Get out of the printing business

Don't sell printing - sell communication solutions

Printing is a commodity. Even four-colour printing carefully matched to the client's proof is a commodity. Prices are low, and clients order it online and monitor in real time.

Prices for general, run-of-the-mill printing are so low, it's almost impossible to make a profit by competing on price alone. Printers need to find a way to add value for their customers to the work they do.

"Customers want a supplier who can make their day easier," says Jay Mandarino, President of CJ Graphics of Toronto, a company that has established a niche, and a reputation, in high-quality colour printing. That means, he says, providing more than just ink on paper: it means providing solutions. "If you can do that, there's no reason for the customer to go anywhere else for any other part of their communications."

The only way for printers to get out of the commodity printing, lowest-price bidder wins world is to identify a market segment with particular needs, then work to become known in that segment as someone who can fill those needs. It's called niche marketing.

According to marketing journal DMReview, niche marketing is a segmentation strategy that focuses on serving one identifiable segment of a market, a segment that "can be uniquely served."

Not so long ago, niche marketing was what printers' customers did: identified a market niche and developed print documents to communicate to that niche. Ironically, however, niche marketing isn't the market niche for printers that it used to be.

"In marketing, print is not as pivotal as it used to be," says Tom Beakbane, President of Beakbane Marketing of Toronto. The Internet has changed the nature of marketing. Marketers as a result are doing less printing, publishing their main messages on the Web or by e-mail instead. Print is a part of the "marketing mix," but no longer the main part.

"We used to buy one to two million dollars of printing a year for our clients," says Tom Beakbane. "That was how we made most of our money." But over the past 10 years, he says, that revenue source has dried up. Beakbane's people will design and specify printing, but customers order and manage the relationship with the printer directly.

"Marketing has changed, too," Beakbane says. "Direct mail is no longer considered a separate field or discipline unto itself." Today, advertising agencies commonly have Web divisions as well as direct marketing departments all under the same roof. "There's a lot of exchange of intelligence and cross-fertilization between fields," says Beakbane. The result is better, more intelligent communications.

And the result for the printer is that the customer is less focused on dots on paper, and more on the whole communications package.

Beakbane Marketing has changed, too: it no longer has a prepress company, no longer buys much printing, and instead concentrates its considerable intellectual energies on developing effective branding strategies for its clients.

Find your niche

You can't do everything. To offer complete communications solutions, you'll have to specialize in something — a market niche. The secret is to identify a niche whose needs you can fill profitably, and then work very hard to become known as the best in it.

It's harder than it used to be, most marketers will agree, because it's not a new idea anymore, and most of the easily-identifiable niches already have competent specialists serving them — sometimes several.

The first step is to define your niche, advises Tom Beakbane. Pick two or three."Communicate who you are and what you do simply and clearly, and then run an integrated communication program that involves the same message sent in print and electronically."

Develop a list and build a profile, or a number of profiles, of the type of client you can serve in your niche. Research the potential clients in that niche: find out as much as you can about them so that you can develop communications that will get their attention.

Keep on top of your niche: know everything about it, what drives it, what's affecting it, what's hot and what's not.

Next, build your brand in that niche. A strong Web site is an essential step. Make sure it establishes your strengths in your niche and that it's attractive. Use different tactics to keep attracting your target to your site.

"Get 'Google-cranked,'" Beakbane recommends — that is, learn how to use Google and other search engines to keep your brand in front of your target niche. "People today will use Google to look up a company that they deal with regularly, rather than going to the phone book," says Beakbane. Take advantage of this.

But the Web is not enough. Companies that want to build their brand have to take an integrated approach that includes electronic communications, print, stationery and the personal approach. All your communications materials should have the same look and deliver the same overall message.

If you have a different logo or even a different "look" on your business cards and your Web site, you'll confuse your market — they may wonder if the different visuals represent two different companies with similar names.

Communicate

Direct mail can be a useful tool for the printer. Adventure Printing of Regina sends out an e-mail newsletter to its customers. It's a useful approach, agrees Tom Beakbane, but "the quality of the information within the newsletter is critical."

Direct mail in general must be of the highest quality, particularly if you want to promote a printing company. "It has to be beautifully designed and written very economically," he says. Beakbane Marketing has published booklets of information and advice about its specialty, building brands.

"Have great samples," Jay Mandarino recommends. It's hard to get that first job in a new niche, but once you do, you can use it to promote more of the same kind of work.

Adventure Graphics produces a number of self-promotional specialty items like magnets and notepads. "We'll add some to every box that we ship out to the customers," says President Darryl Schaffer. They often will also add such items to promote certain charities, particularly those involving local or provincial sports. "This province is crazy over hockey, football and curling," Schaffer adds — showing how well he knows his market niche.

Don't forget the personal touch. "A great salesperson is essential," says Mandarino, but very hard to find. Adventure also used to have a great salesperson, but he retired a couple of years ago. While the company now emphasizes electronic communication, the personal approach is still indispensable.

