Margie Dana

One thing I get fired up about is a printer’s website. Even when I happen upon a site that’s not a client’s, I’m all over it like a cheap suit. There’s a mental checklist I go through to ultimately give it a grade from the perspective of a potential customer.

I was checking out the website of Lithographics Inc. after a couple of their salespeople subscribed to this blog. For whatever reason, I went to the “Our Work” section, where I came upon four different subsections.

It was the first link that caught my attention. It’s called “Clients.” Lo and behold, there I found a page filled with logos of some of their clients.

Though it may seem trivial to you, to me it’s quite significant. Because most printers’ sites that I come across do not share the names of their customers. Maybe they’re afraid that competitors will steal them away. Quite possibly they can’t get permission from clients to use their logos (or even identify them in a list of testimonials).

Seeing this colorful list made quite the good impression on me. It comes from strength – to put these client names out there. It comes from pride – to acknowledge some of their clients on a web page. And frankly, seeing this graphic arrangement of company logos somehow conveys Success.

Back when I bought print for a financial services company here in Boston, whenever a printer dropped the name “Fidelity” to us, we all thought, “Well, if they’re good enough for Fidelity, they must be fantastic!” Worked like a charm.

What do you think? If you’re a printer, are you man enough to post a list of customers on your site (with permission, of course)? And if you’re a print customer, would this influence you?

Jim Pattison

February 17, 2016 at 3:51 pm ·

What a great help to your competition ! Loyalty is gone because the ‘Guru’s’ tell their students that their knowledge has no value and should be given away for free to ‘help’ the client. Then the client can shop for the best price based on the Free Knowledge you’ve provided them. It’s been going on forever and will continue to go on. If you brag about who your clients are, they will no longer be when the cheaper vendor comes along because after all, you followed the ‘Guru’s’ advice and made yourself irrelevant by giving your knowledge away for free.

Margie Dana

February 18, 2016 at 10:49 am ·

Hi, Jim, thanks for weighing in.

I imagine most printers agree with you on this, otherwise I’d be seeing a lot more pages listing clients. I can only give my perspective as a potential print customer. When I see company names that I know and like or admire, I am impressed. It’s just one small impression, granted, and does not tell me anything about a printer’s product or service or price point, but it does register with me.

Most of the professional print buyers I’ve known have many years of experience, and they are loyal to their preferred printers. I don’t think that they’d be swayed by a competitor who contacts them out of the blue because he/she pulled the company name off another printer’s web site.

Just my opinion, nothing is ever black & white.

Thanks again for your point-of-view. I wonder if other printers feel the same.

Margie

Jeff Dickerson

February 17, 2016 at 4:06 pm ·

Good post. Testimonials can help. However the buyer must still beware.

1. In our Master Purchase Agreement, that every vendor must sign before we work with them, we have the stipulation that they cannot use our logo or name without our permission. (We rarely grant permission). We pay a fair price for work produced. That is the value proposition. No one can use our brand value to sell their services. So…I always wonder, did they have permission or do they hope a customer won’t see their logo/name? Or, did the person who signed the contract not tell the people who designed the website that the name/logo could not be used?
2. They may have produced one job for Acme Products, but how do I know that any of the work produced was acceptable?
3. I see, read and ignore most client lists. I do not know when they were updated, what work they produced or how long the relationship lasted. They do provide good question fodder.
4. I prefer to see work they have produced recently then, bring out my 6 serving men (see Kipling, the Elephant’s Child, six serving men) to do the investigative research that answers the real questions.

Margie Dana

February 18, 2016 at 10:25 am ·

Thanks, Jeff, you know how much I value your thoughts. I appreciate your position and I imagine it is fairly standard for many firms in many industries.

I contacted Lithographics before I published the post – not because I had to, since their page with logos is public – but because that’s “how I roll” as a journalist, wanting to give them a heads up, and also to ask if they had permission from those clients. They did indeed get permission, which is mandatory of course.

This turned out to be a very interesting topic indeed – from the feedback/engagement that I’ve been getting – and I think it’s hotter than the question of posting an equipment list on a site, even.

Jeff, thanks, and do keep those comments coming.

Paul Keely

February 18, 2016 at 4:18 pm ·

We don’t have a client wall of fame with logos, but we do have a portfolio pf projects (with customer permission of course) that show actually projects we produced with our customer partners. What we do is a very visual thing, so we find the product portfolios are more useful to customers than a list of equipment.

Regarding the use of customer logos creating risk of having competitors cherry pick my clients. If I can lose clients that easily, having their logo on my website is the least of my problems.

Good post Margie!

Margie Dana

February 18, 2016 at 4:20 pm ·

Thanks, Paul. I love your last sentence, and I agree 100%. A visual of the projects works very well, I imagine. Great idea.