Margie Dana

5 Things on Print Customers’ Wish Lists

Print customers in business settings are always eager to share with me what they want from their printer partners – not in regards to the holiday season, but all year long.

Their wish list includes things that range from enhanced customer service to a deeper understanding of certain technologies and manufacturing processes. As the year nears its close, I’ve put together this list of the Top 5:

1. A better understanding of personalization applications and options available to them. Help your customers appreciate how easy variable data printing can be. What should they know about putting together the right types of data to be used in campaigns? Can you help? I’m being facetious. Of course you can.

2. Educational information throughout the year. This can be done in so many ways: seminars, lunch-n-learns (or breakfast meetings), after-work events, webinars, videos, valuable blogs or enewsletters. So many options. Pick one or two. Just do it.

3. Insights into new printing technologies and applications. Most print customers do not attend print industry events, and they’re not particularly proactive in learning about the latest manufacturing capabilities from industry web sites. It’s up to you to tell them what’s new.

4. Recommendations about how to make their print materials more effective. Give them ideas that will improve their jobs. Is it the process, the format, the substrate, the design – or literally the whole approach that needs to be rethought? What would you have them do differently so that the results are better? Do you even know what results they expect? I’m pretty sure once you know, you’ll have suggestions for improvement.

5. A relationship built on honesty, professionalism, and trust. Print customers want a lasting relationship with a printing company. It’s too much work and definitely too stressful to replace printers. If your capabilities and price points are both good matches for a customer, the rest is up to you. The people in your company who serve your customers are crucial in the world of print buying. Customers need to trust you. You need to be responsive. Qualities like integrity and honesty come up a lot in conversations with buyers. Without them, you’re doomed.

If you’re a printer, why not tackle any or all of these as your New Year’s resolution? They’ll help strengthen customer relationships, which leads to more business and more referrals.

Why a Printer’s Gallery Page Is So Important

How good is your gallery?

I’ve discovered something interesting about commercial printers’ web sites: often it’s their page of Sample Products, AKA “Gallery,” that is most important.

Here’s why.

If the site copy elsewhere doesn’t make it clear to visitors what you’re really good at, and what types of printing you do, the Gallery Page can tell the story better than any words. And much faster.

This happens frequently. I land on a site and can’t tell what the company’s sweet spot is. Then I move to the Gallery page and think, Oh……NOW I get what they’re about.

I like seeing a variety of products on this page, plus a short description of each image (Chalkboard Printing, Floor Graphics, Posters, Catalogs, Variable Data, etc.). It gives me a good sense of the breadth of your offerings.

Based on this one page, I might decide if you’re a good fit for my business or not.

My hunch is that corporate and agency print customers (including marketers and purchasing pros) will do the same thing – zip on over to your product sample page and decide on the spot if a printer’s a good fit.

So when words fail you, good images won’t.

Shop Around for a Better Experience

Keep your eyes open.

Sometimes it’s the experience that makes the difference between service providers.

That includes doctors, dentists, mechanics, health clubs, hair stylists, and yes, even commercial printers.

I’m not trying to dissuade customers from being loyal. Rather, I hope people recognize the value of testing the waters to see if they could get a better experience elsewhere.

It’s easy to move on if a current provider is not delivering the product or service to your liking. Something negative is propelling you out the door. I’ve switched doctors and other professionals, not because they weren’t qualified, but because of the experience. It was negative enough to make me leave.

I switched primary care physicians once, because my doctor consistently kept me waiting over an hour and never acknowledged it. I switched an eye doctor because the practice was run like an assembly line. I was passed from one eye technician to the next like a hot potato and then hustled out the door so the next spud could be handled.

A customer experience typically means how you treat your customers when they’re interacting with you. It’s what you say and how you say it. It can be subtle, but when it’s negative, it can trigger our search for your replacement.

What if you’ve been dealing with the same service provider forever? You’re comfortable, but (let’s be honest) you have nothing to compare it with. It’s still smart to check out the competition from time to time. This goes for commercial printers. How else will you know if there’s something incredible, or new, or both, that you’ve been missing? What if you could be treated better elsewhere?

Recently I took a few fitness classes at a different club than the one to which I belong.

The dance moves were the same.

The music was the same.

The instructor was the same.

But the experience was totally different. It was a combination of a few things, but taken together, they made the classes refreshing and fun and brand new for me – after all these years. Based on that experience, I joined the club. Experiencing working out in a new environment was a change I didn’t know I needed until I tried it, purely by chance.

