How Printers Can Save Local Businesses from Themselves
There is a local shopping area of retail stores, restaurants, and businesses a mile from my apt. It’s where I do my grocery shopping, dry cleaning, package sending, eyebrow waxing, get sandwiches, breakfast, Mexican, Chinese, and Thai food, and order pizza for...
Why Print Businesses Should Wait to Ditch Twitter
The decline of Twitter aka X as a social media platform has had many print businesses and individuals wondering if they should dump their accounts. There are many practical reasons why you may not want to delete your account quite yet. For the sake of expediency, I...
How to Acquire Valuable Backlinks for Your Printing Business Website
To improve the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) rankings of your printing business, you must build a large number of high-quality backlinks to your website. Backlinks, also known as inbound links, are hyperlinks that originate from one website (the source) and point...
QUIZ: Are you Investing or Dabbling in the Printing Industry?
The printing industry is not just about printers, presses, and paper. It's a multifaceted world, filled with opportunities, innovations, and challenges. Those opportunities, innovations and challenges require the commitment of dedicated industry members to keep us...
Why You Must Hang Out With Smart People In the Print Industry and Life
No matter where you are in your print career and life, you must cultivate a large circle of smart people as colleagues and friends. Most of us have tight relationships with just a handful of trusted, smart people. Big picture-wise, it’s essential to hang out with a...
Leveraging Google Analytics and Google Search Console To Make Better Marketing Decisions
As a print service provider, your decisions about marketing investments should be as precise as your printing. In this era where data is the kingpin of decision-making, Google Analytics and Google Search Console are two indispensable tools that can help you sharpen...
Print Media Centr Launches 10-hour, Online Conference for International Print Day to Coincide with Print Across America on October 25, 2023
Two print industry milestone events hosted and produced by Print Media Centr are scheduled for October 25th. Print professionals around the world will share printspiration, knowledge, market trends and create global networking opportunities in celebration of...
Cultivating Community Connection: A Marketing Strategy for Generating Local Print Business
In the digital age, where screens often dominate communication, it's easy to overlook the power of local community engagement for a print business. Yet, building strong community connections can be a key driver for generating local print business, organic customer...
Is TikTok Marketing Right for Your Print Business?
“TikTok is just a fad for kids. Kids don’t buy print, so I shouldn’t waste my time thinking about TikTok.” ~ Old-fashioned printing company executive Wrong, wrong, wrong. First of all, TikTok may or may not be appropriate for your print business, but if it isn’t, the...
How to Get the Most Out of Your Chief Marketing Officer
Printing company owners think I’m kidding when I say that a Chief Marketing Officer can do even more than they’re doing now. Many CMOs in the printing industry are not working to their potential or ability. And most are not being utilized in the C-suite the way they...
Now Trending: Digital Media Needs Print Media to Extend Marketing ROI
The advertising landscape is in flux. Marketers and media planners are moving dollars to follow their audience to ‘non-traditional’ channels, and focusing on how media is being consumed now and will be in the future. I have no doubt that print media has a crucial role...
How To Boost Your Print Shop’s Open House with Digital Marketing
Hosting an open house event at your print shop is a great way to showcase your capabilities to your prospects and re-engage your current customers. That’s the great part about open houses: They can reignite cold sales funnels and accelerate new and current...
How to Run a DIY Print Sales Improvement Program
If your print sales team wants to systematically improve -- rather than leave things to chance -- try running a DIY team program. The key is to choose training materials from a top sales trainer who understands the printing industry. Here’s how to lay out your DIY...
drupa next age: Platform for Networking and New Business
The special area drupa next age (dna) sets the scene for newcomers and young talents from the print and packaging sector in a targeted manner. With Deborah Corn and Frank Tueckmantel, drupa has enlisted two strong partners with longstanding industry expertise for...
Why Print Businesses Shouldn’t Dodge Disastrous Reviews
On the most recent episode of PrinterChat, a Podcasts from The Printerverse series co-hosted by me, Jamie McLennan, Creative Print Strategist at DMR Graphics, and Will Crabtree, Owner of Tampa Media, the topic of testimonials for print businesses came up during a...
Are You Choosing the Right Chief Officer for Your Printing Company?
As a printing company advisor, I help clients hire Chief Officer positions for sales, operations, and business transformation. Before we design a C-suite level role (let alone meet with recruiters and post job openings), I talk with the client about why hiring for the...
Should You Email People Who Didn’t Ask You To?
Print business owners and marketers: Raise your hand if you have ever sent email marketing to a prospect database “that you acquired somewhere.” Be honest. (OK, everyone can put their hands down now). Email marketing is a natural complement to direct mail marketing....
Reality Check: The Perception of Printing
I record and produce a significant number of episodes for Podcasts from The Printerverse. Discussions about printing, print business, print sales, and print marketing are often playing through my computer, earbuds, car speakers, and voice assistants like Alexa. When I...
How Printers Can Build a Strategic Lighthouse to Guide the Business
Where is your print business headed? Not sure? Too many owners rush to the tactical side without a strategic beacon to guide the printing company’s success. Printers need a master strategy – a solid lighthouse that can survive the turbulence of the business...
Can Geofencing and Retargeting Work for Your Print Marketing?
Your prospective print customers are everywhere. And yet they can be so hard to find. Quite a few of them are using your competitors, but some of those users would be better off buying print from you. To generate new leads and new revenue for your print business,...
Print Across America: A Unified Celebration of Print for Industry Professionals and Printing Enthusiasts
Print Media Centr announces the launch of Print Across America. One Day. One Event. One Nation United Under CMYK Join us on October 25, 2023, to create a unified celebration of print by facilitating, fostering, and supporting open house events at print and sign shops...
How to Respond to Questions About Sexism in the Printing Industry
With just a few minutes before the first, women-only panel discussion on the main stage of Dscoop ended, the audience at Edge St. Louis was asked if they had any questions. The mic goes out to the audience, a gentleman stands up. With what I interpreted as a mixture...
Marketing Strategy + Execution + Continuous Improvement = Long-Term Profit
Every printing company needs a marketing strategy, but most don’t have one. Strategically and logically combining print-based marketing and digital marketing is critical to achieving efficiency (minimal waste) and effectiveness (maximum ROI). Whether you believe your...
When Print Sales Are Down, Who’s Really at Fault?
When printing businesses see their sales drop, there are gaping organizational issues that can be the root cause. The printing company itself may be the one at fault, and that's the core reason the sales team struggles to do its best work. We've talked about how...
