Business Management - Marketing/Sales

I’ve been writing columns for Printing Impressions magazine since November of 1984. I have staged contests in the column for everything from selling new accounts to weight loss. But now, I’m announcing the National Scavenger Hunt for Graphic Arts Company Growth.

For many years, we’ve heard of the need to change the sales approach, as well as the need to broaden the products and services offered to clients. With that cry has come much resistance and frustration in really understanding what to change to, what should the new model look like and how will it be profitable.

A few weeks ago when I first wrote about Yelp, my suggestion was that you need to monitor such potentially damaging public Websites. Now, I want to take that advice a step higher and tell you to actively pursue feedback.

We may think customers and prospects prefer we sit tight and wait rather than following up, but customers appreciate follow-up for a number of reasons. Following up on quotes starts with a solid customer relationship management (CRM) system.

Leslie Figenschou of DST Output talks about combining communications channels (including print) to reach a larger audience. She says read rates for email are around 13% but for direct mail it's over 70% and transactional mail is around 85%, which yields far greater response rates. Kevin Whitlock from Ogilvy talks about the power and permanence of print and print's credibility, personalization and photo book applications. From the Creativity and Technology Conference Roundtable, hosted by Advertising Age, sponsored by Kodak. London, England - November 11, 2010.

At a time when there’s so much to read, listen to, click through and watch, we need to try to find a way to break out of all of the clutter. Great design does that and work by a certain firm at www.edmundsonmartin.com is living up to those standards.

If your business makes packaging an afterthought, you will lose goodwill. The surge of online retail doesn’t mean the demise of distinctive packaging—quite the contrary! How the purchaser feels upon initial receipt of the package determines his or her initial product impression and can impact repeat purchases.

Emma, my 17-year-old daughter, and I escaped the New England cold for a couple of days of roller coaster riding at Universal Studios. I will remember a lot from this weekend...And Eddie. I will remember Eddie.

The higher your profile, the more prospects you reach. It’s that simple. Today, that means you need to be active in social media if you want to be a high-profile printing company. Get in there and start connecting!

What if you decided to challenge a prospect or customer? What if you asked them some provocative questions about the way they are doing things in order to get them to think a little differently and look at things another way?