So for any print customers reading this post, keep your eyes open. Visit new printers from time to time to see if the experience they can offer you is different in a positive way. Talk to some of their existing customers. Think of it as a test drive. Maybe you’ll find your current provider is still the best choice for you, and it’ll strengthen that relationship. But maybe you’ll uncover something that blows you away for any number of reasons, and you’ll make a switch, or add this printer to your group of providers. That’s what I did with the gym.

Printers reading this post should recognize the importance of customer experience. All things being equal, would your customers say that none of your competitors could beat the great experience you deliver?

If Your Employees Are Unhappy, Your Customers Will Care

Photo courtesy of Luminaire Foto

I love the lazy river that the just built at their Bonita Springs property. For a different reason, so does at least one of their employees.

This gorgeous and relaxing new attraction had a soft opening on Monday, our last day in Florida. The sun was shining as I practically skipped down the sidewalk to take another ride. I couldn’t help but share my delight with a man working on finishing touches at the property.

To my surprise, he exclaimed, “I love it, too! It’s so easy for us to work on this!” He smiled broadly and continued his task.

This short encounter impressed me. I literally thought, “Great – everybody’s happy. Not just us guests, but also the people building this attraction. Good on Hyatt.”

It reminded me of comments I’ve received from print customers when asked what qualities they look for in printers. Many cite the well being of a printer’s employees.

You see, print buyers pay attention to this. Sales and service reps are pretty quick to share their sentiments with some customers. Even if they don’t come out and say whether or not they’re happily employed, customers pick up on what’s what.

A while back I interviewed some experienced and pretty powerful print customers about plant tours and prequalifying potential printers. What do they look for? One thing they notice is the demeanor of people working in the plant. Do people seem happy or sullen? Do salespeople treat pressmen and –women with respect and civility, or are they rude and dismissive?

Bottom line? Your customers pick up on how you treat your employees. If customers spend time at your facility or interact regularly with staff members, they’ll get a sense of how people are treated. They’ll recognize misery if it exists. And it will reflect poorly on you.

Where Will the Enthusiasm for Print Come from Tomorrow?

Professional print buyers working in businesses and agencies are the print industry’s most powerful influencers, bar none.

These print production specialists, particularly those who are baby boomers, are responsible for keeping print part of the discussion within their organizations.

But they do much more than just keep print in those conversations when marketing considers channels for a campaign, because experienced print buyers tend to have a history in print manufacturing. Many were once employed in commercial printing as sales or service reps. Many are trained as graphic designers. They identify with print.

As someone who’s studied print buyers for over two decades, I know all of this to be true.

Experienced print customers in industries and in agencies are their organizations’ de facto print experts. Their managers and team members, their bean counters and their purchasing agents, all look to them for recommendations. Who should print this job? What’s a fair price? When do we need to find additional print manufacturing expertise? What paper or other substrate will work best? And at the heart of it, why should we print this at all?

Whether you’re a printer reading this post or a print buyer, you recognize these print customers. You serve them or work alongside them or identify as one yourself.

I know many of these “print insiders” personally. And to a person, one quality they share that needs to be acknowledged is their passion for print. They strive daily to share this enthusiasm with their colleagues and to enlighten them about advances in printing technologies.

Imagine how difficult this is today, in our world of Facebook, Twitter, mobile apps, and Pokémon Go.

These experienced print insiders bring an acute appreciation of all-things-print to their roles. They are the keepers of the print flame inside of their organizations. They wield enormous clout in the decision-making process where print is concerned. And if they happen to work in marketing environments, this clout is even more significant.

Here’s what I’m talking about. When a marketing team plans a new campaign and the issue of which channels to use (and why) comes up, print buyers working with them are – best case scenario – more likely to offer ideas, reasons, examples and arguments for print. (If this marketing team includes a print provider in this discussion, so much the better. But in a study I did with John Zarwan, only 16% of brand owners invite printers to the marketing table.)

John Zarwan and I conducted a webinar recently for PRIMIR, on a white paper we developed for them about brand owners and the print purchasing process. While I was speaking, I had a few “a-ha moments,” like this one:

If highly experienced print buying professionals are the primary champions of print for and within their organizations, what happens when they’ve exited the workforce?

Do you think the new wave of entry-level marketers and media staffers will take up the torch of print? How well do colleges and universities cover print as a medium in marketing and media curricula, or even in graphic design programs?

When the baby boomer print buyers retire, will those who fill their positions bring the same enthusiasm and print sensibility to their roles?