"Support the causes that your market supports, join their associations, go to their meetings," recommends Mandarino. The environment is one of his personal causes, and he donates not only money but his own and his company's time and resources to environmental causes. He also supports graphic designers' associations, agency groups and other professional organizations.

"Get involved in any opportunity to meet people: speeches, events, meetings, conferences," says Tom Beakbane.

Earning awards and recognition in different fields can also be a great way to build recognition of your brand, says Mandarino. Seek out opportunities within your market niche. "Credibility outside the printing field is important," says Mandarino.

Credibility is just one factor that will build your brand. Once you have established recognition of your company name — your brand — you can then start to sell based on your ability to do more than put dots of ink on paper: to be a communication solution.

When you're selling solutions, your company is much more valuable to your clients than someone who's selling printing only. If you can do that, your clients will have little reason to look elsewhere.

Focus one: CJ Graphics

The building with the CJ Graphics sign actually houses several different, related companies and divisions. While they're all involved in print communications, they each have their own niche.

CJ Graphics is a well respected printing company, whose niche is high-quality colour printing; ColourTec handles prepress; CJ Digital has digital presses for variable printing and direct marketing; and JBM Auction Services runs charity auctions for causes supported by owner Jay Mandarino.

Each company also has divisions that cater to specific market niches, such as designers and advertising agencies, the legal community, restaurants, hotels and tour operators, entertainment, non-profit organizations and universities and colleges. Each division has own sales reps, although some reps sell more than one division.

CJ Graphics is also part owner of some "allied" businesses: Anstey Book Binding and C&W Embossing. Together, the group offers a wide range of services: complete printing services from prepress to print finishing, surely, but also a wide range of types of printing: digital, offset, short-run, high quality and more.

Thus, CJ Graphics' customers who come to have a high-quality brochure printed don't have to look for another supplier for their variable printing projects.

"Each specialty feeds all the others," says Mandarino.

Focus two: The Press Run

Twelve years ago, Michael O'Connell faced a choice: should his company, The Press Run of Toronto, invest in offset or digital printing? O'Connell had decided to concentrate on a niche that many would consider a commodity: single-colour, short-run, black-on-white books and booklets.

"Our typical press run is 1,000 copies, and at that point, offset is far less expensive than digital printing," O'Connell points out. "Any quantity over 250 copies of black on white is cheaper for offset printing." So the choice was made.

O'Connell describes his niche as "information printing." Customers come for manuals or price lists. It's not sexy or glamourous, but it is profitable.

"It requires a different type of sales approach than most printers are accustomed to," O'Connell says. Rather than selling to the marketing department, O'Connell contacts the purchasing or engineering departments – the end-users of the printing he produces.

"With the marketing department, you're often competing with a quote for every order." With The Press Run's more utilitarian product, however, the focus is not on "best quality, best price, best turnaround," but on providing a dependable solution. He has more repeat business this way.

To promote the business, O'Connell advertises in trade publications, but mostly he depends on direct sales: talking to people. He'll look for manufacturers who need manuals, or distributors who need price lists, call them and make an appointment.

The Press Run is a perfect example of a company that knows its niche and has adapted to fit it.

Focus Three: Adventure Printing

Located in Regina, Adventure Printing has seen its niche, rural businesses and communities, change dramatically over the past few years. And like a good niche marketer, it has changed to adapt.

At one time, sales came through "a good, old-fashioned sales rep who drove the length and breadth of the province," says President Darryl Schaffer. But that sales rep has retired, the rurual economy is strained, and there's been a generational change, too.

"The older generation of rural business people didn't want to deal with e-mails," Schaffer explains. But that's no longer true of Adventure's market niche. They added a toll-free long-distance line a few years ago, "but today, people want to send their files for printing by e-mail." The company is also working to revamp its Web site to allow customers to order printing and upload files.

Adventure Printing also took advantage of last year's provincial centennial. "A lot of municipalities, arenas and other customers wanted centennial-related materials, promotional items like pens, notepads, buttons and banners, which we could print on our new wide-format printer," Schaffer says.

Focus Four: RP Graphics

A sheetfed printer in Toronto, RP Graphics president George Mazzaferro recognized an opportunity for a new market niche when a marketing company approached with a proposal to develop a Web-to-print service for local realtors. Using their own in-house programmers, RP Graphics developed a Web site that allows member real estate agents to easily build and print their own customized brochures.

Member agents log in, select a template, add their own contact information and other images, choose delivery and number of copies, and hit print. The next day, they get their customized brochures from RP Graphics' iGen 3 digital press.

The service is highly automated, yet earns RP Graphics around $30,000 every month. It's just one niche for the company, which also has a 40-inch six-colour offset press, a 40-inch four-colour press and a 20-inch five-colour press, plus a full bindery and mailing operation.

"All our specialties complement one another," Mazzaferro sums up. And that means clients come to RP Graphics for more than one thing, but for solutions.