Self-Promotion Campaigns -- Maintaining Mind Time

WHEN IT comes to getting face time with print buyers, quite often the key to success is securing real estate—a small area on the buyer’s cubicle shelf, or a patch of wall in need of garnish. Achieving staying power in the minds of buyers is the reward of the creative, the motivated and ingenious. Want to dazzle the print buyer? Do something different. Come up with an idea that hasn’t been done ad nauseam. Wedge your way onto the corner of the print buyer’s desk with something that is too cute, kooky, goofy or otherwise indispensable.

And, while you’re at it, be sure to deliver your printing company’s message of competitive prices, high quality, fast deliveries and outstanding customer service. Put it all together in a cohesive package, and you might be as successful as the following self-promotional campaigns.

Deliver... And Decide

Reflections Inc.
Minneapolis

After a few years of doing digital printing, Reflections Inc. President Chris Clemens decided he wanted to elevate his company’s offering to a higher plateau. The focus, he decided, was to provide 24-hour turnarounds of high-quality digital printing, with an emphasis on variable data work. Thus, Reflections’ R-24 digital division was born.

To usher in the new division, Clemens worked with a designer friend, Derek Sussner of Sussner Design, to come up with a promotional package. Clemens had recently purchased a Dodge Sprinter van specifically for R-24 product deliveries, so the design team devised a promotion that would help connect customers to the delivery van. And so, the “Custom Kit” concept of a fold-out “van” complete with decorative stickers was born.

The six-piece Custom Kit folder features a personalized fold-out card that extols Reflections’ digital color capability via its five-color Kodak NexPress press with coater, which produced a majority of the package. The fold-out van is fugitive glued to the card, which includes directions on turning the flat piece into a mini version of the Sprinter. Even the stickers are variable by name and gender.

Clemens wanted to underscore the company’s strengths in variable data digital printing, given its ability to not only turn jobs in 24 hours, but produce work that is of optimal quality. The promotion seems to have struck a chord with customers, as Reflections has needed to rerun samples four times.

“We try to produce promotions that are unique enough that people want to keep them,” Clemens says. “A postcard would have went in the trash the minute somebody got it. A small percentage of our loyal followers would’ve read it and gleaned the information. We try to do things that will get past our everyday clients and get to prospects that might prompt a phone call. Some recipients even want to recreate it under their own brands.”

Clemens also tapped a cultural icon for another shelf-sticking concept aimed at keeping Reflections’ name visible to customers. Called the “Purple Predictor,” this shake-and-read fortune teller is a tip of the cap to Mattel’s Magic 8-Ball. Smaller than the standard 8-ball, the Purple Predictor is roughly the size of a baseball, with the Reflections logo in silver on the purple sphere.

The more Purple Predictors he sends out (Clemens has about 1,000 left from his order of 2,500), the more customers want him to quote them a price on the fortune balls for their own marketing efforts. The cost of production—Clemens found a Chinese company that manufactures them—makes it prohibitive for most businesses.

“From the time you interact with us, until the time you get an invoice, the process is extremely smooth,” he notes. “You don’t have to call and check to find out where your proof is, or whether the job is going to deliver on time. We try to eliminate that angst from the process.”

Shuffle Up And Print

Southeastern Printing
Stuart, FL

Sometimes it is the execution, and not the promotion itself, that makes a campaign most effective. Southeastern Printing is a prime example. The Florida printer had devised a creative promotion called “The Leader of the Pack,” which utilized a poker playing theme.

But, according to Joanie Lotz, marketing manager, the campaign lacked a structured, formal prospecting program. They were just given to some customers and prospects. There wasn’t a game plan aimed at leveraging the kit.

When Lotz came aboard, she helped the sales team identify leads. The poker kit provided the initial drop to prospects, which was then followed up several days later with an e-mail or voicemail pertaining to the kit itself. That provided the opening to stop by prospects’ offices the following week to drop off samples of Southeastern Printing’s work. Every other week, a Southeastern rep would drop off another sample of the printer’s work, industry specific to the type of business the prospect performed.

When the supply of poker kits dried up, the printer decided to go in a somewhat different direction. Keeping the playing cards—all 52 showcase different Southeastern capabilities or company facts—intact, the theme was switched to “The Magic of Southeastern Printing.” Introduced last April, Southeastern opted for a turn-of-the-century magician motif, inspired by the movie “The Illusionist.” A photo shoot of a magician was set up at a local theater, and the images were employed in an 81⁄2x11? color booklet that touts all of Southeastern’s capabilities.

“If it was a simple brochure, it would probably get tossed in the waste basket,” Lotz says. “It’s gotten us in the door at countless places. Sometimes, people are so knocked out by it that they’ll ask us to give them a quote for doing a deck of cards or something similar.”

Case in point: The Orange Bowl committee sent an RFQ to Southeastern for a project that commemorated the 75th anniversary of the college football classic. The committee also handled the bowl championship (BCS) title game a week later at Dolphin Stadium (the same venue) and wanted to have a piece to use for both events.

While the cards may prompt the desire for imitation, it is the execution of the game plan that truly leverages the effectiveness of the promotional campaign.

“This is the first in a series of many in-person drops. We’ve taken the process of putting the sales rep in front of the customer,” Lotz adds. “It shows that prospect how much we want their business. It’s a structured, disciplined program.”

Hey, You... Yeah, You

Cohber Press
West Henrietta, NY

Calendars are easily one of the best promotional pieces a printer can produce; they hang on the customer’s wall all year (sometimes longer). Most times, these items are produced by third-party companies that will put your firm’s name, address and contact info on the descending portion of the calendar’s last page.

But old-school printers scoff at the idea of a printed product that isn’t produced in-house. And, while you’re at it, why not make the most of your firm’s ability to provide variable data personalization to the project?

That seemed logical to Eric Webber, president of Cohber Press, who fired up his Kodak NexPress 3000 and created a piece that spoke to customers and reminded them to take care of business.

“We wanted to make sure, from a marketing perspective, that we’d have top-of-mind awareness with customers,” Webber says. “The idea was for something that would have our name and provide a subconscious, if not conscious, visual for the customer of what we do, day in and day out.”

The personalized images, some of which came from the Kodak library, but mostly conceptualized and designed by the Cohber team, incorporate the recipient’s name in 13 scenarios. Images include a New Year’s wish written in the snow, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a fish’s bubbles forming the name, and a barrel of wine with the recipient’s name stamped on the end.

In two of the months, January and September, the recipient was reminded to “call Eric at Cohber.” During those months, Cohber executed a “full-court press,” sales-style, making sure buyers received a phone call to follow through on the calendar reminder.

The promotional product has also had some unintended, but positive, consequences. Overall response was so overwhelmingly positive that Cohber got to work early on the 2009 edition; this one was printed using all in-house concepts, no stock imagery.

“The feedback has been tremendous,” Webber concludes. “For some of our clients, we’re taking out our logo, putting in their logo and producing the calendar for their customers.” PI