The Perfect Partnership: Collaboration Between Printers and Designers
In the world of printing and design, collaboration is key. From business cards to banners, brochures to billboards, the collaboration between printers and designers each bringing their unique skill sets to the table is a crucial element in producing high-quality print...
Is Your Print Sales Team Holding You Back?
In my work consulting with sales and marketing teams in printing companies, I hear a common refrain from the marketing side: “Sales reps want more print sales from leads, but they’re not converting the ones they have.” Sales managers agree that “lead burning,” as I...
Why Creating a Search-Optimized Print Website Feels So Good
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) feels so good. Why? Because a search-optimized print website can help you meet strangers: qualified print buyers you have never heard of and who possibly have never heard of your printing business. They are ‘qualified’ because they...
Authenticity Matters in Brand, Print Business and Personal Messaging
Authenticity for brand, personal, and print business messaging has become more important than ever. Whether it's in advertising, social media, or everyday conversation, people want to feel that the messages they receive are genuine and truthful. Last week was...
Do First Things First When Marketing Your Printing Company
When creating a new marketing campaign for your printing company, it’s good -- no, it's imperative -- to do the first things first. Successful marketing teams look at the big picture, outline the program, create a plan that everyone understands, and – only then – take...
Cookie Cutter Print Marketing Doesn’t Generate High ROI
Print shop owner #1: “Lead generation is hard, expensive, time-consuming, and frustrating.” Print shop owner #2: “We are getting great ROI on our marketing, our customer base is growing, and we get new leads all the time.” Both these printers are doing the same...
Americas Print Show Announces Fall 2023 Hall of Fame Summit and 2024 Industry Trade Show Dates
Americas Print Show will once again partner with printing industry manufacturers, associations, industry influencers, educators, and printers to expand on the great success of the inaugural three-day event held in August 2022. Americas Print Show (APS), announces 2024...
Five Signs You are a Print Junkie – 2023 Edition
Do you see print everywhere? Do you count down the days until the new printing press or finishing equipment arrives at your print shop? Do you know what Pantone color the sky is? Do you make vacation plans around printing industry events or incorporate them? Do you...
How to Break Through the Creativity Block
You can have all the right people in the room and still have a creative block when you do marketing for a printing company. Here’s my perspective on how to get the creativity flowing when you do print-digital-media marketing in the printing industry. This story is...
Are Your Print Company Videos Optimized for Search Engines?
Video marketing is hot and print shop video marketing is getting even hotter in 2023. In fact, video is the fastest-growing trend in digital marketing. Why? Because video works. Videos have proven to be 53 times more likely to generate first-page rankings than other...
Fifth Annual Women’s Print HERstory Month Returns in March to Celebrate the Fierce, Fabulous Females Who Power the Industry
‘Women’s Print HERstory Month’ coincides with Women’s History Month to align storytelling that empowers and inspires the fierce, fabulous females of print, as well as young women and students entering the industry or considering print as a career. Launched in 2019,...
High-Speed Digital Print and Finishing at Hunkeler Innovation Days 2023
This international print industry event showcases innovations and further developments in high-speed digital print and finishing HUNKELER INNOVATION DAYS FEBRUARY 27 - MARCH 2, 2023 • LUCERNE, SWITZERLAND Learn more here HUNKELER LONG AND PROSPER! Deborah Corn is the...
2023 CMYK Manifesto: Disrupt, Disclose, Do Better
Greetings Citizens of the Printerverse and welcome to a New Year! For the first time in 3 years, it feels like an actual NEW year and not a continuation of what I refer to as the uni-year. The uni-year covers anything that happened between March 2020 and December 31,...
Busting the Hustle-Bro Marketing Myth
What does it take to succeed at marketing in today’s printing business? I’ll tell you what it doesn’t take. Buying into the hustle-bro marketing mythology. What is hustle-bro mythology? If you watch YouTube, you see snippets of pre-roll advertising that feature...
Social Media For Your Print Business (Part 2 of 2)
Executing an effective social media for your print business is easier said than done. After all, social media marketing can be ambiguous. ROI is hard to measure. “Going viral” is close to impossible. So why even try? Because social media, across its various platforms,...
5 Tips to Combat Post-Holiday Work Blues for Organizational Productivity
The new year is meant to be a time of renewed purpose and energy but, in reality, it can be overwhelming catching up with all the things we didn’t want to deal with in December. Organizational productivity and goal setting can quickly get pushed to the side. I’m...
2022: A Year of Tepid Transformation for the Post-Pandemic Printing Industry
Greetings Citizens of the Printerverse! Another year for the printing industry is in the books. It seems like it zipped by although I can remember how slow the days and weeks felt at the beginning of the year. That is all just a blur now. So much has changed this...
How to Build Your Print Business From the Inside
Want to see what a difference it makes to have a well-built business? It can mean more sales, higher profits, and better morale. Let's talk about how to build your print business from the inside so it works better on the outside. Working on the inside of the business...
2022 Packaging Wrap Up
It’s hard to believe the year is almost over! Here’s a quick recap of the exciting packaging topics covered this year. Overall, several interesting packaging topics were covered in 2022. The blog series began the year with the topic of fast-food packaging. The very...
2022: A Year in Flux for Marketers
What a year in flux and uncertainty 2022 has been. COVID has receded, and life got back to some semblance of normal, but cases are up 50% over the past two weeks. Americans are as divided as ever, and the major political parties still have a winner-take-all attitude....
Digital Marketing for Printers in 2022: A Year To Remember
For many printers, digital marketing in 2022 was like a rickshaw ride on a rolling cobblestone road. Fast, bumpy, fun, scary, rewarding, painful, interesting, and exhilarating. Things moved fast in the first few months of the year, mostly due to the macroeconomic...
Print Samples: Before You Ring in the New Year…
At the end of every year, it is good to take some time and look back at where you’ve been. The world of print samples became vibrant again this year as many trade shows fired up their engines, attracting creativity that was remarkable. From Print4All in Milan...
Twitter Advertising is Dead. Long Live Print!
Print has always been a potent channel for direct marketing and communication, and one of the safest. This is not new information to us. But recent events on Twitter including the image above sent out by 'Nintendo America' have sent shockwaves through the socialverse....
7 Items for Your Print Business Year-End Checklist
End-of-year business planning is a time of opportunity. It's a chance to make your print business more powerful and strategic. It should happen across all departments and be handled systematically and proactively. Is that how fiscal year-end works in your company?...
Are You Getting Noticed by Print Customers?
Are you getting noticed by your print customers? Do you know how they found you? I recently sat in on a client’s sales call with a prospect. When asked the proverbial “how did you hear about us?” question, the prospect answered, “I don’t know. You guys are...
