Who cares about marketing?
The idea of spending money on advertising or a brochure was dismissed as a waste
I had a very interesting and fascinating discussion with a man (call him Frank to protect the innocent) who has just left a printing company after working there for the last year. The two parties agreed to disagree. The dispute was over how, or if, the printing company should market itself.
First of all, I should give you a little background on Frank. He was originally trained as a graphic designer; went to design school, the works. He ended up in an ad agency, where he climbed the ranks and became a copywriter, then an account manager, then a creative director (the person who figures out the master plan for a client). He had a number of other positions including being a partner in a small ad firm. After having done almost everything in the agency world, Frank decided to look for work in a different field, although one where he would still be able to use his talents.
The opportunity came up for him to work in sales and marketing for a mid-size printing company. It looked like a great opportunity in an industry with plenty of competition, even though most printing companies look the same. It seemed like an excellent chance to make his new employers stand out from the pack.
Well, it didn’t work out so well. First of all, the company didn’t like the idea of being pigeon-holed or becoming too well known for certain types of printing. Its managers thought they might lose out on work if the customers thought the print shop specialized only in certain areas. The company liked the saying, “No job is too big or too small, we do them all.”
So, the idea of spending any money on advertising, or even a company brochure, was dismissed as a waste. The solution was more sales reps, not advertising. The managers really felt that if they were going to spend money, it should be on more equipment. If you just have more equipment then you will have more customers. Build it or buy it and they will come.
Needless to say, Frank and his employers
were not even on the same page. He asked me , “Why are printers so afraid of being different? Why are they so negative about marketing themselves to customers?”
Unfortunately, I didn't have any really good answers. Our preference for equipment over marketing is perhaps due to the fact that some owners came up through the production side. Fear of being too well known for something may come from sales reps who have become owners and wanted to sell everything to everybody when they were in sales.
All I could point out to Frank was the most profitable companies in this industry are the ones who are known for something. Names such as Davis + Henderson (cheques), Friesens (books), Hemlock (real high-end printing) and even The Printing House (quick printing) come to mind. Then he asked me how many printing companies there are in the industry. About 9,000, I said. How many are known for something or are specialists. Gulp! Not many really, I said. His comment was, “If printers do not want to, or cannot differentiate themselves from their competitors, then the only thing left to compete on is price.”
Funny, complaints about brutal price competition in the printing industry seem to have gotten louder in the last several years. Frank may just be on to something.
Alexander Donald is the publisher of Graphic Monthly Canada.