Are you ready when your Dan does this? Here is Print Buyer Dan’s post today to his 30,000 peers who are on a listserv with me. Pretty scary stuff if you only offer print and mailing services. I did not add or subtract one word from this post. Take it for what it is worth.
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May 19, 2011 post:
We’re looking to save about $30,000 annually by drastically cutting back on the number of printed mailings that we do for our 11 chapters. They collectively run 50+ seminars annually, but we believe that we can maintain or increase attendance using electronic communication almost exclusively. One of our chapters voluntarily agreed to suspend print mailings this past year and saw no decrease in attendance.

I’m presenting my proposal to all the chapters in about one month. So, my questions are, has anyone gone down this road before and what were the results and does anyone have a template for this type of proposal?

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
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Darn it Dan! Why can’t you just quietly cut volumes and not educate your peers and push print volumes down faster? Seriously, posts like this are a daily occurrence today. We all better get our heads out of the sand and diversify or aggressively take from competitors.

The writing is on the wall. Print volumes will continue to drop and Dan is not helping with his promotion and suggestions to cut print! Only printers who embrace change will succeed. If you are reading this, you are probably not near retirement and still in the game and want to stay in business.

How is Dan’s printer going to digest a loss of $30,000 in revenue unless it is taking print from its competitors at a faster rate, buying out weaker printers, or diversifying to help this association client with an overall marketing plan to drive attendance as a strategic marketing partner? Pick your strategy and position yourself to ride the wave of change.

I hope this helps those out there wondering why print volumes have dropped so drastically. Volumes will not return to pre-recession revenues. Get motivated to change and act now. Selling more print is not going to get easier.

CPrint® International has invited Survey Advantage, a leading provider of print buyer loyalty and market research services, to share best practice loyalty and lead generation practices. The presentation by Michael Casey, President of Survey Advantage, is part of CPrint’s Sales Summit to be held June 8 to 11, 2011 in Schaumburg, IL.

“The CPrint® Sales Summit is the one time per year where CPrint® Affiliates meet to learn the advanced selling techniques that will propel their business for the next twelve months. Due to CPrint®’s unique relationship with its vendors, technology and training are often released here first, before the rest of the industry ever knows it exists. And, with the velocity of change today, even six months is a tremendous head start.” said Todd Nuckols, President of CPrint® International.

The presentation “Easy ways to generate leads and preserves recurring revenues.” will offer advice on how to leverage Printer’s Plan™, EFI Printsmith™, printLEADER™, and Printer’s Plus™ software to enhance and automate revenue preservation and lead generation strategies.

Michael Casey, President of Survey Advantage adds “Many family run printers benefit from CPrint’s hands on approach during these challenging times. We are happy to be able to educate their affiliates on how to leverage their existing technology to keep the pulse of every customer, know when loyalty is slipping, and generate leads.”

About CPrint® International
CPrint® International offers onsite consulting, mentored board meetings and professional training conferences and courses in print shop production and sales have been successful in helping family-based businesses become profitable and prosper. CPrint® helps our affiliates reach a higher level of competitiveness in their individual markets. Visit www.cprint.org for details.

About Survey Advantage
Survey Advantage is the leading provider of customer research, customer retention, and lead generation programs for the graphic communications industry. CustomerPulse™ and MarketPulse™ were designed in partnership with the industry to improve productivity by helping operations manage their customer relations and overall operational effectiveness. Additional information may be obtained by visiting www.surveyadvantage.com/printers.

Survey Advantage has joined the Member Advantage Program of the National Association for Printing Leadership (NAPL), enabling NAPL members to access special pricing on customer loyalty measurement services designed to preserve revenues, drive referrals, and generate sales leads.

Survey Advantage works with a variety of businesses, associations, franchises, and non-profits in various industries designing and implementing industry-specific customer feedback processes and reporting. It will provide NAPL members a choice of options for improving and leveraging customer loyalty, including its CustomerPulse™ continuous customer feedback process and its MarketPulse™ research for measuring competitiveness, customer awareness, and potential growth areas.

As a special introductory offer, during the month of May all NAPL members may test drive one of its fully managed services at no charge.

“Hundreds of printers turn to Survey Advantage to improve performance and customer care,” says Survey Advantage President Michael Casey. “Our services provide a way for printers to connect with print buyers and leverage relationships for additional sales. It starts with our reliable process, robust reporting, and methodologies that are customized to meet graphic communications industry needs.” To view case studies and learn more about printer programs, visit www.surveyadvantage.com/printers.

Survey Advantage now is offering busy managers the ability to view recorded trainings focused on customer retention, client share expansion, and referral generation, on-demand.  Many times managers and business owners are unable to make the specific days and times of our webinars due to their busy schedule. 

We have released several 7 to 8 minute, recorded trainings to explain how to survey using different printer MIS installations; PrintSmith, Printer’s Plan, Technique, Enterprise Print Management Solutions, Printer’s Plus, and a session on how to survey using all other MIS installations.   To view the on-demand library and select your specific printer MIS, visit www.surveyadvantage.com/printers.

We are planning to release several new trainings in the future focused on our other verticals; marine services, association research, business services, parking facility feedback, manufacturing, education, finance, and healthcare.