6 Steps to Rebooting Print Business’ Social Media Strategy
Does your print business have a social media strategy? Maybe you publish a post everyone once in a while or perhaps you read, like, and comment on the Facebook posts of others. If so, it could be said that “not having a social media strategy” is your strategy. After...
Print Samples: What DO YOUR Business Cards Say?
Before every trade show, event, or customer meeting, look at your business cards. What do they say about you and your company? Do they give your company, name, title, and contact details? Perfect! They should. But if you stop there you miss an opportunity to create a...
How to Tell if You Are Considered a Print Vendor or a Print Partner
If print customers are thinking of you as a print vendor and not as a print partner, you are in serious trouble. You are interchangeable. You are competing on price. You are a number on a spreadsheet. You aren’t top of mind for recommendations or referrals. You are on...
How to Get Your Marketing Program Unstuck
Whether you are marketing yourself or marketing your printing company, it can be challenging to get rolling again if you’ve gotten off track. Here are some easy ways to get your marketing program unstuck and on the road to success. WHAT’S REALLY HOLDING YOU BACK? When...
How to Attract the Best Print Customers
“Nobody ever asked me what customers I wanted before.” This was told to me by the VP of Sales at a $25 million revenue commercial print business a few years back. Throughout his career, new print customers came in seemingly randomly by referrals, leads from the...
Why Create an Account-Based Marketing Strategy for Your Major B2B Accounts
Selling print to large enterprise accounts can be a very profitable and scalable strategy. An effective way of landing a major account is a strategy that’s called account-based marketing (ABM). An ABM strategy can help capture major accounts and transform a printing...
Print Samples Sell Your Association
Every print association has had the same problem – how do you keep members engaged and interested in your events? Over the pandemic years, we were confined to online meetings, and some organizations found that sending out boxes with cups, hats, pins, and buttons to...
Girls Who Print Day and International Print Day Coming in October with ‘Be BIG and BOLD’ and ‘Print Smart’ as Central Themes
The global print community will gather to celebrate Girls Who Print Day on October 13, and International Print Day on October 26, hosted online by Print Media Centr September 28, 2022 -- The Printerverse – Two print industry milestone events hosted and produced by...
3 Ways to Earn Trust Through Collaboration with Print Customers
The secret to earning referrals and long-term loyalty with print customers for their printing and print marketing needs is really no secret. Creative collaboration is the key to success. Collaboration can take many forms. On the lowest end, we have information...
Quirky or Classy, Your Newsletter is a Gift to Readers
The following customer success story will help you improve your newsletter engagement and content marketing results. For my birthday, my cousin ships a gigantic gift box filled with unusual items she collects all year. Might be silver ornaments shaped like body parts...
Increase Search Traffic Using The Pillar Content Model
It takes a lot of content about a topic to increase search traffic results. Google takes several factors into account when deciding how high to rank your website for a particular search, including: Overall website quality The amount of content related to the topic The...
AutoPack Summit 2022 Recap: Reuse, Return, Reunite
Usually, this blog covers packaging from a print and digital perspective. This month, the blog is dedicated to automotive packaging and will give a quick recap of the Auto Pack Summit held in Greenville, SC this year from September 7 to September 9, 2022. Print lovers...
Should You Send Your Print Customers Newsletters? 5 Ways To Know
Sending print customers newsletters is an idea that has crossed the mind of every print business owner or marketing manager. “We should start sending out newsletters!” Sounds like a good idea, but is it? Here are three reasons not to send newsletters: Newsletters are...
Print Samples Sell Packaging
The hot topic this year is packaging and all of the things you can do with it. It’s the most common billboard available and it isn’t used to its full capability. Think about it, every package can carry a logo and a tagline, but what about an invitation to buy an...
5 New Business Development Takeaways from KushCon Tampa
On August 6th, I attended KushCon Tampa with Will Crabtree – aka #WillThePrinter, co-host of the PrinterChat series on Podcasts from the Printerverse and owner of Tampa Printer, Gorilla Gurus and Sign Parrot, and Jim Cox, General Manager of Tampa Printer. KushCon is...
We Want You: Using Variable Print at Recruiting Events
Are you focused on recruiting new members and getting buy-in from your prospects? Try using variable print when holding your recruiting events. Personalizing the marketing package helps you gain trust and commitment. I’ll give you two examples of how to combine...
Improve Public Relations with These 6 Social Media Steps
Many, maybe most, companies still don’t understand how to use social media to improve their business. There are many ways that social media can help: Customer service Identify and engage with prospects Generate prospects with social advertising Public Relations...
Navigating Sustainability for Embellished Packaging
Have you ever wondered what you or your customers can do with your decorated, embellished packaging and printed materials post-use? Once you really start digging into the topic, it becomes apparent that the word ‘sustainable’ has many meanings. It seems as if the...
Print Samples: Add Dimensionality to Your Print
This is the story of dimensionality. Textures, shine, matte, and a host of other print embellishment options can take print to a new level. The differentiation that texture brings is something you can test for yourself. Think about the last handful of business cards...
Video (and More!) Marketing Strategies for Your Print Business (Part 2)
People love video marketing. OK, maybe that’s not true for everyone. People love video! Yes, that is true, especially on the internet. Facts: People spend 88% more time on a website that has video. Video generates 1200% more shares than both images and text. By...
Building the Future with Print
The viable future of print business is dependent upon how print is used, and what it’s used for. We saw this firsthand in 2020. If printing wasn’t essential, it wasn’t produced. And when things started to open, ‘essential‘ was applied to the spending, not the...
A Printer’s Road Map to Marketing Clarity
A clear marketing message is a challenge for most printers. We write and write and write, thinking that print customers care. They don’t. I’ve talked about brevity and simplicity – and now I want to focus on clarity. When I perform Marketing Reviews, I see printers...
Video Marketing Strategies for Your Print Business (Part 1)
Video is a marketing tool that print business owners should not ignore. Generally speaking, printers just don’t utilize video to its full potential to build their brand and drive new customer demand. Why? Some think video production is difficult, others think it is...
Print Samples: Everything Needs a Label
There are dozens of ways you might create a label. You might do it on your desktop printer using label stock bought online or at the office supply store. If you need more volume, you may look to find a provider who can meet your needs. There are online label printers...
But Wait, There’s More: 3 New Business Ideas for Print Businesses
The summer is approaching and that typically means a little slow down for most print businesses, but honestly who knows anymore. We will collect metrics as we live through it and reflect on this and past years, like most situations since Covid kicked off. So, I’ll...
