First and foremost, look at your website. Make sure your design is eye catching and easy to maneuver. Make sure that you have attractive pictures or illustrations that get your customers attention. Customers don’t care about your new press or copier, so don’t clutter your homepage with your proud new pictures. People like to see people. Especially people like you. If you can, stay away from stock photography and hire a professional photographer to take pictures of you and your staff. Tell your customers how you can solve their problems, don’t sell them on the fact that you do great stationery. Sell them on the fact that you can solve what ever problem or need they have.

A second marketing strategy is to promote you service. Get yourself noticed. Send out flyers, business cards, post cards, etc. Hey, you sell direct mail, why not use it to promote yourself. Get yourself noticed on the web as well. Become entrenched in various social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Delicious, etc. The more access/touch points you have for your customers and prospects, the better off you will be.

Number three, get set up with a good email marketing program. Web applications like Constant Contact are a great way to send marketing materials as well as track your success. Constant Contact also offers autoresponders.  This automated form of a marketing keeps your customers and prospects informed about your services automatically. You literally write the messages and autoresponders send them out on set schedules. Once you set it up the first time, the program does all the work for you. Using an autoresponder to send out advertisements of your product is fast and convenient. Everything is done by email.

Try developing a catchy slogan for your comapny. Think about it, how many slogans can you name, and how many products to you remember because of that slogan. This is a great marketing strategy because it is a way for people to easily remember your business. If they remember or recognize you, they are likely to use you.

Another powerful marketing strategy is the use of SEO (search engine optimization) tactics. I will admit that there is a lot of speculation and false information buzzing around about what is effect SEO. Many place will sell you there SEO services for a couple thousand dollars. I stay away from those people. Buy a book like SEO for Dummies or subscribe to a training service like Lynda.com and do what you can on your own. Effect SEO takes a little work, but most printers are capable of doing the legwork themselves. Using SEO correctly will attract more people to your site. More people on your site means more exposure. More exposure means more leads. More leads can turn into more sales. Get the picture?

Finally, the last marketing strategy is to have great public relations. With good public relations, your business will prosper through word of mouth. Allow customers to submit feedback of your business. Place positive feedback and testimonials on your website. It makes your business look good and customers tend to prefer to use businesses that have positive feedback.

A killer marketing strategy will cost you some time and money, so don’t be fooled by thinking you can do it for next to nothing.  But if you look in the right places and follow some good advice, your marketing strategy should leave you coming out on top.

Joe Kern  is Vice President of  Marketing/Customer Service at PagePath Technologies. PagePath was founded in 1983 and is headquartered in Plano, Illinois. PagePath’s MyOrderDesk is an eCommerce solution that combines, Web-to-Print, automated proofing, pricing, reordering and more. It seamlessly integrates into a printing organization’s existing website or can be used as a standalone site. MyOrderDesk is known throughout the printing industry as the leader in Web-to-Print software.

Class registration, $49 per class, will give participants access to the live webinar classes as well as the recorded video of the session and any slide deck or class materials. To register for a class, click the links below. If you have any questions on the classes themselves, feel free to contact Joe Kern at 866-770-7569 or by email at jkern@pagepath.com

Facebook Marketing 101 for Printers

Next session, Janaury 15, 2010 at 1:00pm Central

Twitter Marketing 101 for Printers

Next session, Janaury 22, 2010 at 1:00pm Central

Blog Marketing 101 for Printers

Next session, Janaury 29, 2010 at 1:00pm Central

Today’s post is a guest post by Margie Dana. Margie is well known throughout the printing and buying community as an independent marketing specialist who focuses on improving the printer-buyer relationship. She was a corporate print buyer for 15 years. In 1997, Margie founded her first business (www.printconsulting.com) to shine a light on the printing industry. She’s an accomplished copywriter, marketing specialist, and popular public speaker. You can reach Margie at (617) 730-5951 or send an email to mdana@BostonPrintBuyers.com.

