SEPTEMBER 2014 | VOLUME 52, NUMBER 8

Sales and
Marketing
Strategies

Align Your
Marketing with
Your Goals
Page 140

WEB-TO-PRINT PAYS OFF

Page 20

12 TIPS FOR DOCUMENT SECURITY

Page 30

PURL CAMPAIGN IN ACTION

Page 38

PRINT SOLUTIONS MAGAZINE

FEATURES

September 2014

PERSPECTIVES
04 EDITORS MESSAGE
Better Together
By Alexa Schlosser

06 EXECUTIVE VICE
PRESIDENTS MESSAGE
Smart Marketing Is
About Help, Not Hype
By Bryan Praught

08 PRESIDENTS MESSAGE
Marketing Deserves
Our Attention
By Rob Whitman

38 CASE STUDY
pURL Helps Distributor
Promote Trade Show

14 3 Points on the Marketing Spectrum

By Andy Brown
Find the best frameworks for organizing your marketing activities so
theyre in line with your objectives, budget and organizational structure.

20 Tapping into the Customer Perspective

on Web-to-Print
By Heidi Tolliver-Walker
Two companies explain why they invested in W2P, what problems
it solved and how to approach customers with the benefits.

26 The Importance of Partnership

The partnership between distributors and manufacturers is a crucial
one, and in todays market, it is important that manufacturers provide
innovative solutions to support the distributors they work with. Here are
some ways PSDA member manufacturers are doing just that.

30 Selling Security
By Darin Painter
As point-and-click criminals try to alter and dupe documents,
distributors can use these 12 concepts to keep clients safe.

35 Make Joint Calls to Secure Custom Business

By Andy Brown

By Katherine House
Innovative Business Products
doubled its booth attendees,
increased traffic to its social
media accounts and continues to
see success with its campaign.

42 GOOD IDEA
Volunteer Your Way
to Better Business
By Andy Brown

52 FINAL THOUGHTS
Compensating Your
Sales Force
Questions to Ask Yourself Now
By Susan Pal

DEPARTMENTS
10 PSDA NEWS
44 INDUSTRY NEWS
Compiled By Alexa Schlosser

48 CLASSIFIEDS
51 ADVERTISER INDEX
PSDA.ORG | SEPTEMBER 2014 | PRINT SOLUTIONS | 3

A Steady
Supply of News

Crafting a
Campaign

How Well Do You

Know Your Market?

3 Points on
the Marketing
Spectrum
Find the best frameworks for organizing your marketing
activities so theyre in line with your objectives, budget
and organizational structure.
BY ANDY BROWN

he history of marketing as a discipline began with economists who wanted

to bridge theory and practice. Their primary focus was the distribution of
goods and services. Marketing forerunners such as L.D.H. Weld published
descriptive monographs with titles such as Cold Storage as a Factor in
Marketing Farm Produce and Middlemen of the Wholesale Produce Trade.

As the field evolved, studies of agricultural markets gave way to consumer goods
markets. The next generations of marketers also incorporated theories of consumer
behavior into their frameworks. Marketing principles were articulated, tested and
practiced. The interdisciplinary, practical approach to marketing was cemented in the
late 60s, when Philip Kotler introduced the concept of marketing management. In
Kotlers view, advertising and promotion are part of a companys marketing functions.
His concept of the Four Ps (product, promotion, price and place) has influenced
marketing professionals ever since.
The underlying idea of marketing management is that an organization conducts
activities with some degree of intention and control. Kotlers framework has been
discussed, debated, revised and extended, but the idea that marketing is something to be
managed is central to the operations of many successful organizations.
As a medium for communications, print isnt going anywhere, but the industry is
evolving. Its not enough to wait on orders or assume that customers know what you sell
or how it can benefit their businesses. An appreciation for the markets you serve is as
important as how you promote to them.
In other words, its a good time to evaluate your approach to marketing management.
Its a good time to find the best frameworks for organizing your marketing activities so
theyre in line with your objectives, budget and organizational structure.

MARKETING SPECTRUM

In this article, we present three ways of

categorizing your marketing activities.
Think of them as points on a spectrum.
At one end are activities that inform
business strategy, including market
research. In the middle are targeted
campaigns with specific objectives,
timelines and metrics. At the other end
are ongoing, day-to-day marketing tasks.

marketing and communications. Were

trying to figure out the interest within our
different product groups and also interest
for potential future new products that we
want to offer, since its a great way before
we even introduce a product to survey the
market and our customers to see if thats a
product that is of interest. If we get a solid
response, then thats a prerogative that we
would immediately move forward with.

