Cannibalize Print to Grow Bigger

Would you consider recommending to your customers that they should print less and take more things digital? It sounds counterintuitive. Yet if we are honest with ourselves, we know that many of our customers have been doing this very thing and we have watched our business erode.

Savvy marketers in the consumer products world use this strategy all the time. They will introduce new products with full expectation that they will erode current brands. I learned this many years ago while working as a product manager for Ralston Purina. While training, I was assigned to the consumer products division that marketed brands like Dog Chow, Cat Chow, Meow Mix, Chuck Wagon and a growing list of brands. Meow Mix was nothing more than three flavors of Cat Chow mixed together. God forbid that little fluffy would have to eat the same flavor day after day. It was a huge success, but it did erode the sales of Cat Chow. Combined, the brands enjoyed dramatic growth, as did multiple other new brand introductions that eroded older more mature brands.

Why should we cannibalize our print volume?
The short answer is to grow. Rather than fight this trend and preach to people about the value of print, why not join the party and help them transition to digital. We have to learn how to generate revenue from this effort by selling other services. Transitioning files to digital format and making them Web and mobile media friendly is an obvious opportunity. We should embrace all things Web related.

And, we can and should charge for that. Agencies are making lots of money by doing this very thing, telling their customers to print less and do more with digital media. There are a lot of poor Websites out there with very little functionality or marketing strategy applied to them. They need to be updated and made mobile friendly. Many companies need help setting up ecommerce capabilities. This is only one example of new services we need to offer as we see print being cannibalized every day.