1. You’re in the Communications Business.

Whether or not Twitter is a flash in the pan or here for the long haul, it’s currently gaining popularity among adults. (According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 1 in 5 Americans use Twitter or another social service.) It’s a very popular way to communicate digitally. Try it if only to know what it’s like. Take part in the digital dialogue or risk being left behind.

2. You Can Build Relationships for Business.

Find & follow other print buyers as well as designers, paper pros, printers, mail specialists, direct marketers, and on and on. These relationships can and do yield value. You’ll get questions answered, discover new resources, and learn about events, books, articles, and news items that are meaningful to you.

3. You Can Keep Up with Industry Changes.

Breaking news in and around print and the graphic arts, as well as the ‘bigger picture’ of Media, is reported on Twitter. If you follow the right people as well as the right media outlets, you will regularly be in the know.

4. You Can Add Value for Your Employer.

The role of the professional print buyer is changing radically. Now is the time to actively add value as you evolve to reflect current business trends. Being on Twitter will open your eyes to new ways of doing business, new ideas to bring to your firm. If you’ve chosen your followers wisely, they will all have something to offer you. And if you’re looking for employment, you might get some solid leads. If nothing else, people in the field will get to know you.

5. It’s Free, and It’s Easy.

There’s really no excuse for you not to give Twitter a shot. Participate as much or as little as you want. I visit it a few times each day to see if there’s news or posts or events or fresh ideas that intrigue me.

I find that being on Twitter gets me outside of my own head. Tweets by folks I follow expand my world cumulatively – 140 characters at a time. I learn about all kinds of creative ways to be a professional communicator as well as a professional in communications. If this old dog keeps learning new tricks, you can, too.

Imagine this: Your best friend comes to you one morning and tells you she’s had it with her telephone. She’s throwing it away because it doesn’t help her with traditional handwritten communication.

Crazy talk, right? Your friend doesn’t need a different tool for traditional communication, she needs a new approach to communication.

Traditional B2B marketers who resist social media aren’t much different. They resist social media because it doesn’t work when they use it as another outbound marketing channel.

Instead of rejecting social media as a channel, traditional marketers need to reject their outbound approach to marketing.

Traditional marketing — outbound marketing — is about buying attention. You figure out where your target customers hangout, then you buy access to them. You fill the pages of trade publications they read with print ads. You interrupt them with unsolicited phone calls at their office. You send out mailings that they throw away.

These tactics are incompatible with social media. If your Twitter account is simply a product information broadcast, you won’t have many followers. If you don’t share any helpful, interesting or fun content on your Facebook account, your pages will get little traffic.

On the other hand, if you reject this approach to marketing, and use social media as part of an inbound marketing strategy, it will become a core part of your marketing mix. If you engage with your industry’s community on Twitter, if you share top-notch content on Facebook, and build relationships on LinkedIn, social media will work for you.

“Wait!” you say. “We’re a B2B operation! We don’t have social-savvy customers like B2C companies.”

Lame excuse.

No question, social media grew out of the consumer space, and B2C examples of social media success are easy to find. But take a step back. Look at the value that businesses get out of social media. You’ll see it’s not specific to B2B or B2C companies. Consider the three main benefits marketers get from social media:

1. Listening — Every company needs to listen. Doesn’t matter if you sell solder paste, CRM software or fencing supplies. You need to listen to your competitors, your customers, your prospects — your community. Social media sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook make this easier.
2. Reach — Reach is important to any marketer. It’s the number of people you can communicate with directly via email, telephone, or any other channel. You need this whether you’re selling to consumers or businesses. Social media tools media it easier to build.
3. Nurturing — Nurturing is another critical marketing task for all companies. Regardless of what you sell, you need to build trust with potential customers and educate them about your company and your products. Social media facilitates the development of personal relationships at scale. This makes it an ideal tool for nurturing in any business.

How do you use social media at your company? Have you found it useful in a B2B context?

