Branding

You offer great quality print, mail and marketing services at a fair price. But is that enough to gain new business? Not if you aren't able to successfully communicate your value to your audience. The prospects perception is your reality. It's your job to form that perception.

Happy New Year! We are almost ten days into the new year. What changes have you instituted to increase sales effectiveness and grow your business?

Happy New Year! A very simple and extremely important message for the start of 2017!

Here are the three best things you can do in December to help grow your print and mail business in 2017:

When we focus on business and sales, it's easy to overlook small issues that seem insignificant. However, these small mistakes may be costing you more sales than you realize.

More than ever before, print providers in this day and age have wisely embraced the need to effectively market their services. Know Me, Trust Me, Like Me -- if you are not effectively achieving all of these, then your company is at a competitive disadvantage.

Even if you dismiss what marketers say about the need to market your print services, it's hard to ignore what printers themselves are saying. This printer's email about unsolicited praise for their marketing program shows the power of strategic advantage.

I've spent the last 21 years providing marketing tools to printers and mailers. In that time, I've been able to witness the common issues that seem to derail even the best-intentioned marketing efforts. Here are a few of the most common reasons why they fail.

Brand differentiation starts with an understanding of the customer journey from the customer's point of view, not the printer's. It's all about the customer experience.

Do you have a LinkedIn strategy? If not, you should. To get the most out of your marketing content you can't stop at mailing, emailing, and posting to your website. Leverage LinkedIn both from a company standpoint and an individual standpoint. Do you use Slideshare to share content on LinkedIn?

In the last 2 weeks, I’ve witnessed and spoken with printers who are reporting fantastic results. Here is a summary of what four of them have done.

We've all done it. Summer slowdown arrives, and we join in. But perhaps when you consider the marketing benefits that summertime offers, you may want to reconsider. At the very least, you may want to maintain a steady marketing course and ease back on some of your other efforts.

At the end of the day, it's all about trust. Most often, people will give the job to the company they feel has the greatest amount of competency and then come up with ways to justify not giving it to someone else. The most effective way to influence your brand is to produce content that reflects your expertise. This means content that is better, more relevant and more sophisticated than any of your competitors. Use this content for both inbound and outbound marketing efforts.

Brand is simply a mental creation to help people understand one company and its services over another. How aware are people of all your services? If you still hear 'I didn't know you could do that', chances are your branding efforts are failing.

Content Marketing has quickly become one of the most vital parts of any online marketing strategy. Businesses are discovering that they can generate significant returns by creating their own blogs, videos, newsletters, white papers and other content.

Pinterest launched Business Pages this week. Like Facebook and LinkedIn, they now are a player in the 'Brand' marketplace. Google plays favorites. Having a Google+ account is good for SEO. As if you didn't have enough on your plate! Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, gave Facebook a public lashing this week for their new algorithms and attempts to push more companies to pay for promoting posts. It's a good read. Google has implemented so many elements to their algorithm that require detailed knowledge of SEO (not just basics).

In an age when competitive advantage is fleeting, brand differentiation should be the ultimate goal for printers, mailers and marketers. What many companies believe are efforts to differentiate are in reality, efforts to replicate. A quick look at your website and marketing collateral may confirm this.

When it comes to getting your message across clearly and succinctly, having a truly unique selling proposition (USP) is critical to your success. Printers absolutely need a USP that lets them stand out from the crowd, differentiate from the competition, and position their company as the go-to resource for the services they offer. Here are some suggestions for articulating your USP:

At a time when competitive advantage can be elusive, brand differentiation should be the primary goal for printers, mailers and marketers. Many companies, however, miss the mark in their attempts:

The most important thing you can do to grow your sales is to differentiate yourself from your competitors. Differentiation isn't just about what you deliver as a product or service. It starts before that and involves positioning your brand as a thought leader and trusted resource. Foster the perception that your company has the most skill and knowledge regarding the products and services you offer. A few quick things that can help you achieve this:

It's a constant refrain in marketing circles: don't stop marketing! Times are tough, but keep your marketing program strong.