To give an idea of how these categories

are executed, each point on the
spectrum is illustrated by activities that
print industry companies are doing
to communicate with prospects, raise
awareness of their brands, and discover
what customers need and want.

Most of Relycos surveys go to existing

customers, but the company has also
purchased lists to survey prospects in
different market segments. Every survey
is designed and sent to targeted lists. Im
not going to send a waterproof paper
survey to somebody whos in AP or payroll,
Simko says. The whole idea of making

After survey results are collected and

evaluated, theyre shared with the
sales group. Relyco uses a marketing
automation platform that allows
salespeople to access survey results for
individual prospects. Theyre able to
see how to speak to that potential lead,
or even if theyre an existing customer,
Simko says.
Although surveys take time, require
planning and involve strategic thinking,
the execution is relatively easy. Thirdparty survey software allows even small
companies to create and send email
surveys affordably. When you look at
it, its not that difficult a thing to do, and
the data can be a game-changer for your
business, Simko says.

Each point on the spectrum is illustrated by activities that print industry

companies are doing to communicate with prospects, raise awareness of
their brands, and discover what customers need and want.

How Well Do You

Know Your Market?

Behind every marketing

activity are assumptions about customers.
To begin marketing at all, you must know
something about the markets themselves.
Some companies hold onto long-held
assumptions without evidence. Others
gather information about markets
informally and rely on anecdotal
evidence. But companies that practice
marketing most effectively gather
and analyze market research in a
formalmanner.
Not all research needs to be difficult to
gather. Customer surveys are an example
of research that almost any company can
conduct. Relyco, a supplier of business
printing and payment solutions based
in Dover, New Hampshire, conducts
approximately six different customer
surveys every year as part of its marketing
activities. It gives us a lot of great data
from our customer base, says Christian
Simko, Relycos director of product

16 | PRINT SOLUTIONS | SEPTEMBER 2014 | PSDA.ORG

your surveys effective is making sure you

can properly segment your own database.
Relycos surveys include questions
about how customers use the companys
products. They also ask about
applications. You can start to see some
trends, and that can change how you
market a product, Simko says. With
our waterproof paper, we saw trends in
applications for signage and menus and
maps, so we were able to build email
marketing campaigns that were a lot
more targeted to those applications.
To increase response rates, Relyco
will often offer an incentive to survey
recipients. What you may see if you
dont offer an incentive is you might get
better or cleaner data. Thats somebody
who looks at the survey and wants to take
it for their own purposes without being
incented. But if you want to get a higher
response, the bigger the incentive, the
better the response youre going to get,
Simko says.

Crafting a Campaign

Armed with information about

your customers, a typical
framework for marketing
activities is the campaign.
Promotional campaigns are discrete; they
have beginnings and ends. Moreover,
theyre characterized by specific
objectives and evaluated according to
predetermined metrics. At any given
moment, theres an opportunity to touch
your customers but a campaign
is something for a specific purpose
or a specific time, says Bev Burger,
president of Big 5 Marketing, a creative
agency that works with customers in the
printingindustry.
Campaigns are also characterized by the
development of a plan. They often involve
significant upfront research and decision
making. But that shouldnt deter companies
from doing them, says Burger. The key is to
start somewhere and start small.
The first step: Make a list of what
products and services you sell. Break

MARKETING SPECTRUM

down what you do inside your

organization and just take 100 of your
customers. Thats it, Burger says. From
there, in an Excel document, say Im
going to take ABC Company and put a
dot by all the things they do today. It lets
me see that ABC Company is only using
us for three out of the five services that
we offer. Okay, now from a marketing
perspective, Ive got somewhere to go
with that.

