[INTRODUCTION]
[00:00:02] DC: Print Buying UKvUSA is a series dedicated to helping printers create stronger, more meaningful, and more profitable relationships with print customers on both sides of the pond. I’m Deborah Corn, founder of Project Peacock and principal at Print Media Centr.
[00:00:20] MP: And I’m Matthew Parker, the Champion of Print at profitableprintrelationships.com.
[00:00:26] DC: We may not always agree, but that’s when it gets interesting. So, turn up the volume, get out your notepad, and welcome to the program.
[EPISODE]
[00:00:41] DC: Hey, everybody. Welcome to Podcasts From the Printerverse. I am Deborah Corn, your Intergalactic Ambassador. More specifically, we are here with the UKvUSA Podcast now, and it’s like the eighth season. We’ve been doing this forever. I think I exaggerated a little bit on that, but it’s been several years, Matthew Parker. Welcome back for round five.
[00:01:03] MP: Nice to be back, Deborah. I can’t believe it’s been that long. It goes by in a flash, doesn’t it? I can’t believe we’ve been –
[00:01:07] DC: It does.
[00:01:08] MP: Fighting for all those years.
[00:01:10] DC: Yes. Especially since our origin story is 15 years, you were one of the first people that I met through Nigel Cliff. Right from the first time we started talking, I was like, “Who is that guy? He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
[00:01:25] MP: I remember it well.
[00:01:27] DC: It’s interesting. Just because we came from such different systems of being a print customer that it really did turn into something that has been very valuable for the listeners. So thank you so much for your continued support in co-hosting this podcast. Really appreciate it.
[00:01:47] MP: Well, thank you for continuing to invite me on here and putting up with me.
[00:01:50] DC: Aw. I do put up with you and your Englishness. Okay. Today, Matthew and I want to tackle terms and concepts that need to die in 2025. Matthew, why don’t you start so our listeners can understand where we’re going with all this?
[00:02:14] MP: Fantastic. Okay. This was hard for me because when we prepared, or when I prepared, I found I had approximately 536 and a half phrases that I wanted to ban in 2025. But this is all about words or phrases that were overused, misunderstood, are now outdated, but we’re still talking about them, everything like that. I’ve taken five that I’ve tried to kind of go across the industry and different ideas with them. I’m going to kick off with FSC and PEFC, which for those who don’t know, I’m sure everyone does know, but just in case.
[00:02:51] DC: I actually don’t know what PEFC is. I know what NF.
[00:02:53] MP: Okay. FSC, PEFC. Yes. PEFC is the Finnish equivalent of FSC because the Finnish forests are managed differently and, therefore can’t actually comply with the FSC regulations. This is the whole thing that we’re talking about is the whole idea of this regulation. I think it’s just so updated now. Basically, if you’re an FSC or a PEFC-accredited printer, you’re buying paper with this accredited pulp, and there’s plenty of good pulp from elsewhere. It’s probably a bad pulp, but there’s plenty of good pulp from other sources as well. Your accreditation basically says we know how to manage our paper. We know that if we get a batch of paper, we’re going to track it and make sure the paper we bought for you is the paper that we use on your job.
I mean, come on. Shouldn’t every printer be doing that anyway? I dispute that all good paper has to be FSC or PEFC-accredited. I think there are plenty of good mills that are managing their own forests that don’t necessarily have that accreditation and plenty of printers who are buying their paper well but don’t necessarily have that accreditation. It’s time to move away from that and just look where we’re getting our paper from. In a very basic way, if you ask printers or paper mills or paper merchants or whoever you’re dealing with, where do you get your pulp from, then you’re going to know whether it’s good or not. Broadly speaking, for us, if it’s based in Europe, it’s good. If it’s been created in America, it could well be FSC-accredited. But we’re creating a huge carbon footprint by transporting that pulp over to Europe just so we can fill someone’s demands for a label. If it’s coming from further east, then you ought to be very careful about how that forestry has been managed and think more than price. That’s really all I’ve got to say about it. I just think that we’re living in these little labels which no longer mean very much.
[00:04:52] DC: The European Union is really coming for that Pope certification, and there’s going to be regulations around. It was actually supposed to start December 31st of 2024, but they gave it an extension because people weren’t ready. I’m not disagreeing with what you’re saying. I just don’t – if you’re out there and you purchase paper in any shape or form, this might affect you in a legal sense. So just pay attention to those sorts of things. But I agree with Matthew, and it is something that the printers do rail against sometimes like, “Oh. Now, I need another certification. Now, I need another this. Now, I need another this.”