This changeover in personnel isn’t about to happen this month or even this year. But as old positions are filled with new marketers, the graphic arts industry stands to lose some of its most stalwart supporters: the print insiders.

Getting ahead of this changeover is what I’d recommend to the print industry. Now’s the time to develop strategies for dealing with a generation of marketers and purchasing professionals who lack print manufacturing knowledge.

How can the industry generate enthusiasm for print, once senior-level print customers take their passion out the door with them when they retire?

Print Buying Will Never Be the Same Again

The business of buying commercial printing for one’s company is going to change forever. Two factors are driving this change: Baby Boomers on the verge of retirement, and explosive growth of newer media.

When Baby Boomers retire, they take with them decades of print production knowledge and experience. Businesspeople entering the workforce will have significantly less print knowledge and a smaller pool of savvy peers and managers from whom to acquire it. With fewer on-the-job mentors, where and how will businesspeople develop their print sourcing skills? I have my own hunches, which I’ll save for another post.

And marketing campaigns, as well as customer communications efforts, are a mix of media: targeted email, instant messaging, social posts, blogs, webcasts and podcasts, Internet ads, digital signage, web sites, and strategic use of print materials – direct mail, newsletters, dimensional mail, signage, and more.

Tomorrow’s print customers will need to be skilled in more than just print manufacturing. They’ll need an appreciation of multiple channels and a solid understanding of how these channels are best integrated for effective campaigns.

These changes are well under way. They’re altering the career paths of businesspeople who have a passion and a talent for print production, and they’re affecting how print companies develop new business.

Boomers will be exiting the workforce sometime within the next 10 years or so, and digital marketing channels are here to stay.

Are you seeing these changes in your marketplace? If so, how are you dealing with them?

A Master Class in Working with Commercial Printers

Now I wish I’d taped it. The panel of four that I put together for the 2016 NEDMA Conference shared so much good information about working with printers, that I should’ve called it a Master Class. What they talked about would interest so many people on “both sides of the aisle.

There were a lot of printers in the audience, and I’m OK with that. The marketers who were there seemed to be on the younger side, and I’m especially OK with that.

The print buying pros (no one has that title, BTW) and I spent 50 minutes discussing what it’s like working “in” print today, and along the way their love of print – and printing – couldn’t be masked.

Two were from the agency side. One works in a university setting. The fourth, a former printer, is with a major women’s clothing retailer. Different histories. Different fields. All united by their deep experience in or with commercial printing.

Do they find themselves having to defend the use of print? Not all of them. Our panelist from Talbots vehemently replied, “No. Never.”

They spoke about the importance of doing a facility visit before working with a printer. One or more said they wouldn’t work with a printer whose facility they hadn’t visited.

I’ve heard this before.

I’d given them all a short list of questions ahead of time, but I also went off script when the spirit moved me.

“What’s the most important quality for a printer to have in order for you to work with that company?” I asked.

What’s that, you say? It had to be about price? Au contraire. “Price” never crossed their lips.

But the panelists did name the following traits:

Flexibility and resilience.
Follow-through and trust.
Communication.
Trust – and being thought of as a good client.

These echo comments I’ve heard from buyers for years.

One thing that’s changed about working with printers is that it’s not just about getting something printed. Today print is part of a campaign. It works with other channels. There’s integration. And there’s a lot of data that’s analyzed and used.

There was an extended discussion about how working with printers is a relationship business. Mariah of Hunt Direct said that she considers her printers a part of her team.

Finding experienced print production pros to be a part of their teams is challenging. Print knowledge is rare today, so they train and mentor.

Having run dozens of panels over the years, I tell you this was a special one. These four professionals offered important insights for printers as well as marketers. Hopefully, people in the audience took notes.

Print Buyers Are Customers First

Forget that they’re buying print. Think of your print buyers as customers first. That they’re buying print is secondary.

Whether you serve the super savvy or the nearly novice, focus on the fact that they’re customers. As such, they – we – have certain expectations.

