Marketing Print for Profit

Being diligent means to know your market, your market’s needs, and how to talk to your market.

Diligent — not the first word you think of when you think about new business programs, is it? Yet it should be one of the first words that you think and rethink every 45 days. Why 45 days? Based on any number of studies, 45 days is the time frame that you need to promote your business — basically every month and a half, 8.2 times per year, year after year!

From my viewpoint, I see the majority of articles in most print industry-based publications discuss Sales and Marketing. Sales and Marketing seem to be presented as family members — brothers and sisters, or sometimes partners. Is this a correct comparison or connection? I am not sure, are you?

Yes, new business is a simple as 1, 2 and 3. The problem has been for most that the order is often incorrectly applied, or subsets are inserted that deflate the process and invalidate the program. So the simple 1, 2 and 3 becomes, 3, 1 and 2, plus 2a, 3b, 1f, and so on!

Few fully recognize that commercial printers offer one or more of three segments of the bigger business model — these segments are Information (newspapers, magazines etc.,), Product Logistics (packaging, et all), and Marketing, sell, and advertising (self defined). Two out of these three segments are far from dying, and even the definition of death is open to discussion.

A new dawning in the age of printer-based self-promotion has arrived. Printers are brands, not providers, not suppliers and they must begin to act as a brand and market themselves as such! Think of awareness in the same manner as the proverbial onion. Each layer needs to be peeled back (used) to fully benefit from the wonder of this often-misunderstood vegetable. How misunderstood is your firm, the services and products you offer?