Looking in from the outside: Print 21 magazine article

Print marketing often focuses on the wrong aspects of what is important to customers, mainly because they're not interested in how fast your press runs or how many colours it prints. Joan Grace has some tips of how to market the things that matter.

The PrintNZ Centenary book launch earlier this year was a reminder of the different ways people 'inside' and 'outside' the industry look at what we do.

For those on the 'outside', a new book is an opportunity to learn about a new topic, admire images that complement the 'story' and appreciate the design and form of the book. Essentially they look at what the book says and do not think about how it was made.

For us 'insiders', there is the added dimension of:
* Who printed it?
* On what type of machine?
* What paper did they use?
* Are the colours correct?
* What do the solids look like?
* How did they bind it?

These dimensions are the things that bring us together as businesses – businesses that make printed things so that the 'outsiders', or customers as they should be referred to, get what they want.

Similarly with packaging. When the consumer/shopper buys a product, they rely on the packaging to tell them who produced it and what the ingredients are. The consumer seldom thinks about, nor really appreciates (such a pity!), the technical challenge of creating a three-dimensional, sturdy vehicle to transport their beer with the least amount of material that will withstand transportation, storage and refrigeration!

Customers correctly assume that, in our industry, they will get a quality manufactured outcome produced at a fair (although they often think low!) price and according to a timeline that has been agreed and is getting shorter all the time, and made using the most appropriate technology.

Stating the obvious
When I think of how to market a printing company, I often think back to an analogy that was explained to me by Mary Garlick, who works for Printing Industries America.

Mary passed on a quote from someone who had presented at a PIA Conference (apologies – I do not recall his name), who criticised printing companies for promoting themselves like a restaurant that had a sign out the front which said 'Come to the Big Oven Restaurant'. This notice went on to say that customers could expect to get their meals hot, all guests would be served together and that this big new oven could serve more people per hour than any other oven.

Consider yourself standing outside that restaurant on a Friday night. Such a notice would be met with comments like "Of course" or "Why are they telling me this?" but we need to consider that this may be the way some of our print customers feel when a sales rep explains that their business has just installed a new press and describes it in terms of how many impressions an hour it produces or how many colours it can include in a press pass. Just think about it.

If you can't market the 'how you do it', and I would say you should not do this, you have to market something else - the real benefits to the customer of doing business with your company, the things they really value.

The following are a few suggestions:
* Marketing the simplification of your customer's business - doing things that they may find difficult, such as managing their customer database, mailing, warehousing and distribution.
* Marketing what print does best as a communications medium compared to other media - emphasising the portability, endurance and positive environmental aspects of print. Explaining that print is the best way to communicate a customer's brand and ultimately enhance their reputation with their customers.
* Differentiating yourself from your competitors - whether this is by the type of customers you are aligned with, or by the specialised offerings you have that others don't. Marketing yourself as all things to all people is not necessarily the best.

PrintNZ has recently approved an industry marketing strategy that is on our website at <www.printnz.co.nz>. This strategy includes a SWOT analysis of the industry and of PrintNZ as an industry association. You may like to review that document as you ponder the marketing strategy for your business - it has certainly made me look at ours.

If we persist in trying to market the 'how', we risk as an industry the ridicule that faced the Big Oven Restaurant you almost went to that Friday night.