Three YouTube Channels

You Should View
I have never heard a friend, family or co-worker utter the phrase, Youve
got to see this, and then hand me a direct mail piece.
What usually happens is that they drag me to their computer and play a
video. Or hand me their phone and tell me to hit play. Ive seen cats fight
dogs, babies dance to pop songs, outtakes of movies you get the idea.
Increasingly, I also use video to educate myself. Ive taught myself to break
down a whole chicken, tie a Plattsburgh knot and use advanced features in
Photoshop.
I love print. I still get excited by forms, decals, packaging, postcards and
magazines, but when it comes to instant gratification, video has a leg up.
Its easy to access, easy to digest and easy to share. Because we carry
computers in our pockets, video has a direct line to our consciousness.
All this is to say that any company planning to stay in business has to
contend with video. Embrace it or defend against it, but the one thing you
cant do is ignore it.
Some companies in the industry have already thought about how video can
support their business models. Theyre producing and distributing video on
a regular basis. Vanguard Direct has a series of videos on YouTube titled
Orange is my Favorite Color. The videos promote the distributorships
foray into iBook publishing. Featuring animation and interviews with
employees who worked on the project, the series is both a learning
opportunity for the company and a source of insights for customers and
prospects.
Trade manufacturer 4over also publishes videos on YouTube, including
a series of step-by-step instructions for assembling assorted packaging
products. For customers who might have bulk ordered wine boxes,
for example, its a handy reference. 4over also videos interviews with
employees.
And finally, take a look at paper-supplier Sappis humorous Off Register
series, which features Chicagos famed Second City Improv troupe. In
the episode Improving the Workplace, the final scene made me laugh
outloud.
Trust me, youve got to see it.

Andy Brown

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The next step in Burgers campaign

planning process is to group customers
that have a need for the same product
or service and then build a promotional
campaign around them. You have
to start with where you want to go
your end objective, Burger says. If all
youre doing is marketing for the sake
of marketing, its difficult to create a
message, because what happens is your
message gets too convoluted. Just because
I can sell five different services to my
customers doesnt mean that they need to
know about all five services.
An objective might be to sell more
marketing services or Web-to-print
applications, for example. The campaign
plan should also capture metrics to
indicate whether its working. That could
be a specific number of visitors to your
trade show booth, responses to a direct
mail piece, scheduled appointments or a
revenue target.
Whatever the objectives and metrics,
its important to maintain realistic
expectations about the results. The
biggest mistake people make with
marketing is that they put something
out into the universe, then say, Oh my
god, my sales didnt increase 200 percent.
Marketing doesnt work, Burger says.
Youve got to give it time to work. A
lot of people I talk to are not interested
in marketing because theyve got this
legacy history of what didnt work. Youve
got to let go of that. If you approach
everything with how it didnt work the
last time, youre never going to have the
opportunity to let something work.
In other words, some campaigns may
be successful and some may fail, but the
more campaigns you execute, the better

MARKETING SPECTRUM

youll get at recognizing what works

and what doesnt. By starting small,
youll learn lessons to apply to larger
campaigns.
One campaign that Burger designed as
an employee of a manufacturer led to
work with a new customer who became
the companys third largest client in the
span of a year. The campaign began with
a list of 2,500 prospects in the companys
local market. The whole premise was to
drive them to a landing page. We learned
something about them, just asked some
general questions, and the last question
on the landing page was to pick your
flavor of cupcake: vanilla or chocolate,
Burger says. We ended up getting a
whole bunch of replies, maybe 20 to 30
appointments, which is a lot when youre
selling. And considering these were all
new people, they didnt know us at all.
The campaign didnt end there. During
the appointments, Burger brought a
dozen cupcakes and a coupon for the
prospects first order. Its difficult to
engage with people who are new to you.
Most of the time, what people do is they
send them a flourish of information about
their company, Burger says. We decided
they didnt need to know everything
about us in the first piece that we sent to
them. We just wanted to get in front of
them, because we knew if we did that,
everything we did would speak for itself.

A Steady Supply of
News

Campaigns require more

money and time to execute. For
companies short on both, its worthwhile
to think of your marketing activities as
routine, long-term tasks. Take, for instance,
the issuing of press releases.
The humble press release is the
subject of debate among marketing
communications professionals. Do they
work? Does anyone read them? The truth
is, the standard press release is still an
effective promotional tool, provided it
says something of value.
We send press releases out anytime
we feel there is important information
to share with our distributors, says
Chuck Smith, marketing director of
manufacturer Gill-line of Lenexa, Kansas.
The company, which is finalizing an
acquisition, has kept the local community
and its customers up-to-date with regular
press releases about the integration of
operations, for example.
As a routine promotional activity, writing
and sending press releases are things that
can be done in-house. A single employee
can compile a list of contacts who should
receive the press release, including
industry publications. From there,
crafting the release is a straightforward
process. Smith offers some advice: We
always start with a single bold sentence

