Who's afraid of the M word? magazine article

It's an interesting contradiction. For an industry which earns approximately 80 percent of its keep from printing marketing material, the number of printers who actually employ marketing staff - while increasing slowly - still remains weak in comparison to other industries.



By no means a new phenomenon, marketing has existed throughout the ages; whether it's marketing on a personal level such as selling yourself to a potential employer, or launching a new product. But its intangible nature makes it possible for business people and consumers alike to be confused by the power of the beast. So just what is marketing?



"There are two forms of marketing," explains Matthew Byrne, subject co-ordinator of public communication, University of Technology, Sydney. "First, there is the facilitation of the sale of a product or service. This is what we call push marketing. Secondly there is meeting of consumer/customer needs. This is where the marketer investigates what the consumer/customer is interested in and changes production or even the product offering based on these needs.



"The classic push company is Coke as they are only interested in any form of soft drink and the classic pull company is Nike who will facilitate any product, as long as it is lifestyle-orientated, and outsource production."



Printers doing for themselves



When you need to promote your business but don't know where to start, hiring an expert is an obvious choice. Marketing Angels, a firm with offices across both Australia and New Zealand, works on behalf of clients as their outsourced marketing department or on a project basis. But, having been involved with a range of small to medium-sized businesses, Jane Toohey, director, says: "In the five and a half years I've been here, I can honestly say that I've never worked with a printer. We've worked with over 200 clients but none of them have been printers."



Toohey speculates that the reason for this comes down to the line of work that printers do.



"Maybe they think they can do it [marketing] themselves because they produce a lot of marketing for clients," she says.



And because everyone uses print in one form or the other, many printers assume that the public are already informed enough, says Joe Kowalewski, national director, marketing and media services for Printing Industries.



"But in fact, that's the very reason you need to keep reinforcing the value, environmental sustainability and flexibility of print and its importance in everyone's lives," he says.



By his own admission, SOS Print & Media has a 'slim approach to marketing' but Michael Schulz, director, still recognises that it is important to market a business.



"Marketing at SOS Print & Media Group falls under my responsibility," he says, adding that he takes on the marketing duties not only because he is director, but also because of his background. Arriving in Australia in 1990, he spent time working in both production and customer relations roles at a German advertising agency. "We don't have a full-time marketing manager and this is something that in the future we need to consider."



Enter Frances Gray, who has just joined SOS to take up the contract role of consultant. Though her role is not confined solely to marketing duties, it does constitute a large portion of her job. Schulz says that the introduction of this role came about as a result of the growth of SOS as a company and, depending on its success, it may become a full-time position.



"We needed a specific skill set," he says. "One of Frances' main duties is to collate all the material we use for external communication and create templates and standard letters."


Gray comes to SOS after working as the marketing communications manager at Zurich Financial Services. In something of a Cinderella success story, she began working as a Zurich customer services representative and is self-taught, proving, perhaps, that there's no excuse for ignorance when it comes to marketing.



"I learnt my marketing skills and experience through on-the-job training," she explains. "I have fulfilled a number of marketing roles and have over seven years' experience. I have ensured that I keep abreast of changes and trends within the industry.



"One of my responsibilities at SOS is to redevelop corporate information, re-tweaking, rewriting and re-editing fact sheets and company information. I've reviewed a number of SOS's competitors, what information they've got available and what they do in terms of marketing."



Taking the initiative


At the end of 2006, SOS conducted a customer survey to gather information on the company's strengths and weaknesses. In a telephone interview, customers were asked questions such as 'How would you rate the overall level of service provided by SOS?'; 'How would you rate your representative's technical knowledge?' and 'What services would you like SOS to offer in the future and why?' In return, participants were sent a bottle of wine and a copy of some of the results. Schulz describes this initiative as a success.



"A lot of things came up from the survey where people had wishes that maybe we weren't aware of," he says. "So we've got a reasonably good idea of what people think and also a good idea of where we can offer additional services."



Adding to this, SOS Print & Media is also involved in sponsoring the Belvoir Theatre and the Red Cross program, Youth Off The Streets. Schulz says that the company's work with these organisations has helped to extend their influence within the wider community and that, in the case of the Belvoir Theatre, has helped bring the company more corporate customers.



"We've come from an SOS instant printing background to a company with more and more corporate customers in the last ten years," he says. "You have people who react more when you say 'the Belvoir' and they say 'Okay, we're in that as well'. There are synergies between the two."



