 Web-to-Print Part ll: The Evolution of Your Print Shop
By John Kaufman
Segment Marketing Manager
Ricoh Americas Corp.
If shorter runs, quicker turnaround times, and shrinking profit margins are the realities that face you today, then you need to rethink your business strategy. Web-to-print solutions can enhance customer satisfaction by improving turnaround times, reducing errors, and lowering document production costs, allowing you to breathe life back into your margins. This is the second in a three-part series dedicated to the subject of the Web-to-print process.
In the first article of this series, we talked about the evolution of Web-to-print and how it transformed the way printers do business. To read this article, please click here.
SWIM OUT OF THE RED and INTO THE BLUE
As commoditization floods the market, you need to find new ways to deliver value and differentiate yourself from your competition. You need to look at your business and the environment you’re swimming in differently. We at Ricoh understand this, and we are developing programs to deliver more value to you and your customers. It is obvious that as commercial printers, you need to step back and reevaluate the way you do business. You need business and marketing plans that incorporate needs, pains and new processes. You need to develop your own value proposition to create and sustain a perceived difference. If you do this, you will be far ahead of the rest; because many commercial printers are too focused on putting out fires and letting the customer drive their business. To stand out, you must find time to step back and be proactive if you want to swim into the blue waters of increased profits and new opportunities.
NEEDS/PAINS ANALYSIS
Now that we have established what Web-to-print is and why you should incorporate it into your business plan, we will now discuss how to determine what type of services you should offer, and how to sell them. In order to successfully launch your new Web-to-print solution, you need to do a needs/pains analysis of your business and those of your customers. You need to make sure Web-to-print fits both your customers’ and your own business strategies. Your solution must be a mutual fit in order for it to succeed. It may seem logical that if you have a customer who wants to submit jobs over the Internet, then this is reason enough to build a successful Web-to-print solution. It is not. You need to figure out YOUR business strategy in relation to your customers’ and develop a plan of growth for the next five years. Your business strategy should focus on becoming a valued business partner with your existing customers. By building strong relationships, and understanding your customers’ business needs, you will become a trusted advisor. You will be perceived as a company they can rely on and respect, knowing you have their best interests at heart.
CUSTOMER INTERVIEWS, not sales pitches
The first step to building a needs/pains analysis is to interview your customer base and get to know them. Ask the right questions and listen to the customer to uncover their real needs. Ask such questions as:
- What are your business needs?
- What is the main priority for your company?
- What programs do you deliver that seem to work the best or drive the best results?
- Where does your company see itself 5 years from now?
- Where do you look to save money?
- What will make your work easier?
- What are your departments and resources?
- What do you currently outsource?
- What is the end goal for this specific project?
- What results will you be measuring?
Make sure you reach out and talk to their CEO and sales and marketing teams first. By gathering information from these key players, you can develop a complete picture of their unique business situation. Each customer’s business is different, so you will need a flexible solution plan for each customer’s needs. What you want to do is provide a solution that fits their needs and pains; do not try to deliver everything under the sun. You can develop the best storefront in the world, but if it is not simple, easy to use, and does not meet their needs, there will be no perceived value. Remember, you are solution selling; sell to them based on their pains, and as you show value, you can add on other services as their needs expand. All of this will help you build a better business relationship with your customer.
Internal Interviews
The next step is to evaluate the internal customer. Yes, as crazy as it sounds you need to interview and evaluate your own internal customers. You’ll want to interview the controller, CEO, production/prepress manager, customer service, sales and marketing teams--anyone who plays a key role in your business. Where are you today and where do you want to be six months from now? What type of company do you want to be a year from now? Five years from now? The key to success is not only evaluating your customers’ needs, but your own as well. Once you find out what both parties needs and pains are, you can start to develop a system to meet those needs and solve those problems.
| Customer 1: Needs/Pains |
Company Needs/Pains |
| We need brand management to control our corporate image.
It’s costing us too much to warehouse obsolete goods.
We need to reduce our orders and stop ordering too much product.
We need to reduce our overall costs in producing marketing collateral.
Our customers are receiving outdated or incorrect collateral when they order.
We want to track our orders at any time without having to send e-mails or call someone on the phone. |
We need better inventory and order accuracy.
We need to reduce turnaround time on our jobs.
Our sales team is running around the shop trying to find out the status of a job.
Our customers’ shorter run times are costing too much to process and bill.
We need to have better communication with our customers; mistakes with our proofing process and rerunning jobs are costing us money.
We need to develop new ways to be of value to our customers. Web-to-print will help us evolve and grow into more sophisticated VDP applications.
|
| Customer 2: Needs/Pains |
Company Needs/Pains |
| We want to be able to do direct marketing campaigns with all of our franchisee partners.
We want to offer database functionality to our storefront so our customers can create a direct mail piece targeted to a specific region and business matrix.