Sustainable Packaging Needs Warrant Digital Printing Solutions
Sustainability is one of the hottest topics in the world of packaging today. Companies proactively seek ways to define sustainability, outline targets, and develop sustainable packaging to meet their objectives. The packaging industry is predicted to surpass $230...
Best Digital Advertising Strategies for Printers to Reach Targeted Print Buyers
Part 2 of a 2-part series How can your print business reach print buyers by using digital advertising? There’s no shortage of opportunities to spend your money on advertising, but which options are best for your business? In part 1 of this series, we presented the...
A Coffee Table Book for Your Company? Do Tell!
Your business deserves the very best treatment in telling its story. Elevate it with print! Here's why, and I believe this with all my heart: Print makes stories memorable. It gives ideas stature. Statistically, most of us have written carefully-crafted information...
Is This the Decade of Branding?
The wide range of marketing skills and talents fall into two categories of people, Marketing Creatives and Marketing Technologists. Marketing creatives include branding specialists, designers, creative directors, content writers, and copywriters. While the creative...
Print Samples: Why You Need Your Own Magazine
Many years ago, as we were getting ready for Drupa in 2012 one of the sales team members I was working with in Europe arrived with boxes of a very cool magazine, But it wasn’t just any magazine – it was one that had versions based on the target recipient. That...
ISA Sign Expo Delivers Thrills and Stills
Printing innovation and possibilities were plentiful at the International Sign Association’s (ISA) signature annual event, Sign Expo, in Atlanta May 4-6. Even my heightened industry event optimism from attending Dscoop Edge Rockies in March (Dscoop’s Edge Rockies...
Is it the Right Time to Sell Your Print Business?
Printers ask me: "When is it time to sell or exit from my business?" Good question. Whenever that time is, we can't wait until the last minute to position your business to attract a buyer. Here's one way to see where you are on the "readiness to sell" scale. Think of...
Is Your Website Meeting Your Goals?
Over the past few months, I’ve written about the changes in Google search results pages and how they impact companys’ search performance. There are many ways people may learn about suppliers. Ranking high in search results may not be essential for every company. But a...
Print Samples: Love Letter to All Our Pals in Print
Have you ever been specifying a print job and couldn’t remember how to spec an element? Do you want A4 or B4? How do you allow for bleed? What are the layer requirements to spec for multiple layers of varnish? There are so many options in print. Sure, you could go to...
How to Help Overworked Print Customers Buy From You
Making print sales isn’t easy these days. Supply chain issues are disrupting the process and the ability to promise everything will be ok with 100% certainty. This situation can make even the most seasoned print customers nervous especially if they work as a print...
Paper Shortages and the Impact of Digital Print in Packaging
Everyone seems to be talking about supply chain issues and the paper shortage right now. Though the shortage is centered in Europe, this is having a worldwide impact. As a packaging professional keeping up with supply chain issues over the last two years, this round...
Should Your Print Business Pay to Advertise with Mark Zuckerberg?
Part 1 of a 2-part series Paid digital advertising is one of the most effective and cost-efficient ways for a print business to reach large targeted audiences of print buyers in a short period of time. Yet for a lot of owners of smaller print businesses, paying to...
Marketing to the Lucrative SaaS Sector
Marketing to the SaaS sector starts by understanding the everyday challenges of this type of business. Today let’s learn about Software as a Service – SaaS, and how they can solve their most significant problem with print. Why should SaaS care about print? To get in...
How Featured Snippets Can Improve Your Search Results
Many online platforms aim to keep you on the site as long as possible in the hope that you will eventually click a link in a digital advertisement. Social media platforms do this by entertaining and displaying content that their algorithms predict you'll spend time...
Print Samples: Create Your Own Magazine
When was the last time you told someone about a great magazine article you read online? For many, reading online is done in snippets between other activities, and the content seems more fleeting. And, then there are printed magazines. Those lovely to-touch pieces of...
Dscoop’s Edge Rockies Signals The Print Industry is Back To Business
Community is a word that gets watered down through overuse in the print industry, but there is honestly none better to describe Dscoop. These are passionate, innovative, and creative people working towards a collective common goal – forging a path to a successful...
Combine the Powers of Digital Printing with Digital Marketing
If you’re like most print service providers, you are trying to grow your business. You want new customers while strengthening the loyalty of your current ones. Beyond those simple goals, you also want to expand your share of your customers’ print wallet by increasing...
BYOB – Beverage Packaging Gets Personal
It is estimated that the global digital print market for packaging will reach $28 billion by 2024. This segment has grown by leaps and bounds over the last ten years. Packaged beverages have been a significant driver of growth. Beverage manufacturers made digital...
How Google’s New Search Results Page Impacts Your Search Performance
Google continually makes changes to search results pages, walking a fine line between providing a good user search experience and increasing search ad revenue. The coveted #1 search position for any particular search term may not even appear above the fold, which is...
Is Empathy in Your Marketing Toolkit?
I was brought in as an expert by another marketing consultant. He was working with an international company, and one of their tried-and-true lead gen programs was not doing the job anymore. We met with the corporate marketing people, and they explained the program....
Print Samples: The Wonderful VIGC Member Package
Do you belong to an association? A bowling league? Intramural golf? What about a print association? Is that association keeping you educated? Are they helping you lift your business? One group that I love does this. It’s the Flemish Innovation Center for Graphic...
Build Back Better Brings Print Customers
This is not a political post. It’s a financial one for design, print, and marketing pros. At the end of 2020, the United States Construction Industry was valued at $1.36 Trillion Dollars. Even with the pandemic, private residential and non-residential construction had...
Witkowski, Dejan and Strull Launch MarketWise Academy
MarketWise Academy was founded out of the desire to help creative communities navigate and thrive in a post-pandemic world, and to help busy creative and brand professionals stay up-to-date on training and advance their careers. “There’s a learning gap in our...
Use Print to Ask for Feedback and Improve Customer Relationships
To improve our businesses, we need to continuously learn about the people we serve. Think about the process of asking for customer feedback, for example. While it’s not specifically a marketing activity, it shows customers we care about our relationship with them and...
The Real Cost of Print Customer Acquisition
What does it cost you to get a new lead to your website from your digital marketing campaigns? The cost equation depends on a list of variables, such as your timing, your offer, your target audience, your competition, and your unique value proposition. Success also...
Build Trust to Grow Your Business
Edelman PR consultancy recently released their annual Edelman Trust Barometer report. They surveyed over 36,000 people in 28 last November to gauge trust in institutions. A recent survey shows that people trust businesses more than NGOs, governments, and media. Trust...
