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 International Women’s Day and the flood of messaging on March 8th showing support for women was […]
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 look at digital marketing and come up with […]
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 about a client who does specialty screen printing and […]
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, 2022. All the maintaining status quo […]
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 earnest, fast-talking “hustle bros.” These dudes talk about how their program made them millions […]
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. The reputation and stock prices of brands caught up in the […]
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 everywhere.” Well, they’re not actually everywhere. But they […]
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 the way out and you probably […]
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 website and the phone, and hunting sales reps. So […]
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 Print Media Centr are scheduled for October. • The 10th annual […]
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 exchange and administrative collaboration: emails, calls, job status, pricing, billing, and so on. 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 struggling to speak to their customers. Too many complicated […]