that is sort of the bullet for the press

release. Whenever you send press releases,
youre kind of setting them free. What a
publication chooses to excise from that press
release, whether its the full press release or
three sentences of your two paragraphs, is
completely up to them. So, first and foremost,
be straight to the point and get that single
thought out that you want to share. A press
release template should also include your
company name and location, the date and
contact information.
As tools for building awareness, press
releases cost little to produce and distribute.
Though its difficult to measure impact on
revenue, companies can benefit from press
releases by getting their name in front of
key audiences on a routine basis. Just do
it, Smith says. Theres no harm in getting
information out about your company, and
the more times you can put your company
name in front of a customer, the more likely
they are to recognize you and consider
using you.
In addition to business news, Smith also
sends press releases announcing employee
promotions, new hires and company awards.
Publications always seem willing to share that
as theres no favoritism in announcing that
sort of information, he says. PS
Andy Brown is a freelance writer in
Arlington, Virginia, and owner of Methodical
Writing (www.methodicalwriting.com).

PSDA.ORG | SEPTEMBER 2014 | PRINT SOLUTIONS | 19

Make Joint
Calls to Secure
Custom Business
BY ANDY BROWN

think its a good idea for manufacturers to make joint calls to end users in
the custom business because it increases the chances that it will actually
result in a sale. The partnering of manufacturing expertise with the
distributor who has the relationship is a much more powerful tool than the
distributor working independent of the manufacturer at arms length in closing
custom business, says Sean OBrien, vice president at Reign Print Solutions. And
it reduces the risk of the solution being wrong, not working and all the chaos, bad
feelings, problems that come with returns, complaints and unhappycustomers.
OBrien should know. Before joining Reign Print Solutions nine years ago, he
worked at Avery Dennison for 19 years, supporting distributors with custom label
applications. As a distributor, OBrien walks the walk by making use of joint calls.

JOINT SALES CALLS

When Joint Calls Make Sense

When an order is small or the product is
a stock item, distributors can rely on their
knowledge and manufacturers general
support services to make a sale. But
when the application is custom, there are
more requirements, which means greater
margin forerror.
Lets say Im calling on a customer
and he needs help with a chemical
drum application. Thats not time to
worry about if you have a binder from
a manufacturer in your office that
has everything about chemical drum
applications, OBrien says. The first
thing the end user might say is, Are you
GHS and BF5609 standards compliant?
And then as a distributor, your eyes may
glaze over because you dont know what
hes talking about.
When applications are custom and
outside the distributors area of expertise,
its better to put the manufacturer
and end user in the same room.
The manufacturer, depending on
your relationship, can go in as the
manufacturer by name, or he can work
with you under your distributorships
name, OBrien says. You need to be an
expert in front of your customer. You
cant appear to be winging it. So, now the
manufacturer, who knows this product
better than me, is doing the work to
obtain the requirements, and the best part
is Im learning. Not only do joint calls
help increase your chance of making the
sale, they provide real-time training in
the field for that product line.
After the requirements stage, the
distributor and manufacturer can
jointly present the solution, or the
distributor may have learned enough
during requirement building to present
the solution on their own, OBrien says.
After the sale is closed, the end user
might order a test run of the product, and
the manufacturer is involved if there are
minor changes prior to a full rollout.
When you roll it out, it should work,
and the manufacturer probably doesnt
need to be involved, but can be because
youre talking about a team now thats
working together with trust, in tandem,
to get it done for all parties, OBrien

36 | PRINT SOLUTIONS | SEPTEMBER 2014 | PSDA.ORG

Sean OBrien, Vice President, Reign Print Solutions

Not only do joint calls help increase

your chance of making the sale, they
provide real-time training in the field
for that product line.
says. And everyone wins the customer
gets the desired solution, and both
the manufacturer and distributor reap
profitable business.