I think they have some valid questions. I would be interested to know your opinion on this. What do you think?

Some software lets you automatically search for Twitter posts and tweets that mention your company. Others let you organize the tweets you follow.

Twitter says it will soon offer new features for commercial users, such as a directory of business users.

For many small companies, keeping track of who’s tweeting about them is a chore. You can search for your company name or other keyword, but to get an accurate picture of what is being said, you have to do it regularly. If you don’t, the tweets pile up and you could miss important information.

If a negative comment is made about your business, it could be something you can address or fix. Or it could be a misconception you could correct.

TweetBeep from Inblosam LLC will send you an hourly email alert listing tweets about your company. It will also maintain a log of who’s tweeting you.

One of the most popular activities is passing along links to articles. People often add their own comments. A new service from bit.ly counts the clicks on those links.

I read this post today by Jason Baer on the Marketing Profs blog. This is such timely information, and I wanted to share it with you. Here is his post:

The toll-free number.

The email to tech support.

The Tweet?

Is Twitter the natural evolution of customer service? The immediacy and transparency of tweeted support is all the rage, with defined case studies (@ComcastCares, @JetBlue) and emerging software to enable and track it.

The software support is the more recent and intriguing development. CRM behemoth (more than 50,000 corporate customers) and SaaS superstar Salesforce.com released an add-on that automatically scans the Twitter-sphere (using some flavor of Twitter search). If tweets matching pre-defined keywords are located and for example, a support ticket is automatically opened in Salesforce and is routed for attention similar to a phone or email inquiry.

Co-Tweet (currently in beta) enables corporations to have multiple tweeters involved, but keeps tweets synced and organized across the enterprise. Early testers include Ford, Pepsi, JetBlue, and Alaska Airlines. Advisors include members of the Twitter royal family @pistachio and @guykawasaki

It’s clear that provision of customer service via Twitter is going to expand, at least in the short term. This scenario has clear (at least to me) pros and cons.

Consumer Benefits

1. SpeedCustomer service on Twitter is defined by rapid response. Thousands of companies are actively eavesdropping on social media conversations, enabled by Radian6, Techrigy, Spiral16 and other software. Those that are choosing to engage the consumer are typically doing so by addressing concerns in real-time. No “an agent will respond to your request within 2 business days.”
2. FrictionlessIn an effort to reduce costs, most medium and large companies have made getting help about as easy as booking a Michael Jackson concert tour in the Bible belt. Automated menus. Lengthy hold times. Outsourced staff. You’d think companies would WANT to know when their products have an issue, but that’s not the message they’re sending.

   It’s different on Twitter. It’s hassle-free complaining. You bitch about something, and if the company is engaged, they tweet you back and try to help. It’s like being able to press “0″ for an operator without needing a phone.

Company Benefits

1. CostI haven’t seen any reporting on this yet, but I believe Twitter-based customer service is incredibly cost-effective on a per resolved issue basis. Why? Consumers have to get right to the point. No four minute preamble detailing that they were “with their Aunt Gert when they brought the product (may she rest in peace)”, and that the “weather was frightful that day. A real Nor’Easter.” Just 140 characters of complaint. In an era when call center efficiency is measured by the second, this is a meaningful advantage.
2. TranslucencyThe notion of “transparency” is a big one in social media circles, but I prefer Beth Harte’s more realistic use of “translucency” since companies will not and cannot be truly transparent. (Trust me, my first job was at McDonald’s and you don’t want full transparency re: the nature of Big Mac sauce).

As Tony Tsiah emphasized at his SXSW keynote, and I referenced in my post about Please and Thank You, there are two advantages to being publicly helpful. First, other people see you being helpful, and that improves overall brand perception. Second (and this is really big in a Twitter context), other people see your answers, so they don’t have to ask the same question.

Customer Drawbacks

1. The Great UnknownJust about everyone knows Comcast is on Twitter. But is Sony (I’m actually having a TV problem right now)? Is Trek bicycles? Is the company that made the cork flooring in my laundry room that’s looking a little sketchy? Is Diet Dr. Pepper?

