Note: This is Part 7 of a 9-Part series based on the book “Business Transformation: A New Path to Profit for the Printing Industry”

Transforming from a printing company printer into a marketing service provider certainly may require a lot of internal work. But once those steps have been completed, a crucial step in the process is to let the world know about the new services that you can offer.

How will you promote your new business? It is important that you don’t abandon the tried and true marketing methods that you have always fallen back on. However, it is just as important that you are willing to embrace new technologies and strategies that you may not have utilized in the past.

In chapter 6 of my book Business Transformation: A New Path to Profit for the Printing Industry, I constructed a list of questions related to key marketing efforts that may help.

# 1 – Your Website

Do you have a website? Many of you will say “yes” to this question… but it doesn’t end there. Does your website represent your marketing services provider business in the best way possible? Is it interactive, engaging, and frequently updated? Heck, is it ugly?

It may be worth investing in resources to ensure that “working on the company website” is high on your company’s priority list. Don’t run the risk of your website being lost in the shuffle.

#2 – Your Blog

Are you wondering why company would want a blog? Here are a few reasons: A blog drives traffic to your site, encourages visitors to keep coming back, and it also increases Search Engine Optimization.

#3 -  Sales Collateral and Lead-Generation Forms

When transforming into a marketing services provider, it’s important to update your sales collateral to reflect the appropriate messaging and branding. Once this is done, incorporate downloadable versions of that information on your website. People are always researching and looking for tips and facts when looking at businesses. Studies have shown that about 70% of people use a company website to research a product or service before they make a decision. Thus, do not be shy about re-purposing information from your brochures and slicks onto your website.

Of course, you don’t need to give it all away for a free! Put up lead generation forms that require interested parties to give you some bits of data (perhaps their email address) before they can download certain pieces of collateral.

# 4 – Online Video

Do you have any video or audio on your site? If not, you absolutely should. Quick videos are great ways to disseminate important information, and it is a nice change up from the written word.

Speaking of video, do you have a YouTube channel? Keep all of your videos in one place, and embed them on your website.

We all want people to find us on Google, right? Well do not forget that Google owns YouTube… and YouTube videos often rank high in search engine results. So, get the camera rolling!

#5 – Social Networks

Now that we’ve mentioned YouTube, we have to discuss the rest other social networks; namely Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. All of these are very important to keep in mind when you are crafting your online marketing plan. Build your networks, connect with professionals and potential clients, and involve your company in pertinent conversations about your industry. You can do all of these things in social media. Just like your website, make sure you have a strategy in place when you are setting these networks up. Do not let them fall by the wayside. Consistency is the key to a successful social media campaign.

What else can you do?

There are other ways to promote your news services as well. You should use email marketing to reach your audience.. You should aggressively create and launch direct marketing campaigns, including direct mail (of course!), print advertisements, radio ads or television ads. Don’t forget to create personalized URLs or QR codes to get the attention of your audience when appropriate.

And there is also mobile marketing. Create a mobile website for your company that can be viewed by the rapidly expanding audience of people carrying smartphones everywhere they go .

I hope that these ideas help you to promote the many services that you can now offer customers and prospect.

Next week, I will give you a guide to help your sales team sell marketing services.

To learn more about my book, “Business Transformation: A New Path to Profit for the Printing Industry”, visit  my book’s website.

In an earlier post “The Next Generation of Print –Evolve or Die!” I discussed the changing landscape of today’s Print Service Provider and the need for evolution. I made the point that in order to achieve success you have to identify the new dynamics associated with the new solution. I also noted that many companies acquiring new solutions fail to develop a comprehensive plan before going to market. They go right from training on the solution into the field (or onto the floor) with exactly the same approach that they used for their traditional offerings. This is a doomed approach.

With that in mind let’s discuss the new skills for new services that are required for success with a new solution.

First of all, the skills needed will depend on the new solution that you are bringing to market. If the solution is an extension of your existing print services, many skills you currently possess will not change radically. But if you are moving into a new area of opportunity like Integrated Marketing Services there will be some new skills required for success.