A Time Travelers Guide to Digital Printed Packaging
Digital printing is all the rage, we hear about it often in the packaging industry. How did we get here? Currently, there are over 25,000 companies in the United States alone that specialize in commercial printing, and just under 10,000 of those companies have digital...
Print Samples Danish Style
Print shows in Europe often bring out displays of amazing print samples gathered by passionate people who want to share and educate. One of those passionate people is Janne Høgshøj, the Danish Connection. At the 2019 Danish Sign, Print & Pack, Janne brought her...
2022 CMYK Manifesto: Know, Show, Do, Share
This annual post has traditionally focused on what is in front of us in order to help customers generate business results with print. While there is still some uncertainty when it comes to planning meetings and events and when/if there will be a return to offices, we...
Leveraging the Power of Digital Media to Grow the World of Print
The title sounds a bit like a paradox! But the idea came to me this cold winter morning as I sat with my parents pouring over old photo albums. The power of print to rebuild human connections. Every January I order photobooks of my Facebook photos. They select, print,...
Two Great Resources That Help Your Direct Mail Stand Out
It’s no secret that direct mail has been an effective marketing channel for decades. While the twenty-first century saw the rise of digital marketing, digital variable data printing technology allowed extreme segmentation and personalization of direct mail. Large...
Do Customer Loyalty and Rewards Programs Drive More Print Profit?
This blog is part 3 of a 3-part series: Maximize New Opportunities Through Current Customers. Catch-up here: Part 1 - Is Your Print Business Maximizing the Value of Your Customers?, Part 2 - How A Customer Reference Program Can Help You Sell More Print As consumers,...
Back to The Future with Fast-Food Packaging
Fast-food packaging is near and dear to my heart since my first job. I joined the packaging team of a fast-food chain packaging supplier after college and learned so many things about what was referred to as environmentally friendly at that time. Since then, it has...
This is Your Brain on Marketing
Remember the 1980s public service announcement: “This is your brain on drugs. (Egg sizzles in a hot frying pan.) Any questions?” As kids, we all made fun of the ad, and it became the meme of its time. But it made an impression. It had a short, simple message with a...
Wrapping Up 2021 with Bullish Thoughts for 2022
This year has, in many ways been one giant blur. It was January, yada-yada-yada, and here is my year-end wrap-up post. What did I do? What did I accomplish? What did I learn? I took a look back at 2021... Project Peacock morphed into a resource and education platform...
How A Customer Reference Program Can Help You Sell More Print
This blog is part 2 of a 3-part series: Maximize New Opportunities Through Current Customers How many print buying prospects have you quoted that say they want to “think about it.” Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, but delayed buying behavior like this often occurs...
Being a Better You is a Marketing Advantage
How do you create the kind of business that people want to work for, sell for, and advocate for? You have to start with people. In my experience, when my clients work on improving themselves, the ripple effect creates a distinct marketing advantage for the business...
Xmas Xcess: A Holiday Guide to Packaging and Waste Management
People are very conscientious about recycling packaging & waste on a daily basis, why not keep the momentum of sustainability going during this season of festivities? Think of the complete lifecycle, from beginning to end as you make holiday decisions and keep...
The Four Words That Define 2021
As I reflect on 2021, I almost feel a little guilty about stating publicly what a great year it was for me. I was busy. I won new clients. I traveled. I spoke. In public. And I know from dozens of print companies that I work with that many feel that it was an...
Direct Mail Verification: Anatomy of an Address Verification Program
People working from home create challenges for the B2B marketer that wants to utilize direct mail. This blog post addresses this common problem and provides a real-life example to obtain people's preferred mailing addresses. The goal of this article is to: Provides a...
Explore Print Sample TV: Even More Print Samples!
A few weeks ago, we had a chance to create a bucket of new episodes of Print Sample TV! We have some cool things coming, including a look at some new options for enhancing print with foil, new inkjet technologies, and some great ideas for how to create your own print...
Where, Oh Where Did the Print Customers Go?
I have had vast conversations with big-budget buyers and print buyers buying on a budget over the last two years. I have spoken to designers, marketers, and decision-makers on all levels. One thing most have in common – uncertainly regarding their futures, and where...
Top Ten Tips for Email Marketing Best Practices
Many printing companies rely on email as their primary communications tool for reaching customers and prospects. Generally, email is used more than phone calls and face-to-face meetings combined. But email is hard and it’s getting harder. As old and omnipresent as it...
Can History and Innovation of Soup Packaging
As the holiday season approaches and the weather cools off, people gravitate toward warm comfort foods like soup. What does comfort food like soup have to do with packaging? Believe it or not, the history of soup and its commercialization goes hand in hand with...
Stunningly Simple: An Uncoated Viewbook Beats Out the Bling
In the past, my client sent top prospects a glitzy book -- a sales-oriented white paper. It was packaged in a royal purple turned-edge leather binder with a branded silver clasp. Bling-a-bling-bling! The white paper (created by a big-name agency) was crammed with...
Sales Notes from a Campaign Trail
Sales Notes from a Campaign Trail Having just run for a seat on my town council, campaigning for two solid months, and having not only won but having received the most votes of anyone in my district, including two popular incumbents, I can tell you that the metaphors...
Print Samples: Pushing the Envelope
The folks at the Envelope Manufacturer’s Association have a mission – envelopes. But it is more than that! They share ideas, compare notes on things like keeping staff motivated, finding staff, and finding that all-too-precious commodity – the paper and other...
Now Playing at a Theater Near You: PRINT!
I recently wrote an article about the return of the theater experience for the Ricoh Business Booster site where I am an active contributor, providing info and intel for developing long-term relationships with print customers and sharing creative ideas for generating...
Are QR Codes Being Used Effectively In Direct Mail?
Last month’s Have QR Codes Finally Reached Their Glory Days? Blog post illustrated the resurgence of the QR code in marketing. When looking through my mail the other day I decided to take a look at how companies are using the QR codes in their direct mail. The...
Is Your Print Business Maximizing the Value of Your Customers?
What is a customer worth to your business? The simplest calculation is your customer lifetime value (CLV), which is the profit you expect to earn from an average customer over the life of your business relationship with that customer. To simplify, suppose your average...
Anything You Can Do She Can Do Better: 5 reasons to Add Women to your Sales and Mktg. team
Ok people I can see that you can see that I am fired up right now, and with good reason. I just spent all day recently on the #GirlsWhoPrint Day annual conference online (replays here) in which we had nineteen powerful and influential women in the print industry...