Schulz admits that the company has no specific budget for marketing, and this is partly due to the elusive nature of what marketing actually constitutes.



"When I take a client out for lunch, is that a part of our marketing budget or not?" he asks. "I can't tell you what percentage of a budget should be spent on a marketing campaign; but there are a lot of soft-costs to consider that contribute to relationship management and marketing."



Word-of-mouth has been SOS's most effective tool, says Schulz. "We benefit a lot from word-of-mouth and taking care of our customers. And in the last few years that's probably been our most effective marketing measure."



Jane Toohey agrees that many printers are in the same situation as SOS and rely upon word-of-mouth recommendations.



"I would never use a printer that I hadn't been referred to by someone else," she says. "You want to go with someone that's done a good job. But if I owned a printing company, I'd definitely be creating PR."



Not all marketing channels are created equal though. For instance, targeting broadcast outlets of radio and television is out of the question for SOS, according to Schulz. "We're not a multi-branch store," he says. "We would target a particular company and say, 'We have a solution for you' and we would try to get into a relationship with them, and radio and television doesn't help that."



Web marketing challenges



At PMP, one of Australia's largest printing companies, it is not surprising that marketing is of major importance to the group. Claire Pallot, marketing manager, says that since she first joined PMP in 2004, the company has always had a marketing presence, but she acknowledges that other printers often don't have a specific marketing department.



"There is a lack of marketing resources within commercial web heatset businesses, predominately due to their financial capacity," she says. "If companies are trying to keep a low cost-base then marketing can seem like an expense to them and they can't warrant the expenditure on it, especially if they are struggling to finance their daily operational services such as technical services."



Pallot began at PMP looking at the company's market competitors and customer intelligence. Her main duties include pricing models and package building to couple products into one cohesive product. While the focus here is primarily on catalogue production, the lessons to be learned are applicable across the industry.



One of the main challenges involved in marketing printing for commercial web heatset printers is that there is no media currency, says Pallot. "It can be difficult to promote your medium when there isn't a market-wide recognisable matrix which allows you to quantify the medium," she says. "To combat this, however, PMP have been working closely with AC Nielsen, the Australian Catalogue Association and also Roy Morgan to provide our clients with a robust measure, which is tailored specifically for them.



"The results thus far have been successful, and the data collected has enabled us to understand catalogues effectiveness, not only for individual retailers and non-traditional users but also across categories. The findings prompt an increasing number of 'non traditional' users of catalogues to start integrating them into their campaign. This however needs to be further supported by the industry."



Adding to this problem, however, is the basic lack of data that is available.


"TV continually puts out studies in terms of why it's an effective form," says Pallot. "Newspapers do the same. Print marketers traditionally haven't been that good at reinforcing why catalogues are an effective form of advertising, although they're getting better at it now.



"But when it comes to media buying, there are few rebates in place to make it attractive for media buyers to purchase catalogues as part of an advertising mix and, without a media currency, it is difficult for media buyers to compare catalogues to their clients on a like to like basis."



Like Schulz, Pallot also agrees about the importance of extending a company's presence, provided it is done in the right places.



"In the web market, the companies tend to be associated with a lot of supportive industry bodies such as the MPA and the ADMA ,so that they become known as a main supplier to those key industries which clients like publishers and retailers are members of. The main purpose is to ensure we are supporting our clients' industries," she says.



"We tend not to advertise in mass media as we are predominately targeting your business-to-business consumers. However, there is more prevalence for printers to advertise in publications like Marketing magazine to target non-traditional users of print.



"Traditionally the market has been broken up into two sections. Those who know catalogues work for them and use them to complement their above-the-line advertising, and those who have not tried and tested the medium. We are finding the latter a growing industry as studies are showing that consumers are still very responsive to the medium."



The key to marketing print effectively is a mixed bag, Pallot says; there is no one simple solution.



"For non-traditional users, it's tailoring a product that can go into your agencies and non-traditional markets and then promoting yourselves within these markets so that they are aware of who you are. It is continuously providing your clients and prospects with robust data which outlines catalogue effectiveness and reinforces that catalogues, unlike TV and newspapers, can be targeted using geodemographic data, thus optimising your penetration rate to the target market.



"At the end of the day, print marketers need to demonstrate to their clients and prospects why catalogues are a essential part of an advertising mix," she concludes.

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