Let’s review some of the technical knowledge required for success:

• The ability to populate and share content in social media and online communities
• Internet media channels
• Mobile messaging
• QR codes
• Google ad words and PPC (Pay Per Click)
• Print as part of an Integrated Marketing Campaign

Now let’s take a look at  how each functional area of the business may be impacted. Each group will need a number of important skills before working with customers and prospects. Here’s a short list to get you thinking:

SALES

• Sales training on the overall value proposition, how to “approach” and “present” to the customer and how to    engage the customer/prospects with the solution meeting their needs
• Technical training on the various use cases to meet different customer need
• Proof cases on different implementations for success
• Development of new decision maker contacts

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

• Solution training on all of the functional capabilities
• Best practices for campaign success
• Typical design and customer campaign configurations
• How to discuss current customer needs as it relates to new projects

PRE-PRESS and PRODUCTION

• It depends on how deep these groups will be involved in the actual creation of campaign versus pure production of the campaigns
• At minimum, the key elements of a campaign and best practice personalized elements of finished goods
• How the data base is appended for campaigns
• Advanced functionality like Personalized QR Codes versus standard QR Codes

CREATIVE SERVICES

• Comprehensive technical training on how to create and deliver campaigns
• Advanced design elements for special campaign needs
• Best Practice use case methodologies
• Advanced functionality training for varying needs

OPERATIONS

• New pricing parameters for Integrated Marketing Services
• Each campaign is unique – so is the pricing
• Sales compensation changes – more profit
• SOW requirements and associated processes
• Payment upfront (50%) to start project – balance due at campaign launch (50%)

As I mentioned earlier this is simply a short list to get you thinking but it clearly demonstrates the need for effective planning, training and execution across the entire organization.

I would also suggest that you can’t do it alone. You are running a full time business in a changing environment. You need to have a partner to help you make the transformation. The good news is that there are many resources available to you in this area. The even better news is that hundreds of service providers just like you have made the journey successfully.

If you need more information on the options available to you please do not hesitate to ask for help.

In today’s competitive environment, most of us are faced with three major factors impacting our profits: more capacity than work, aggressive pricing to get the sale, and our client asking for additional features or benefits after the project is booked.

In the typical scenario, sales works hard to bring in opportunities, and estimating cuts the price to a minimum profit margin to try to secure the work, and if you’re lucky you close the deal.

But then the fun really begins as you start to work on the project and realize there is more to it than you thought. Maybe a lot more. 

It may start very simply and innocently – changing a few words in the copy, a couple of line-break changes for better layout, and the next thing you know you’ve happily agreed to move the mail date up by three days.  Whatever the request, the result is the same – you do the extra work, (incur cost), to keep the client happy, (loyal?), and it eats into your narrow profit margins even further.  If you do not have a detailed activity-based cost system, the total impact of small, incremental changes, or even larger ones, could go unnoticed.  At the end you look at the financials and wonder where the profit has gone.

One way to change the trend is to implement a Statement of Work, (SOW), for every project – even small ones.  Make sure the statement of work reflects all aspects of the project: data, composition, print, finishing, distribution and reporting.  You will get push back that this is too much work and slows down the sales process, but in fact we have seen over and over that making the effort up front can significantly reduce delays in the contracting and production of the project, and the clarity it provides saves time, (cost), for both you and your client. 

The statement of work would be provided to or reviewed with the client to confirm that you and they are in agreement as to the scope of the work.  Ideally, the client and you sign off on the SOW when the pricing is finalized and the purchase order is provided. Track the actual work performed against the SOW and make sure the changes are documented so they can be considered in repeat or similar future work.  Communicating to the client the changes and additional work being performed can minimally be used as a way of creating good will and improving the relationship, but can also be an objective way of identifying and communicating additional costs.  You decide in advance of discussion whether these are costs you wish to pursue with your client.  Most importantly, you know that the work and costs exist. 

This may seem simple and obvious but we have found time and time again that even if there is a Statement of Work process in place, it is used inconsistently or steps are left out.  Most often, the closing review of a project is left undone, as we have moved on to focus on the next project.  So the next time you wonder where profits have gone, take a look at your SOW process.