Packaging Design Meets Graphic Design
Startups juggle many things when launching products. It is a combination of taking care of business and a labor of love to make sure every detail is just right. While there is a great deal of excitement around tweaking the product, finding customers, marketing, and...
Do You Have What it Takes to Build Your Print Business?
Many years ago my printer called me to ask me to help Ed, a customer who was struggling financially and more than 120 days behind in payments. “Ed’s a great guy,” the printer said, “It’s a long shot, but if there’s any hope of getting his business turned around, we...
Print Samples: Xplor and The Personalized Magazine
Have you been following the stories of innovation in magazines and catalogs? Articles will spotlight personalization and targeting, often implying that the techniques are new. But they are not! Twenty years ago, I was working with the team at Xplor International to...
Womentorship and Revival of Print are Main Themes of Girls Who Print Day and International Print Day in October
The global print community will gather to celebrate Girls Who Print Day on October 7, and International Print Day on October 20, hosted online by Print Media Centr Two print industry milestone events hosted and produced by Print Media Centr are scheduled for October....
3 Productive Ways to Follow Up on Following Up
Printers say the craziest things. While that isn’t the name of a new Podcast From The Printerverse series, it might as well be. I have heard some doozies as of late and they are worth sharing for two reasons. The first so I am not alone in the horror, and the second...
Have QR Codes Finally Reached Their Glory Days?
QR codes have been used by marketers since early 2010. As smartphone adoption increased, phone manufacturers and marketers realized the camera on the phones could be used to scan the codes. The hope was that response rates would increase as consumers find scanning a...
Know, Like Trust: Funneling Suspects into Sales
Most people who have been in sales for even a few short years have heard about The SALES FUNNEL. You might have first encountered a sales funnel the first time you were introduced to a CRM like Salesforce, where the opportunity manager helped you see how big your...
Email Marketing is Easy, Affordable, and Gets Results
Email is a basic tool, but it is very powerful and has decades of marketing practices behind it. It’s perfect for a printing company on a budget. Using affordable and strategic marketing tools such as email on a regular schedule will help plant your brand firmly and...
The Intersection of Branding and Packaging
Packaging is designed to contain, protect, and transport products. Packaging provides a fourth purpose – to inform the consumer. The information on a package can be a deciding factor during the 7 seconds an average consumer spends to make a purchase decision. ...
Do All Your Employees Know the Elevator Pitch of Your Print Business?
No. The answer is no, they don’t. Some of your employees are non-customer-facing so MAYBE it’s not necessary for them to learn your company’s pitch. Or MAYBE it is. What about your customer-facing employees? Your sales, customer service, and marketing staff? Do they...
Print Samples: Why You Should Use Postcards
Postcards are the lingua franca of communication. Even in today’s Instagram world, people send postcards when they travel. Businesses use them to find new customers and stay visible with current clients. Retailers use them to make offers and politicians use them to...
How to Win a Gold Medal for Company Culture
If you watched any of the ‘2020’ Olympics you may have drawn the same conclusion that I did… the world has really changed. I am not referring to adjusting for Covid, I am speaking about humans – more specifically humans in their mid 20's and younger... Gen-Z. For 17...
Project Peacock: A Resource Playground for Printers and Creatives
These days good information is increasingly difficult to come by. Unless you already know what you’re looking for, you may have to dig through a few google pages to find the “right” information. Sure, my keywords will get me towards what I need…but after filtering...
Control Pricing and Put Print Profits Back in Your Pocket
Assumptions about pricing can kill your business. Here's an example. Recently I helped a printer get rid of half of his business that was dragging him down. He had spent ten years using loss-leader pricing on half his products. For an entire decade, he made pricing...
Don’t Throw That Container Away! (Nostalgic Uses for Old School Packaging)
Each time I view a post on social media about repurposed packaging, I get a bit nostalgic and think of packaging that was regularly reused in the past. Let me know if you or anyone you know ever kept these packages or any others you know about. I took an informal...
Does Your Print Business Really Have a PR Plan?
The truth is that most businesses (print or otherwise) do not have a public relations (PR) plan. We are all busy and the idea of creating and structuring a formal PR plan gets deprioritized below operations, sales, and even marketing. Most businesses only think of PR...
Print Samples: Let’s Play with Playing Cards!
When was the last time you played with a deck of cards? Real cards, not the online solitaire version? Over the last couple of years, I’ve found myself with decks of cards in my hands – real ones – that aren’t the traditional hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs, but...
Five Magical Benefits of Creating a Vision Board for Sales
This summer was supposed to be my summer of trying new things. I have been talking to a lot of my clients in sales and marketing in print organizations across America. I tell them that to move forward they must change their thinking, be bold, be adventurous, and try...
Winning Sales Strategy: The Moment for a Quick Sales Victory Lap
If you read my posts with any frequency or listen to the Print Buying UK v. USA Podcast co-hosted by me and Matthew Parker, you probably know I focus on helping printers create long-term relationships with print customers. I benefited from long-term relationships with...
Lead Generation and Marketing Considerations For Printers
The other day a client forwarded me an email that was written by the president of a commercial printing company who asked: Does anyone have suggestions for marketing specifically designed for lead generation? I’ve done plenty of work with this client over the years...
Paper vs. Plastic: 2021 Post-Pandemic Trends
The most recent drive towards sustainability motivated many companies to rethink packaging. Popular brands scrutinize the carbon footprints of their products. Packaging received so much attention during the Pandemic that Forbes Designated 2021 – The Year of the...
10 Things To Do When Updating Your Website
Whether you bring in a pro to help you update your website -- or do it yourself -- there are 10 things to do before you hit the publish button. But first! I’d like to talk about one of my early clients. Mike Hasson was the founder of the Hasson Company, a luxury real...
What’s Your Priority? Sales Revenue or New Lead Generation?
What do you think is the highest-priority marketing objective of print businesses today? To drive sales revenue or drive lead generation? Recent research shows that lead gen is #1. This was surprising to me at first because you can't pay the bills with leads. But...
Print Samples! Tell a Story with YOUR Business Card
Do you carry business cards? Some people have started to avoid them and exchange phone bumps to transfer contact details. Others take pictures of the card but don’t accept it to transport home. I’m an avid business card collector. They help me remember the contact and...
Following Up with Five Industry Orgs Addressing Diversity with Action
In July of 2020, I reached out to five industry organizations to get their statements in regard to implementing policies and programs to proactively address diversity and inclusion in the printing industry. You can read it here. Almost a year later, I checked in to...
The Funnel is Dead. Long Live the Customer Journey!
I remember the first time I read about the marketing funnel and how prospects go through an awareness, consideration, and decision process on their way to becoming a customer. It made so much sense. The other elegant thing about the funnel is it is large on top and...
