1/1: Interview with Larry Bauer Owner, Bauer Associates: Marketing for a New Age

Hi Larry and thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions for us. I follow you on Twitter, and we are also connected on LinkedIn. I think you have a proactive and positive approach for keeping Print relevant in the emerging Print Media market, and I hope the readers of this interview will agree…

So, with that being said…

DC: Who is Larry Bauer, and what does he do?

LB: I own an integrated marketing and creative consultancy, Bauer Associates, that mainly targets the graphic arts industry. Over the past 20 years, I’ve served clients as large as RR Donnelley, Quebecor and Banta as well as smaller printers with just a few million dollars in sales. For some companies, I am their virtual marketing department while for others I might provide a specific service ranging from managing a customer education program to writing their newsletters.

My objective is always to provide high-level strategy and services at whatever level the client requires. I hit the ground running and require little of the client’s time to get up to speed.

In addition, I publish the PrintStrategist blog and co-founded the PrintStrategist group on LinkedIn. My design partner, Mondovox, and I also publish an end-user version of the blog called MondoBeat: Ideas to Improve Your Marketing Rhythm.

Then we try to bring both groups together at the LinkedIn site, taking the position that there are lots of opportunities for printers to talk to printers and marketers to talk to marketers, but too few for the two to come together in a collaborative environment centered on print strategies.

One of the fun things we did this year was publish the inaugural version of The Little Book of Marketing Do’s and Don’ts. It’s an outtake from one of our most popular recurring blog articles and covers a wide range of topics from corporate brochures to trade shows. You can get a free copy by emailing me at lbauer@bauerassociates.net.

DC: Direct Mail is a prevalent subject on your blogs… why do you feel this component is so important in a marketing campaign?

LB: I think direct mail remains a highly effective medium, fully capable of carrying the heavy load of sales generation that companies require. It performs well independently or in combination with other media. Direct mail is not only a core component of the printing industry, but also a core component of many of the most successful multichannel marketing programs. What’s more, it’s getting better with sophisticated variable data, pURLs and QR Codes that now link the analog and digital worlds. We need to keep embracing and promoting direct mail because it has both a present and a strong future.

DC: How do you suggest Marketers deal with on-going postage increases?

LB: Aggressively. Clearly postage costs are the biggest challenge to the future of print. In many ways it’s a tribute to print that it can still measure up to digital media when there is such a large differential in distribution costs. Let’s face it, in many cases digital media isn’t really performing so spectacularly in acquiring and maintaining customers, but it’s performing at an incredibly low distribution cost.

On the political-legislative side, I think marketers need to join with printers in fighting the exigent postage hike proposal. The inclusion of the exigent rate clause was originally intended for costly circumstances beyond the USPS’s control, like the anthrax attacks of a few years ago—not a slow economy. Check out the Affordable Mail Alliance for more information about the rate increase proposal.

Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) recently introduced a bill that would eliminate Saturday mail delivery and give the U.S. Postal Service greater leeway to close post offices as well as relieve certain obligations to pay retiree health costs. One key provision of this bill would give the USPS authority to reduce delivery frequency to five days a week, down from the current six. So mailers need to decide how they feel about this legislative measure and get active both individually and through their associations.

On the actual distribution side, everyone needs to plan for distribution first, not last. Ensure in the planning stage that your piece is going to be cost efficient through every aspect of the distribution supply chain without sacrificing the impact you seek. Then look for ways to share the load through co-mail, co-pal and other distribution strategies. And remember, the smaller the mailing, the more you’ll benefit from co-distribution programs.

But perhaps the most overlooked approach to minimizing the impact of postage is to maximize the effectiveness of the mailing through database mining, relevant messaging, outstanding offers and more reader involvement. In the process, companies need to understand a new marketing math that embraces a total cost rather than a price-per-piece mentality. For all the talk about targeting and relevance, it’s still a tough hurdle to get people over. Most of the marketing databases I see are a mess.

DC: You wrote : Thought leadership is all about building reputation.” With most Printers selling the same services, how can they separate themselves from the pack?

LB: It’s increasingly difficult to differentiate yourself as a printer through traditional services. Even when you can gain an edge, it’s soon likely to be duplicated by other printers. But it’s also altogether possible—andterribly important—to differentiate a company by the way it thinks and not just by the products and services it offers. Building a printing business today is as much about being ahead-of-the-curve as it is about the four P’s of price, product, place and promotion. What customers really want to know is, ‘Have you done this before?’ ‘Have you helped companies like me’? ‘Can you do it’”?

Those are the areas in which printing companies can differentiate themselves, and size really doesn’t matter. When a printing company establishes thought leadership, it levels the playing field. People seek that printer out when they have challenges. It’s the number of cells in the printer’s brain, not the number of employees on the payroll or presses on the floor that counts.

That’s why I’ve always been a strong advocate of customer education programs and helped develop a wide range of successful national and local programs.

DC: Of all your numerous Honors and Awards, is there one that stands out for you?

LB: Well, there’s always the “what have you done lately” aspect, and I’m very proud of the 2010 NAPL Marketing Plus Gold Award in the vertical markets category for Ripon Printers. It’s a great multichannel marketing campaign aimed at mid-sized catalogers that includes print advertising, trade shows, collateral, direct mail, a website revamp and both print and electronic newsletters.

But I’m also proud to be the only three-time winner in the history of the PIA Peter Drucker Marketing Excellence Award, which included receiving awards at two different printers.

DC: Do you advise Printers to include Social Media as part of their sales strategy? If so, why and how?

LB: Absolutely. First, this is a multichannel world, and it’s vitally important that printers know how different media integrate with one another. Secondly, social media can help printers develop relationships and thought leadership that can pay off for them just as it would for any other company. I think the most effective social media for printers and other business-to-business marketers areblogs (both publishing their own and commenting on others), Twitter and LinkedIn. I’m not a big believer in the value of Facebook for business-to-business, though I’m not opposed to companies experimenting if they have the resources.

But you have to keep in mind that social media is time-intensive and long-term. That makes it a difficult proposition for printers whose sales are 20-30% down and they’re concerned with developing business with limited resources.

For anyone who is able, I advise them to develop a strategy, be authentic, cool the aggressive sales talk and be patient. Social media is new ground that is very much still in the development stage.

DC: Lastly, if you were to give the commencement speech at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, what would your message be regarding Selling Print in a Digital World?

LB: That would be fun, because my alma mater has a nationally ranked animation program and was also recently named by Wired magazine as one of the nation’s most technologically advanced campuses in the U.S. But I think my message would be simple. The biggest mistake any aspiring communications professional can make is to fall in love with one media to the exclusion of others. If you’re interested in being successful and not just being trendy, you need to figure out how different media, including print, work together. That’s where the communications world is headed for some time to come. And traditional media like print will continue to play an important role. Ignore it at your own career peril.