Here are a few:

We’re always right. Approach customers from this perspective unless and until it’s obvious we’re not right, and you’ll serve us well.
We come first. I don’t care if you have 100 other customers: the customer you’re dealing with at the moment is #1.
We deserve your respect. Don’t push us. Don’t mock us. Don’t insult us. Don’t lie to us. Don’t give us the bum’s rush. Be professional, always.
We want prompt service. We expect you to get back to us right away. Our calls, our texts, our emails, our requests for estimates. Don’t leave us hanging.
We want you to deliver what we hired you for. This means no surprises, no switcheroo on paper stock, and no missed deadlines. If you agreed to something (a date, a product, a service, a proof), please do it.
We want accountability, not excuses. We know that things will happen that are beyond your control. When they do, react responsibly and communicate with us how you’ll correct what’s needed.
We hate being hustled. Deliver the products or services we agreed upon, stand by your work, and uphold our agreement. If you do, then more work from us will come your way. Don’t sell aggressively. Don’t be obnoxious. Earn the next job, and the next.
We expect you to have our backs. You keep our best interest in mind. You’re on top of things and will make sure our order progresses smoothly.

Notice that the word “print” never appears here. The truth is, customers are pretty much the same regardless of what they’re buying.

Margie Dana & John Zarwan Launch New Print Buyer Study: How Are Print Buyers Interacting with Their Print Providers?

BOSTON, MA and CHARLOTTETOWN, PEI Canada – March 22, 2016 – Margie Dana is teaming up once again with industry consultant and researcher John Zarwan to write a white paper for PRIMIR on how today’s print buyers interact with printers and other print providers. Are they inviting printers into early discussions as campaigns are developed, or do they contact printers once jobs have been specified? Are print buyers still the primary contact for printers within organizations that use print, or has this responsibility shifted to other departments?

“We wanted to understand how and when print buyers interact with their print partners. It will also mean we can compare the results with those of our last two print buyer studies (done in 2013 and 2014),” said Margie Dana.

Dana and Zarwan developed the online survey to focus on the key print-related responsibilities these customers have. For the first time, print providers are invited to participate, as Dana and Zarwan are keen to learn who printers target when they’re developing business, and with whom they ultimately develop relationships.

The team will publish their results in a white paper for PRIMIR and will offer a summary to those who take the survey and provide their contact information.

Print buyers, designers and marketers as well as printers, brokers and other print providers are eligible to take this survey.

The 2016 Print Customer Survey is accessible at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2016printcustomersurvey

About Margie Dana

Long regarded as a print buyer expert and trade writer, Margie Dana launched her new business in 2013 as a marketing communications strategist with a specialty in printing and print buying. She is a sought-after presenter at trade shows and conferences and still writes her popular Print Tips blog each week, as well as the newer blog: Everyday Content Tips for Everyday People. For more information, visit margiedana.com.

About John Zarwan

J Zarwan Partners works closely with a select number of companies, guiding them to develop and implement more effective and efficient business strategies. Their clients, which include commercial printing and packaging industry leaders, benefit from his extensive experience in addressing and managing change; market strategy and implementation; product planning and positioning; and market research. John Zarwan, founding partner, has been in the graphic arts, printing, and digital media industry for 30 years and is internationally recognized for his knowledge and insight on trends in the industry. He has spoken at major industry events and conferences around the world, and his articles on print markets and technology have appeared in various print and web journals. For more information, go to: www.johnzarwan.com.

About PRIMIR

PRIMIR is the premier market research association of the graphics communications industry. Members are from diverse segments of the industry and are foremost in their areas of specialty. For more information, go to www.npes.org/primirresearch/primir.aspx.

For More Information

Margie Dana

Margiedana.com

********

John Zarwan

J Zarwan Partners

E: http://www.johnzarwan.com/contact.htm

That Old Site’s Not Doing You Any Favors

Printers, consider this a public service announcement. When I find myself having conversations with print buyers, they usually drop a bomb with a random comment that needs to be shared.

For the record, I tend to speak with seasoned pros. Not occasional customers. Not crackpots. Not members of gen Z.

I was chatting with an experienced print production manager about working with the industry in general. The conversation tilted toward the challenge of finding new print providers when necessary. True, there are still over 30,000 commercial printers in the U.S., but expert print customers know that all printers aren’t the same. It’s difficult to make the right choice in a print partner.

She mentioned needing a printer in another part of the country, one where she had no experience. Then she added,

If a site is ugly, I don’t go any further.

I hadn’t asked about printers’ web sites. It wasn’t even part of the conversation. But there it was: her reality, and, I suspect, many other print customers’ as well.

How can prospects believe that you’re an innovative and contemporary print manufacturer, one that offers the latest in printing technology, if your site elicits “Ewwws!” and not “Ahhhhhhs!”

Hold a mirror up to your site. What’s your reaction? What vibe is it giving off?

If yours is a sore site for eyes, invest in a facelift. I think this print customer’s opinion is pretty common, and I don’t know many printers who can afford to turn off prospects with a dusty old, worn-out site.

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