Relationships Built On Trust

The ability to make joint calls doesnt
happen overnight. OBrien likes for
manufacturers to have a presence with
his distributorship before opportunity
knocks. That includes at least one face-toface meeting with his team.
It means stopping in to see us, calling on
us, explaining what you do, a handshake,
looking you in the eye, OBrien says.
I think a lot of manufacturers who
obtained business from me in my nine
years have done it by at least doing that
first wave of relationship building, so I
know who they are. They have established

what I call presence the same

presence that is required for me to gain
an end user. Presence builds trust.
OBrien cautions manufacturers not to
assume that distributors already sell their
products. They should ask first, and if
the distributor doesnt, discover together
whether theres an opportunity. If Im
not selling that product right now, the
manufacturer might motivate me to go
to my book of business and ask 15 clients
if they have a need for it. And if hes
willing to partner with me to go out there
and help me sell it, Ill do that for him,
hesays. PS

Andy Brown is a freelance writer in

Arlington, Virginia, and owner of Methodical
Writing (www.methodicalwriting.com).

GOOD IDEA

Volunteer Your Way to

Better Business
BY ANDY BROWN

atrick Ennis spends around 10

hours every week on volunteer
activities. Hes a member of two
chambers of commerce, sits on
two boards of directors, and serves on the
sponsorship committee of the American
Marketing Associations Washington,
D.C., chapter (AMADC). Hes also an
independent owner of an American
Solutions for Business distributorship in
Northern Virginia.
My goal is always to meet people
who are doing the kinds of things that
relate to my business, Ennis said. Just
meeting them is not usually as effective
as meeting them and then spending
quality time with them. Thats where the
volunteeringhelps.

Member to Volunteer
Ennis spent 22 years working for Moore
Business Forms. He also held positions

42 | PRINT SOLUTIONS | SEPTEMBER 2014 | PSDA.ORG

at Quebecor and Cenveo. But its only

when he went on his own that he took
networking to the next level. His entre
into volunteering started with a local
chamber of commerce. Were in the
printing business. Everybody buys
printing and promotional products, so
that was my main reason for joining the
chamber, he said.
Ennis attended the chambers educational
sessions and was asked manage the
chapters business growth committee,
which focused on small business
education. That was a great way to learn
about and meet local business people, and
then progress through volunteering to
something that got me exposed to more
people, he said. But its limited. You do
sort of end up meeting the same people
over and over again.
At the same time, Ennis faced a challenge
experienced by many distributors: how
to go from taking orders to offering
services. My customers want me to be
more than just somebody who sells them
something, he said. So for me to be a
real resource, I need to be able to bring
up best practices and ideas, and the only
way to do that is to meet and talk to other
people, leading-edge people, who are

actually doing things and telling me what

works and doesnt work, so I can relay
that back to my customers.
A friend suggested he join the American
Marketing Association, so he did. Its
an organization of my ideal clients, he
said. I sort of expected to go meet people,
then call them later and ask if they want
to buy something. But its turned into an
opportunity to build relationships and learn
about the craft that we are involved in.
After a year as a member, Ennis began
volunteering with AMADC. As part of
the sponsorship committee, Ennis helps
recruit corporate sponsors to fund chapter
activities. The role matched his sales
background and desire to build credibility.
I have a lot of nonprofit clients, so when
theyre interested in understanding how to
get more sponsorships, Im always advising
them on the things they should be doing
anyway, he said. So it makes sense to put
some of that into practice on my own.

Relationships Are Forever

Ennis cautions that volunteering is a
long-term strategy. You dont develop
relationships overnight, and you do have
to figure youre going to stay in the game

for at least a year or maybe even a couple

of years, he said. But it will work. Ive
been amazed at how well it works from a
business standpoint.
Through volunteering, Ennis says hes kept
abreast of best practices, made business
partnerships and received referrals. Ive
been able to refer some people to some
clients and, as a result, Ive gotten some
referrals back, either to those same clients
or to prospects, because it just develops
a whole different relationship and trust
level that you wouldnt have otherwise,
he said. I dont think I could have done
it without volunteering. When you
volunteer, you put in hours sitting next to
somebody doing something. As a result,
you develop a relationship that you wouldnt
otherwisedevelop.
To put it another way, People who
worked on a committee 10 years ago will

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know each other for 10 years. Theyre not

going to stop knowing each other just
because one of them moved to a new job
or moved up the food chain, he said. PS

Andy Brown is a freelance writer in

Arlington, Virginia, and owner of Methodical
Writing (www.methodicalwriting.com).

PSDA.ORG | SEPTEMBER 2014 | PRINT SOLUTIONS | 43