A Profile in Print
Few industries in the United States have been as challenged by technological change as the printing industry. In the span of less than 30 years, printers have been fundamentally transformed from creative craftsmen into digital communicators. While increasingly sophisticated and expensive presses are still a printer's backbone, high-tech prepress and database services are now the printer's nervous system.
Thousands of printers either sold their businesses or, hoping the technology would go away, buried their heads in the sand and went under. The printing companies still in business today are those that embraced and met the many technological challenges along the way.
Predictably, print sales also have undergone dramatic change during this time. Just ask Ted Robison, sales and marketing manager for MailBlazer™, a line of direct mail products manufactured by Universal Forms, Labels and Systems, Inc. Robison was alumni director at Whittier College in 1971 when he was recruited by Don Bishop, then president of California-based Penn Lithographics, to be a sales representative.
"Don needed someone who could speak the same language as his customers in the education sector," said Robison. "I had been managing Whittier's direct mail campaigns and was editor of its quarterly magazine, so I basically learned about printing while on the job." Since those early days, the learning curve has gotten a lot steeper.
Robison remembers when IBM Selectrics took the business world by storm in the late '70s, rendering "hot type" obsolete. "Almost overnight printers' typesetting operations, as well as independent typesetters, disappeared as designers and marketers produced their own 'galleys' for printing," he recalled. "Art boards, rubber cement and Exacto knives were the tools of the trade then. I have many memories of type curling off of art boards on hot days in the back seat of my car."
Then came Apple's Macintosh computer and the desktop publishing revolution in the mid-'80s. Much to the chagrin of printers, new publishing software such as Adobe PageMaker and QuarkXPress allowed secretaries and bookkeepers to design and produce their own art boards. "It was [a] nightmare," said Robison, "because many of these people were untrained in either the software or design principles. Printers were spending hundreds of unpaid hours helping customers correctly prepare their artwork." To recoup lost margins, many printers brought design and prepress teams in house and started charging for their time.
"As a print sales rep, communication was much more difficult then than it is now," Robison explained. "There were no cell phones, PDAs or PDFs. We had to try to arrange face-to-face meetings with prospects and we had to hand-carry proofs for customer approval, which meant many hours in the car. Consequently, turnaround times were measured in days and weeks, not hours [like] customers expect nowadays."
Because Penn specializes in direct mail, Robison also became a direct mail expert. "In the past, marketing lists were purchased from lots of different sources," he noted. "While some rudimentary segmentation and response measurement was possible, most direct mail programs utilized a shotgun approach. As increasingly sophisticated database and sales management software and digital printing technologies came online, mailings and e-mail[s] became much more targeted and personalized."
Electronic communications, not just printed matter, are now an essential component of marketing campaigns. It's a fact that Robison was well aware of when he joined Universal in 2005 to head up the launch of MailBlazer. "Targeted communications across multiple media touchpoints (mail, e-mail, broadcast, mobile devices, on-premise displays, tradeshows, etc.) is the only way marketers can be assured of getting the right message to the right person," he explained.
Robison applies marketing 'best practices' techniques in his work for MailBlazer. Prior to launching the product line, he employed the services of a marketing firm to conduct an audit of the company's management and customers to ascertain how initial products were perceived in the marketplace. The findings provided the research-based foundation for a new identity, brand strategy and a product line brand architecture that facilitates the naming of new products as they are introduced. A marketing program was then developed, and consisted of advertisements, collateral, direct mailers, publicity and a Web site. Representatives were also given a sales toolkit including talking points and a brand guideline.
"The audit was key to getting it right from the start," said Robison, "and the sales toolkit was critical for connecting the logic of each product and each marketing program together. Everything we send out has the same look and feel and consistent messaging, which is fundamental to successful branding."
MailBlazer products are affixed onto a printed carrier sheet and then laser-personalized. A cost-effective amalgamation of digital and offset technologies, MailBlazer products range from personalized, repositionable notes, laminated cards, labels, stickers and even magnets. "Rising postal costs have put greater pressure on ROI in marketing decision making," Robison emphasized. "It's imperative for all marketers to utilize every tool at our disposal to improve results."
Printing companies and print sales representatives will certainly continue to wrestle with new challenges as globalization encroaches on U.S. production and Web 2.0 phenomena such as YouTube, mobile devices and a plethora of social networking sites come into play. But, according to Robison, the new media represent both a challenge and an opportunity.
"It's our job to help our customers and to understand that print is just one piece of the total marketing puzzle. If we know what customers want to accomplish—whether it's driving traffic to a Web site, increasing in-store foot traffic or eliciting response for an offer via the mail—our knowledge of the entire marketing mix, not just print, can help them meet their goal. And to become knowledgeable, we, too, should be analyzing our own marketing budgets and deploying and measuring programs across multiple media," he asserted.
Practicing what he preaches, Robison e-mails MailBlazer-branded e-newsletters six times a year, mails out printed pieces demonstrating each product's effectiveness, advertises in publications read by customers/prospects, participates in trade organizations and trade shows, and has even made initial forays into the social networking sphere.
"Facebook, blogs and social networking sites can actually help us connect with customers whom we might otherwise never meet," said Robison. "While the technological change over the past 30 years has been dramatic, the basics still apply. We still have to differentiate our products and services, establish trusting relationships with customers and continually earn their loyalty. Despite all the challenges, some things never change." PPR
- People:
- Don Bishop
- Ted Robison