How do I Market Better and Offer Marketing Services?

Written by Howard Fenton
Senior Technology Consultant, NAPL
At Graph Expo last fall and the upcoming Print tradeshow later this year, we have heard and will continue to hear  about the critical trends within our industry. And if this year’s Print show resembles anything like last year’s Graph Expo, you will not be able to walk ten feet in any direction and not hear a presentation on how to market yourself and offer marketing services. Last fall you could barely get out of earshot from interlinkONE before you started hearing a presentation from MindFire, or one of the digital press manufacturers, all discussing the growth and revenue opportunities in marketing better and offering marketing services.
We’ve seen this trend in our research too. We asked in the most recent NAPL State of the Industry Research, “What are you doing to make this year better than last year?”. We found that almost everyone (97%) said they’re planning to improve their marketing and sales and boost their growth and pricing power through initiatives such as diversification of services and acquisitions.
You can read about this in trade magazines and in stories that talk about the evolution from print service provider (PSPs) to marketing services provider (MSPs). But what you won’t hear at the shows or read about in magazines are the companies that are trying, but unsuccessful in marketing their own new services or offering marketing services.
For companies with little experience in marketing, putting the right message in front of the right person at the right time can be difficult, especially when you don’t have the right resources, staff, or a  large marketing budget. There are many good resources to help you learn more about marketing and marketing services. One is the portfolio of services Xerox offers called Profit Accelerator.
Unfortunately in too many of the shops that I visit I see those Marketing binders looking pretty on a shelf but coated with a film of dust. If you’re lucky enough to own one of those marketing resources, you should consider dusting it off and revisiting in. If you’re interested in learning more, we will be offer a webinar on this subject on April 23, 2013 at 11:00 EDT. We will have a panel of marketing experts talking about what you need to know and how you can start improving your own marketing  efforts. You can even submit your questions in advance of the webinar and we will try to include your question in our program. Simply e-mail your question to newstalk@napl.org.
If you’re interested in attending follow this link to sign up.
Interested in learning more about better marketing your business or offering marketing services? You may want to check out:

• You Don’t Have to Become a Marketing Services Provider to Offer Marketing Services
• Tough Questions about the PSP-MSP Evolution
• Leveraging a Self-Promo Direct Marketing Campaign to your Benefit
• Is Your Strength Also a Weakness

– –
Howie Fenton is a consultant and business advisor at NAPL. Howie advises commercial printers and in-plants on benchmarking performance against industry leaders, increasing productivity through workflow management, adding and integrating new digital services, and adding value through customer research.