The ABCs of Packaging Design
Here are some tips I want to share to ensure you have the best packaging for your product. The buzz around sustainability, online shopping, shortages sparked by COVID-19, and the unboxing experience means that packaging has received a lot of attention lately. These...
Timing is Everything When Educating Customers About Print Marketing
Timing. Is. Everything. Do your print customers know this? Do they know the clock is ticking? Do they know that time is flowing and tomorrow things may look very different? Are you prepared to educate them so they can get time on their side? Then and now. I help a...
Should Your Print Business be Advertising on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn advertising is an expensive form of B2B digital advertising. It’s also one of the most cost-efficient. Wait, how can it be both? The answer arises by looking beyond the cost of placing an ad and the potential ROI. LinkedIn ads aren't for every print...
Print Samples! The Jazz Fest Vibe
Print-on-Demand has a certain vibe. It’s immediate. It’s vibrant. But it’s also not the way many printers work. In this episode of Print Sample TV, we had a chance to talk about a print that we’ve been sitting on since last year. It’s the 202nd edition of the amazing...
Beat the Summertime Blues One Week at a Time
I’ve been there and I’ve done it. Summer comes. You take your foot off the gas pedal a bit. You tell yourself that people are on vacation. Things are “slow”. And you’re not wrong. People ARE on vacation. Things DO slow down. But this is 2021. This is a different year,...
3 Proactive Plans for Productive Planner Prospecting
Sometime during 2018 a woman walked up to me in the airport and struck up a light conversation about how often she sees me, and we compared our travel schedules while waiting for our pick-ups to arrive. I easily lost in who travels more, but I certainly consider...
Lessons from a Printing Company Working with Netflix
I toured a printing company that printed the DVD packaging and disks for Netflix, back when the entertainment giant sent DVDs to people’s homes for viewing. The printer was growing and had the floor space to install a brand new specialty press with a dedicated...
How Much Should Your Print Business Spend On Marketing
A print industry friend of mine asked my opinion about how he should budget for marketing this year. I’ll share with you, my Print Media Centr friends, what I told him. While there isn’t a single right answer, there are some directional guidelines that companies use...
E-Commerce Packaging – Past, Present and Future
Past Catalog sales existed in the mid-1600s for seed and book sales, by the last half of the 1800s, mail-order businesses were well established in Europe. Trains shipped products to distant customers in barrels, bins, and boxes. Companies such as Tiffany’s, Sears, and...
The Sales Edit: 5 Tips to Produce MORE in 2021 and Beyond
First, there was the magic of tidying up with Marie Kondo. Then there was Norwegian Hygge. Now, we have The Home Edit. According to their website, “THE HOME EDIT organizes every space in the home, from bedrooms and kitchens to closets and pantries. Every project...
Print Samples: Unboxing Packaging for Subscriptions
There is nothing like getting a box in the mail, opening it, and discovering what’s inside. Whether you ordered something for yourself, received a gift, or stocked up on shampoo, there is still excitement in opening a box. Some companies get that and create an...
Prospect These Verticals Now for 3rd Quarter Success
Even with Americans being vaccinated at an astonishing pace, we are not out of the woods regarding businesses reopening and people returning to offices. As a matter of fact, some companies are choosing to give up the brick and mortar and panoramic views from office...
How to Sell Print to the Real Estate Industry
No matter what’s going on in the economy, there’s money to be made for printers who can get in the door with real estate brokers. To sell deeply and profitably, you must develop relationships and earn a seat at the project planning table. To do that, you need to work...
Where are You on the Sustainable Packaging Spectrum?
The Pandemic of 2020 brought awareness to sustainable packaging. Sustainability may be a new concept to the average person; however, in the print and packaging industry, this has been a high priority for decades. A series of events drove the evolution towards...
How To Get Your Print Business Ranked High in Google Search
Getting your print company’s website organically ranked by search engines is one of the toughest digital marketing challenges you face. You have hundreds or thousands of competing businesses trying to beat you in the race to be found in Google searches for keywords...
Social Media Case Study: Girls Who Print and #PrintHERstoryMonth
This year, for #PrintHERstoryMonth at #GirlsWhoPrint, I had the honor of running the social channels (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram) and posting in the LinkedIn Group as we celebrated over 50 women who shared their print origin stories and advice for advancing in...
Print Samples: Up Your Event Game with Playing Cards
The title on this one spotlights FujiXerox, which is now Fujifilm Business Innovations, but the story still resonates. A while back the team held a partner event that needed a way to get attendees to visit the sponsor tables. The event planners built a plan that...
Don’t Get Crushed By The Google Page Experience Update
When creating their website, most companies pay a large amount of attention to website design and content. But it’s the things you can’t see, such as how pages are structured and how Google measures your website quality, that often have the most significant impact on...
Project Peacock Launches a New Printspirational Platform for Print Customers and Printers Around the World
The Printerverse – April 13, 2021 – Print Media Centr announces that its print customer education initiative, Project Peacock, is now a free platform accessible 24/7 and available to print and marketing professionals around the world. The new Project Peacock Platform,...
3 Ways to Keep Your Current Customers from Your Competitors
As your Intergalactic Ambassador to The Printerverse my vantage point is unique. I am a connection point and information hub for more than 200,000 global industry members across all my communication channels. I am also on the receiving end of a myriad of daily...
Subscription Boxes – It’s More Than Just a Box…
In the past year, subscription boxes have become a leading trend in the online shopping industry. The largest eCommerce companies carved out a $10 billion market in 2019, according to McKinsey. Subscription services were already gaining popularity, however, growth...
How To Remain Relevant By Embracing Change
I wasn't going to do it. I wasn't going to write about lessons learned a year into our shared COVID-19 experience. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the pandemic is a continuation of the constant change we experience. Technology increases the...
Authority Matters in How You Market Your Printing Company
To stand out online and in your customers’ minds, authority matters. Whether you have the biggest company on the planet or you run the shop down the street, you need “cred” to attract attention. There are two types of attention you want to cultivate. The first form...
Equality, Technology, and HERstory
Happy Women’s Print HERstory Month to one and all! Of course, this print-centered initiative occurs alongside Women’s History Month, marked throughout March each year to celebrate women’s accomplishments and highlight women’s issues. Unfortunately, here in the UK...
The Shocking Power of Surprise
Can you think of a time when you were so surprised that you literally fell off your chair, or spit out your coffee, or (insert terrible cliché about being shocked here)? Well, it turns out that being surprised can often leave a big impression. In fact, those moments...
