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 just not for me. So in my senior year, I got a commission sales job with an advertising specialties distributor selling custom printed promotional products.
Getting started, I had the idea of selling to quick print shops that could resell these products to their customers. I was offering an agency arrangement, ideal for printers who weren’t ASI distributors. One of my first sales was 500 logo-printed key chains to a printer who resold them to a car dealer. My commission was $50. I was delighted and so was my new customer! We both profited and his customer got the benefit of some cool promotional giveaways. I was still a kid, but I now had this amazing new experience of helping a printing business owner who was trying to differentiate and add value in a competitive market.
Over most of the next few decades, I furthered my marketing education and experience through various customer-facing leadership roles. I held global and multinational marketing positions at print hardware manufacturers like RISO and HP. Through these experiences, I have been privileged to be able to bring value to thousands of print service providers around the world in some way. As a double benefit, I have life-long friendships with print industry pros on every continent.
So when COVID-19 gave me the opportunity to start a business on May 1, 2020, I was called once again to serve the print community. Through my new marketing company, Nvent Marketing, we have placed a significant focus on helping to bring customers to printers, mostly through the internet.
Since the first shutdown of the pandemic, internet volume has increased by over 30 percent. The average person spends 8 hours 43 minutes per day on the web. Workers who are commuting less and attending fewer in-person office meetings are working from home and they’re online. People are searching and browsing for business solutions, ideas, vendors, partners, information, and inspiration. They’re on Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn longer and more frequently than ever before. They’re reading blogs, watching videos, and visiting new interesting websites.
Here’s the tough part: Generally speaking, most printing businesses do not do a great job at marketing themselves online. And most of them admit that buzzwords like SEO, PPC, and content marketing are not among their core competencies. But they are in mine. And because I know and love the printing industry as much as I know and love marketing, my company focuses on helping printers market themselves better. We help printers find new customers online and, more importantly, to get found online by new print buyers who are looking for solutions to their issues.
Nvent Marketing is unlike other marketing agencies. We have a unique approach to digital marketing strategy and we have a deep understanding of and a focus on the printing industry.
So in 2021, I’m making some changes. Sure, I’ll try to exercise more and eat healthier, but I absolutely resolve to help more printers get more customers. Over the next several months, I will be sharing some ideas and insights with you in this great forum. My hope is to provide you with some new knowledge, inspiration, and instruction to either start or accelerate your journey to ROI-driven digital marketing success.
David Murphy is the founder and CEO of Nvent Marketing, a marketing agency specializing in digital marketing for the print industry. David has 30+ years’ experience in the graphics and document print production industry. He has served as a board member and advisor to print organizations and associations including Print Industries of America, Association for Print Technologies, and Electronic Document Scholarship Foundation. David was also awarded the Idealliance Soderstrom Society Award for Print Industry Leadership. David can be reached at dm@nventmarketing.com.