At this year’s convention Survey Advantage will highlight two new programs;  CustomerPulse for Printer’s Plan 2010 and CustomerPulse for PrintSmith.  Survey Advantage now works closely with both MIS providers to help franchisee owners survey customers after print jobs are completed.  Survey Advantage has worked closely with franchisee owners of all Allegra Network’s the brands; Signs Now, Allegra Print & Imaging, American Speedy, and Insty Prints, offering  owners customer loyalty, lead generation, revenue retention programs that are affordable for the small business owner.  

Survey Advantage invites all attendees to visit us in booth 525  for a demo.

Phoenix, AZ:  Survey Advantage introduced three new printer programs to several members during an introduction July 27th at the headquarters of Printing Industries of Arizona.  Survey Advantage will offer CustomerPulse, HealthCheck, and MarketCheck to PIAZ members interested in revenue preservation, client share expansion, and lead generation.  CustomerPulse is designed to help printers obtain immediate feedback after jobs are completed while HealthCheck and MarketCheck are designed to help printers during strategic planning and ISO 9000 process improvement efforts.

Last month Allegra Networks, a 400 plus unit franchisor, published an article in their quarterly franchise magazine, Connections, sharing lessons learned from around the network. The article explains how Eileen Rogers and Ted Raymond, owners of the Allegra franchise in Scottsdale, AZ, focused the business on multi-channel marketing, including variable data printing and personalized URLS, while making the shift to a marketing services provider. In addition, Eileen and Ted explain how customer feedback became part of their strategy.
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Jamestown, RI, March 23, 2009 – As part of its commitment to help printers develop profitable, highly responsive, customer-focused organizations, Survey Advantage ( www.surveyadvantage.com), a customer research and loyalty firm, has released a new report for all CustomerPulse™ customers. The report tracks customer loyalty and a referral rating continuously, and benchmarks real-time with other printers.

“It is great that the different printing industry MIS systems are incorporating CustomerPulse™ into their customer management processes. This enables printers to select jobs and contacts to send a survey in just five minutes a week. With low administration time the printer can now get the same customer intelligence the hospitality industry has been collecting for years. Now any size printer can obtain feedback after jobs are shipped helping them gauge loyalty, promote referral programs, and drive improvements.” said Michael Casey, president of Survey Advantage.

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In January 2009, 205 independent quick printers shared their thoughts on the question “Where do you think the top growth opportunities are in 2009?” Digital printing is on the minds of 82% of quick printers. The ability to make short runs quickly, managing staffing levels, and training time are key drivers of this investment. After that quick printers see mailing services (56%) and large format (28%) as the next most important to growing their business. Marketing services, web design, promotion products were all in the low 20′s or teens in the percentage seeing these areas as growth areas.

It is amazing how many quick printer customers still don’t view their printer as a mailing house or someone who can do large format. As an example, in a recent print buyer study we asked the awareness question for these services. We surveyed the customer base of a quick printer asking thier customers about awareness of each product and service. Only 25% of their customers were aware they offered bulk mail and 70% large format. The interesting thing was that many customers stressed their interest in learning more.

You can’t assume that customers will remember you just by mailing a few flyers and mentioning it a few times. Get creative on your messaging. Becoming a marketing service provider starts under your roof. Launch that new service this year and measure awareness as you go. A good goal to shot for is over 90% awareness.

The difference between customers “Likely” to recommend and those “Very Likely” to recommend is much wider than you think. Let’s look at how a conversation could go between a prospective print buyer who is asking one of your customers for help choosing a printer.

As an owner and sales person I would feel just great with my customer’s performance! That performance is a direct result of your performance. The quality work and service you provide makes it easy for them to feel confident in you helping their friend.

As an owner or someone is sales I wouldn’t be too thrilled with my customer’s enthusiasm here. The prospect is probably thinking he may consider ABC Printer, but it definitely isn’t a homerun and he probably should just keep asking other friends.

ABC Printers is not flattered to say the least! Now it can get really ugly from here. No one has customers feeling the way this next person feels. Only kidding, we all make mistakes.

Ugh! This is what brings a business to the brink. We don’t need to many of these characters running around spreading doom and gloom. What was that commercial “Don’t let this happen to you.”

Now let’s get back on the bright side of life.

Keep your employees focused on “WOWing” customers and keep all employees accountable for driving the customers to jump on the chance to refer you. Give them the opportunity to brag about their great decision to work with you. If someone is “Likely” to recommend you, find out what it will take to get to “Very Likely”.

It is amazing how many customers will give you a false sense of security by saying “Likely”. Some customers will say “I never give anyone the best ratings.” I totally disagree with this and any time you probe and dig deeper you will find that they do recommend other suppliers who are “WOWing” them.

Your “Very Likely” customers are most likely to take full advantage of a referral program, drive prospects through your doors so you don’t need to spend big advertising and marketing dollars, and they will help you stay profitable. Creating more “Very Likely” customers will maintain that stability in your business. Rally and promote to your team to focus on the customer no matter where they are in the organization. Everyone is in customer service and their goal should be to delight customers.

Focus on keeping a high percentage of your customers in the “Very Likely” to recommend bucket.