Time for printers to move into marketing: PODi Forum

Printers have to face "brutal" reality of the current traditional print market and look for uncontested market space by evolving into marketing services providers, said printer-turned-marketer Kate Dunn, opening the 2009 PODi Forum.

Faced with declining print volumes and falling prices, traditional printers must find new profit centres, said Dunn, (pictured) president of marketing firm Digital Innovations Group. "Figure out how to sell something that has value that you can charge for – plain old print won't cut it," she said.

She blamed declining print prices on the fact that "on any given day there is another printer who is more desperate than you."

To gain competitive advantage print providers should start to offer marketing services including strategy, creative, cross channel execution, analytics and results, Dunn said. She observed that there was an opportunity for printers because traditional marketing agencies had "fallen asleep at the wheel" on cross channel marketing techniques.

Other speakers on the day included Grant Stewart, from transpromo consultants Vectis, presenting successful essential mail case studies. He showed how southern Sydney credit union Sutherland Credit Union had delivered profits back to its customers and retained business by offering free segmented and targeted advertising on their regular statements for local businesses. This accounted for 40 per cent of the credit union's growth over the next two years, as well as providing up front savings by turning its bills and account statements into a revenue centre.

Stewart advised printers to learn to talk in direct marketing terms so they could relate better to their customers. "Invest more money in direct marketing education, you'll be ahead of the others," he said.

Printers take top gongs at Best Practice Awards
Sydney digital printer Digitalpress has taken top honours in the inaugural PODi Aust NZ Best Practice Awards. The awards recognise digital printers who with their clients have created highly original and relevant digital print campaigns achieving remarkable results.

Pictured: Winner, Theo Pettaras of Digitalpress, with Garry Knespal (right), PODi Aust NZ director.

Digitalpress won Gold for its direct marketing campaign for Volkswagen Financial Services, which utilised sensory mail techniques including foil and scratch'n'sniff, as well as variable data personalisation, to achieve cut through. The campaign resulted in over $200,000 of sales for the client.
Honourable mentions were awarded to Prografica (client – Mood Australia), Digital Logic (Taco Bill) and Print Portal (Outback Brewery).

The awards also congratulated Australian printer On Demand and consultancy Vectis who each received awards at the PODi USA AppForum earlier this year for standout campaigns with Mercer and ING Australia, respectively.

"It is exciting to see Australian and New Zealand printers producing such high quality and original work with the evolving technology and applications available to them," said Garry Knespal, PODi Aust NZ director.
"I look forward to seeing the innovative work these forward-thinking printers will produce in the future."

The AppForum continues Wednesday in Sydney.