge that includes the photo, as well as some barcoded information. So far, so good. Many companies do this for security reasons. But DME takes this utilitarian tool a giant step further.

Our group of three was hosted by DME’s own Alin Jacobs. As he took us through the lobby door into the building to begin our tour, our first stop was in front of a flat-panel display equipped with a reader that read the encoded information on the badge and brought up a world map, highlighting the area the visitor was from (in this case, the group leader was from Glasgow, Scotland) and also highlighted other countries and regions DME visitors have hailed from.

Customize, Open Eyes

This was the beginning of a very unique, personalized tour. After all, DME is in the business of producing personalized communications, and what better way to show the technology in action than to turn the entire tour into a demonstration of the power of one-to-one communications?

Next we entered a small room with a larger flat-panel display on the wall, and had the first encounter with the video host who we would interact with throughout the tour. Jacobs explained that the video host, Tim in this case, was the equivalent of your best sales rep on his or her best day—and Tim never has an off day, at least in his video version.

Tim spent a few minutes giving us an overview of DME, the variable data market, and setting the stage for the rest of our tour. The video was cleverly done to make it feel like Tim was speaking directly to you, and since Jacobs was the host who initiated the video, Tim was even able to greet him by name. It draws the viewer into high-attention mode and makes the video presentation even more effective.

As we progressed through the tour, we were guided by both our human and video hosts in a logical, well-planned overview that clearly demonstrated DME’s market differentiation and value proposition.

While we did, of course, see equipment—a four-color press, four Xerox iGen3s, two Xeikon 5000s and a host of mailing, inserting and finishing equipment—the equipment was not the focus of the tour. At each stop, the focus was on what was being produced, how it fit into the overall process and the differentiated value-add that DME could bring to the visitor’s direct marketing efforts. In some cases, the visitor would take a brief on-screen survey that allowed DME to collect a little more information in order to customize the tour even more.

We were also able to view a very impressive data center—through windows into a secure area, of course. And since data is such a key part of DME’s business, this, and the talk track that went with it, was a very important part of the tour.

As we listened to one of the video presentations, while looking through windows into the area containing the four Xerox iGen3s, unbeknownst to us, our photos were being taken, and upon entering the production room, we were handed an 11x17˝ poster that included that photo, as well as other relevant information DME had learned about us on the way. A powerful way to demonstrate one-to-one communications on-demand.

DME also has a full multimedia studio where videos such as the ones starring Tim are produced—as well as an array of customer videos. Lucky me, both Tim and his makeup artist happened to be in the studio that day, and we got to meet them personally!

The Power of One-to-One

DME is in the process of producing new videos and creating ways to make the tour even more personalized. For example, on the first stop with the new tour, the phone will ring and the caller will ask for the visitor by name. An operator in DME’s 90-seat call center will ask a few key questions rather than having the visitor take the on-screen survey, allowing DME to customize the tour even more.

While I am not suggesting that you hire a video host—well, actually, it’s not a bad idea—or set up your own multimedia studio for the sole purpose of promoting your business, the DME experience gives some great insight into how to use your facility—which is, after all, probably your biggest investment—as a tool for marketing your business. By thinking through what the real value is that you offer to your customers and what makes you different from the competition, you can craft a meaningful tour that does not spend a lot of time focused on how many sheets per hour at how many lines per inch your star press can produce. Instead, make the star of your show the value that the customer is gaining from taking advantage of your services.

And it works. Jacobs told us that some 65 percent of invited visitors that come through the facility become customers. Is your tour close rate that high? The other interesting aspect at DME is that visitors are both print buyers and other printers. Doesn’t DME worry about competitors learning too much about what they are doing? Not at all, according to Jacobs. In fact, while DME does a lot of tours on behalf of its vendor/partner Xerox, the company also gains a lot of business by doing so.

DME offers to act as the production arm for printers wanting to get into variable data publishing, until they have built up enough volume to justify buying their own digital press. Jacobs says, “We get at least a year’s worth of business out of each one of these. Not a bad deal!”

Check out www.dmenet.com to learn more about DME, and if you would like to meet our host, visit his virtual business card at www.AlinJacobs.com for a virtual introduction. PI

—CARY SHERBURNE

About the Author
Cary Sherburne is a well-known journalist, author and strategic marketing consultant working primarily with the printing and publishing industry. She is a frequent speaker at industry events, a regular contributor to industry publications and has written three books, available for purchase through the National Association for Printing Leadership (www.napl.org). Sherburne can be reached at Cary@ SherburneAssociates.com.