   As a consumer, I know every brand has a phone number, a Web site, and an email address. Twitter engagement is still VERY circumstantial. I have to guess whether the brand I need to communicate with is involved. That’s inefficient, and a hassle.

2. Shouting from the RooftopsCertain customer service issues (mainly those where the brand is clearly at fault) are ripe for Twitter enablement. But sometimes, the consumer shares the blame, and needs help for a problem that might be better handled in a quiet, 1:1 fashion. I’m thinking of the “I didn’t read the directions, and now my hair turned green” scenario. Do you want to tweet that to all of your followers?

Company Drawbacks

1. Lack of Account History One of the most useful components of modern CRM systems is their ability to pull up complete account history during the call, email, or live chat. The agent knows what you’ve bought, when you’ve called before, whether or not you’re a kook, etc. On Twitter, the customer service representative has very little information (possibly not even your real name). That makes service provision tricky.

What do you think? Should all companies get involved with customer service on Twitter? Only certain industries? None?

Today’s post is a guest post from Laura Beulke. Laura is the owner Vertical Printing & Graphics. VP & G specializes in short-run printing and mailing orders. Laura has used Twitter successfully and wants to share her story with other printers. You can contact Laura for more information at Laura@VerticalPrinting.com or follow her on Twitter at @VPG_Printing

I started using twitter in January 2008 and really didn’t know what it was all about. I followed a link from another social media website and started my account. I looked around a little and found a few people I was interested in and that was about it. I would visit Twitter initially once per week and look what others were posting and then I posted a few things too. Then it hit me around June 2008 this would be a great resource for gaining new clients from all over the country. So my addition became an addiction!!!

At that point I started doing some serious following and was also posting several micro blogs per day. It started off with a little bit of advise here and there, and I would offer some special rates.  I had an idea to give away post FREEBIE’s, where I would give away a little bit of printing or a product. That is when Twitter SNOWBALLED for me. People started to retweet my specials and FREEBIE’s that I offered and before you knew it I had hundreds of new new followers.

I have also done sponsorships for various blogs through connections on twitter. This has brought a fair amount  of attention to both my website as well as my twitter account. In less the 6 months I have gained over 3000 followers and I have built relationships many of them. They have given me some GREAT referrals as well. I am not only a twitter addict now, but I am also a twitter queen (at least I think so).

I make Twitter a part of my daily routine. I post a different special each day, as well as  positive tip about marketing. This is where I have gained a great amount of success. I get new followers everyday and also find that several of my followers take the time to RT (retweet) my specials (some do it everyday.) This is the reason I have been successful at developing new business from this thing we call Twitter.  Follow this up with great products, person to person customer service and building long lasting relationships is and you too can be successful.

Thanks to Twitter I have added clients in 10 additional states, making it 37 states now that Vertical Printing & Graphics, a little boutique printing & graphics company in Encinitas, CA can say they service.

Join us for a Webinar on March 20, 2009

Step up your marketing tactics by using the Internet to direct traffic to your business and website.

Learn how to harness the power of the social mediasphere – blogging, digg, del.icio.us, Twitter, and many others – to get found by more potential customers, develop meaningful relationships with others in your industry, and position yourself as an expert in your field.

This Webinar is intended for print professionals and business owners who wish to learn about leveraging social media marketing for their business. The Webinar will cover:

• Why use social media channels for marketing
• What are inbound links and how do the affect my search engine rankings
• How to engage and market in social media sites, including digg, blogging, Twitter, and many others.

Title: Social Media Marketing for Printers
Date: Friday, March 20, 2009
Time: 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM CST

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista
Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/393029742

If you have any questions about PagePath Technologies, or the Webinar, please contact Joe Kern at JKern@PagePath.com.

Step up your marketing tactics by using the Internet to direct traffic to your business and website.

See PagePath Technologies website for more information.