Print Samples: 19 Crimes Taught Us AR with Story
When you have really great Australian wine to bring to market you face some challenges. Australian vineyards produce a pantheon of fabulous wines. To get noticed in the market you need a great story, and that is where the combination of great wine, an Augmented...
Using Content Marketing to Drive Print Buyers to Your Business
Google "what is content marketing" and you’ll get bewildered by a dozen definitions. Some say that content marketing is really anything you publish on your website, blog, or social media. Nope: too broad. Here's my definition: Good content marketing is what your...
The Rewards of Collecting Community ‘Vig’
If you have watched as many movies and TV series as I have since March of last year, ‘vig’ may be a term you are familiar with. Vig ... is slang for vigorish. Vig is the juice, the squeeze, the charge that a businessperson gets for helping broker a transaction or...
Lessons Learned from a Chic-fil-A Integrated Marketing Campaign
Chick-fil-A Direct Mail Case Study – 10 Years Later I was just talking to a client this morning about using direct mail to drive consumers to retail stores and a Chick-fil-A integrated marketing campaign that I read about several years back came to mind. A quick web...
How a Packaging Nerd Sees Increases in eCommerce During the Pandemic
As a packaging engineering geek, I constantly look at the packaging that ships to my home. Ecommerce shipments experienced an explosion increasing 75%-80% in the first half of 2020 versus 2019. For those who decide to forgo the in-store experience, skip BOPIS (buying...
Say YES to Customer Lists from Colleagues Who Are Closing Their Doors
When the magazine I ran for 22 years closed its doors, the owners offered me all the business data and customer lists for free. They were not going to do anything with it, and everything would be purged by the end of the tax year. So I said yes. Saying yes not only...
Remote Control: Cybersecurity and Working From Home
We’re all getting used to the ways in which COVID has changed our working lives. Dealing with restless children, tolerating loud roommates, Zoom fatigue, spouse fatigue, eating the same lunch again fatigue – the list goes on. These challenges are painfully present,...
The Sales Overwhelm and How Ted Lasso Helped Me Solve It
If you are tired of hearing me take some liberal leaps and tie TV shows, Broadway musicals, and movies into lessons about sales and printing, perhaps you had better give this blog post a pass. Because I am about to regale you with my obsession with TED LASSO. I...
Print Samples: Menus Make a Difference!
One of the early segments of PrintSampleTV featured an important marriage of content and paper embodied in a restaurant menus. Full disclosure! Our family owns three restaurants and because we are also in the print industry, we wanted to balance our needs with what...
Women’s Print HERstory Month Returns in March to Celebrate the Fierce, Fabulous Females Who Power the Industry
‘Women’s Print HERstory Month’ coincides with Women’s History Month to align the telling of stories that empower and inspire the fierce fabulous females of print, as well as young women and students entering the industry or considering print as a career. Launched in...
2021 CMYK MANIFESTO: REFLECT, RELEASE, RECOVER and REBOUND
Greetings Citizens of the Printerverse and welcome to a New Year! It is a new year, right? The calendar has changed but, in many ways, it feels like 2020 is still lingering. This annual post has traditionally focused on what is in front of us, but honestly, there is...
Packaging and Printing: It’s More Than What Meets the Eye
Packaging and printing: it’s more than what meets the eye. In today’s world, packaging is everywhere and used for almost everything -- be it the cereal box in the local grocery store or the packaging used to contain your dreaded COVID test kit. With that said,...
My 2021 Resolution: To Help More Printers Get More Customers!
My name is David Murphy and I love to help printers bring value to new customers. In fact, it’s been my passion for over three decades (and I’m still young!) When I was in high school in the ‘80s, my friends worked in restaurants and mall stores. Those jobs were...
Offer Direct Mail Retargeting to Your Clients
Most visitors to come, view one or a few pages, and go away. These website visitors are anonymous - their identities are unknown. For a business-to-business website, it is common for <1% of website visitors to fill out a form and reach out. 3% would be considered a...
Print Samples! Let’s Get Started!
Over the decades I’ve developed a love affair with print samples. It started back in high school when I worked in a print shop that had been in business since the 1700s. We ran a web press in house, though the newspapers were done over at Princeton Packet. Promotional...
It Takes Two: Digital Twins in Print and Beyond
Happy New Year, Printerverse! Certainly here in the UK we still find ourselves at home, living our lives through screens. I’m sure all of us have friends, family, and colleagues that we haven’t seen from below the shoulders for the best part of a year, if not longer....
Hybrid Marketing Teams Are Here and They’re Hot
Marketing departments in printing businesses are being disrupted. Today's employees have been adjusting and adapting on the fly. Many have been deployed elsewhere during the pandemic. Most marketing people I talk to are carrying multiple roles within the company....
Jumping on the 2021 “Word” of the Year Bandwagon
What’s your “word”? You can’t spend five minutes on social media in January without having ten of your friends, especially those in direct sales, ask you what your WORD of 2021 is going to be. My WORD? Yes, your word. Your word of focus. The word that will make all...
2020: The Pandemic, the Pivots and the Perseverance of Print
I am counting the days to 2021 as if it were my release date from prison. I’m keeping my head down, not rocking any boats, just trying to make it through the next few weeks without being sent to the hole or getting shivved. This year has truly been unprecedented and...
How to Automate Direct Mail For Your Customers
Last year I wrote about how print technologies are integrating with other digital marketing technology tools. While these technologies are becoming more mature and easier to implement, they still are not commonly used. There are two primary ways that digital marketing...
Getting Creative with a $20 Marketing Budget
Doing a small project -- even one with a ridiculously cheap budget -- can be a way to show customers that creative marketing gets direct, measurable results. Having some fun in the process makes you endearing and spotlights you as a preferred vendor. Helping customers...
Setting Communication Goals for 2021 and Beyond
The year that seemed it would never end, and that most people said was the worst they have ever experienced, is ending. Let’s take a moment to sit with that. Let it wash over you. It’s almost over. And now, it is time to start making plans for 2021 and beyond. Don’t...
Comms 2021: Employee Ambassadors and Data-Driven Culture
What comes to mind when I say ‘influencer’? It might be impossibly perfect people in designer gear on Instagram, gamers racking up millions of views on YouTube, business thought leaders who represent brands and organisations at corporate events – the list goes on,...
Three Ideas for Prospecting Print Sales in 2021
Imagine having to drive 45 minutes for a haircut, or to get clothing altered. Imagine no malls or shopping centers to stroll through on a rainy Sunday. Imagine no family-owned restaurants to bring out of town guests, no local bars to watch the big game, no local small...