We want to track and place our orders from any wireless device.
We need to make sure our data is secure.
We want to do cross media campaigns using PURL’s, e-mail, and direct mail.
Our marketing dollars are getting cut. We need a dashboard to measure our campaigns, making sure we are reaching the right customers with the right message.
| We need better inventory and order accuracy.
We need to reduce turnaround time on our jobs.
Our sales team is running around the shop trying to find out the status of a job.
Our customers’ shorter run times are costing too much to process and bill.
We need to have better communication with our customers; mistakes with our proofing process and rerunning jobs are costing us money.
We need to develop new ways to be of value to our customers. Web-to-print will help us evolve and grow into more sophisticated VDP applications
|
There are many software packages out there. Once you understand what your current needs are, what your customers’ needs are, and have built a 3-5 year plan, you are now ready to determine which software package best fits your business needs.
DEVELOP YOUR VALUE PROPOSITION
Without a strong value proposition your company will find itself sinking in the vast sea of commoditization. You need to write down what separates you from the competition. Find the top successful direct and indirect competitors in your market and research their value proposition, then compare it to yours. What are their strengths and weaknesses? How do they match up with your own?
When developing your own unique value proposition, here are some questions to ask yourself and others in your company:
- Why should your customer use your services rather than someone else’s, or even go to the Internet to send their work?
- Why do your current customers keep coming back?
- Do your customers refer your company to others? Why or why not?
- What are the benefits of doing business with you (people, experience)?
- What are you really good at?
- Do your customers have a ROI on the products or programs that you have developed for them?
- Do you have any customer success stories to build on?
- What problems can and do we help our customers solve?
You must deliver to your customers and prospects solid reasons why they should do business with you and not your competition. You must sell them on your value to them, and not on cost. Doing these exercises of developing your unique value proposition, business and marketing plans, will cause your current customers to see a noted improvement in how you do business. This will also help when you pitch to potential new customers; they will feel confident knowing you have a clear vision and direction for your business. You can view these as a road map to your future, always keep them in front of you and you will stay focused.
MEASURE UP
If you are not going to measure results, your customer will not know the value of what you offer. You need to build a ROI model around your storefront. You need to make sure your customer knows how much time and money they are saving. Everything from design, approval, versioning, eliminating costly reruns, to shipping outdated materials across the country, you need to make sure you track and show value to the customer through cost savings. A good example of this is when one agency put together a great multi-touch, multimedia Variable Data Printing (VDP) campaign for their client. This campaign ran for roughly 1-1/2 years with great success. Then a new CEO came on board, and as the new CEO of this company, he wanted to review all cost centers and budgets. When he reviewed the marketing and advertising budget for this specific product, he requested the ROI for it. Even though it was a successful campaign, they had neglected to measure its value. The agency and the marketing department of the client could not directly tie this campaign to the success in sales of the product because they were using multiple methods for the product’s promotion. Due to the perceived high cost of this campaign the CEO decided to resort to a more conventional form of advertising, and cut the campaign. Unless you are measuring, there can be no perceived value.
AND THE ANSWER IS…
After gathering the necessary information you can now present a solution strategy to your customer. Your value proposition messaging should target each customer’s objectives, needs and pains. The strategy must reinforce all the reasons why your customer should view you as their valued business partner. Do not sell based on technology, but sell based on your individual strengths and value. Your value shows how you can save them money over time and that you fully understand the metrics of the Web-to-print process and its impact on their business. This is the consultative approach to selling, and it may be different than what you’ve been used to. If it is, then let me tell you it takes commitment. You must refrain from giving away these services in hopes of the “Big Job.” If you don’t convey the value of Web-to-print, and you give it away, you are once again selling strictly on price and not on value. The customer will not see value in something that was handed to them, even if it saves them money.
SUCCESS IS A JOURNEY
By educating your customers and prospects on the various ways your company fulfills their business needs, presents innovative sustaining solutions, and delivers strong corporate direction, you will earn the distinction of being a trustworthy business partner. All in all, this may seem like a lot of work; but remember, you are not selling a one-time product, you are selling an entire business solution. It will take more upfront work, it may have a longer sales cycle, and you will have to pitch it to multiple people within each organization; but it is a program that will have “stickiness” and will generate a recurring revenue stream for your company.
In the next article we will touch on some key applications and success stories with the Web-to-print environment. So, until the next newsletter, start swimming and quit treading water, focus on your value proposition, digital business and marketing plans.
John Kaufman
Segment Marketing Manager
Ricoh Americas Corp. An expert in production printing environments and solutions, John Kaufman is responsible for Graphic Arts Marketing for Ricoh Americas’ Production Printing Business Group. He brings 20 years of digital product solutions, application development and industry marketing experience to this assignment. John can be reached at john.kaufman@ricoh-usa.com or at 815-210-8815. |
