| The new business
opportunity
It will not be sufficient for a printer
to just add to his sales portfolio the fact that he is now able
to undertake variable data printing and wait for customers to
turn up. There isn’t a queue of potential customers waiting
to adopt variable data and the reason is that most are unaware
of the potential of what they can achieve. It is the entrepreneurial
printer’s job to wake them up to new ideas.
The concept of one to one marketing needs to
be marketed itself. The customer, who will most likely be the
marketing manager of a business, needs to be made aware of the
high potential available to increase business through a new
approach.
Almost all companies bringing any type of product
to the market have a data base of customers. In the digital
age this should be a valuable resource that is kept up to date
and carefully monitored. All too often whilst the data base
exists, it is frequently well out of date and knocking it into
shape is the type of job no one in the marketing department
of a company really wants to do.
Surveys undertaken by the industry analysts
show that data base management being undertaken by third party
external companies is set to double in the next two years. This
is a revenue stream that some printers have already moved in
to take advantage of by offering a service to their clients,
and if the printer has a variable data future it becomes an
important facility to offer.
Data base mining for specific campaigns is
a natural follow on from data base management. Accurate profiling
and targeting of segmented groups has been shown by market analysts
to increase the response to a mailing by up to 15 times compared
to the conventional ‘scattergun’ approach. This
is highly attractive to the average marketing manager. It is
far better to have several precisely targeted campaigns using
shorter runs than having one long run printing with a non-specific
target.
Design versioning to accommodate several different
segmented groups of targets is the next facility required, and
out of this grows the preparation of the pre-press formatting
to ensure that the right versioned and graphic selection goes
to the right person within the intended segment. This is then
ready to feed the prepared data to the front end software on
the press. Printing and fulfilment follow out of this.
It can be seen from the foregoing that several
different operations are in front of the actual print and fulfilment
process. These are all revenue earning streams in their own
right. Database management, data mining, design, data merging,
pre-press preparation are all separate and chargeable operations.
When properly marketed, the advantage to the
printer is that the price to undertake a campaign on behalf
of the client is the price for the campaign in total, not just
the price for printing the job. The client is much more firmly
linked to the printer providing more security for both.
The foregoing represents a very real business
opportunity for the entrepreneur. Most printers have the advantage
of being well versed in computer technology and already have
a sound base on which to launch the new services that are required.
Database management and data mining is not difficult to undertake
but it does need dedicated staff to operate effectively. There
are client confidentiality issues to be addressed as the database
is the resource and property of the client. However, this is
a well trodden road as any company that has been undertaking
direct mailing fulfilment will know.
The biggest change for the would be entrepreneurial
printer is the one of changing the approach to selling that
he uses so that the consultative style of salesmanship is adopted
rather than the conventional well trodden path.
Generally this involves the whole company,
not just the sales staff. A decision by a client to adopt this
way of working has to be one that is taken at senior level,
so the approach to the client must be made at senior level in
addition to the sales force making and maintaining the contact.
When a good prospect is identified, it will
be important to work out a strategy before making any approach.
Time spent assessing how to show the potential client that you
can really benefit his business will pay dividends. Making sure
that management, sales and technical staff are all involved
and working together will strengthen the marketing effort and
increase the chances of success.
Digital printing and particularly the increasing
use of colour is bringing in new challenges and new opportunities.
Print on paper has a strong future for as far as can be seen
into the future, but no business can stand still. Now is a good
moment to assess how you can use the increasing power of computer
processing to the advantage of your business.
Malcolm McReath FIP3 MAE QDR
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