I hear you, printers. I will also say that there are certain customers out there who are looking for those certifications. It’s kind of like you have to pay to play in certain instances. I’m not saying it’s right that that is like that, but there’s a reason why there are labels for these things. It ultimately makes somebody feel good about what they’re doing, but I hear you. In line with that, what I would say in response to that as something I think needs to go away in 2025 is something I’m referring to as statistical comfort. The industry, especially the paper people who I love, throwing stats and facts out there about paper.
A lot of it seems to fall into this odd category to me, which turns into, “People love paper. People love to touch things. People love to feel it in their hands.” Okay. I don’t really know how that moves a marketing budget or anything like that at the end of the day. Stats and facts are really important, but relying on them as the reason while people should be doing printed projects instead of a hybrid project. But some of it is digital marketing, and some of it is printed marketing or putting forth these arguments. I think it’s really important that we, on this side of things, see how the consumer brands are talking to their customers about sustainability.
Yesterday, I bought one of those mega packages of toilet paper. On it, there’s a message that says, “Learn how Charmin helps to protect, grow, and restore trees.” That is such a simple, impactful message that everybody understands. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen it positioned that way. Certainly, the printing industry does not talk this plain to people. We have our statistical – “Well, there’s 14.2 carbon. They –”
[00:07:56] MP: But that’s not what they’ve said.
[00:07:56] DC: Protect, grow, and restore trees. Now, if I’m a consumer, I don’t feel guilty about that.
[00:08:05] MP: It’s so much better than PEFC and FSC. I totally agree. However, we should learn to take those stats in the right context. I remember supermarkets saying, “Hey, we’ve saved 100 tons of plastic packaging on redoing something,” which is brilliant. But then let’s look at the fact of how many tens of thousands of tons of plastic packaging they’re using every year. A hundred tons sounds great, but actually it’s a drop in the ocean. We do have to be careful about what they’re saying on what they’re doing with trees. But, yes, much better and much easier for people to get an idea around than some of the labels we have, so I like it.
[00:08:40] DC: We could just say that that’s what the printing industry does, and it would be like, “Oh, they’re not tree killers. They are protecting, growing, and restoring trees. I get it. I don’t need anything else. Done. Next.”
[00:08:53] MP: Okay, next. I think we should kill off wide format this year.
[00:08:58] DC: What?
[00:09:00] MP: Now.
[00:09:01] DC: I love wide format, so now we might be having a fight.
[00:09:04] MP: Okay. I’m not suggesting that people shouldn’t continue to invest in wide format presses and that it’s not still a growing part of the marketplace. But my issue is that for too long, we’ve been saying to printing companies, “Hey, if you want to get out to your customers more, invest in wide format. If you’re struggling a bit, maybe you want to broaden your services. Invest in wide format. What’s the fastest-growing sector in the printing industry? Oh, it’s wide format.” What printing companies should be doing is not investing in wide format, but looking at what their customers need or the type of customer they’re trying to get and investing in the right equipment around that. Many times, that might be wide format, but it’s going to be a very specific sub-sector of wide format. We shouldn’t just be encouraging or investing in wide format and hoping that it’s suddenly going to cure any issues that we have with the profitability or the turnover of our printing company. That’s what’s been happening, so that’s why I want to ban wide format this year.
[00:10:05] DC: Okay. Along those lines, I think the industry is very cyclical when it comes to marketing to itself. When everybody had an offset press, then the push was to everybody should have a digital press. When everyone had a digital press, now everybody needs an inkjet press. If everybody has inkjet presses, digital toner presses, and offset presses, what do they need next? They need finishing equipment, or they need wide format. If they need finishing equipment first to finish everything that they’re making with their presses, now how do I get into a new area? Wide format comes up.
Right now, I would say the bigger push is kind of in that embellishment space. There’s a big push for embellishment stuff, so I would say statistical comfort. Make sure you have your facts straight about all of that and regulations coming in and everything like that. I’m not saying that people don’t like shiny things. They do. I’m not sure how long brands and the regulations are going to affect that as the regulations are going to affect the brands and the buying, I mean, as we move forward. But, yes, I agree with you. Whenever there’s a big push to something, I’m not saying there’s not a benefit for a printer having wide format, and I love white format.
[00:11:18] MP: And neither am I.
[00:11:20] DC: But I hear what you’re saying. I just think that it’s cyclical right now. There’s a bigger push with the embellishment people than the wide format people. But I would say everybody get wide format. It’s the coolest.
[00:11:32] MP: Okay. But, yes, we can ban the embellishments as well. I’ll add it to the list.
[00:11:36] DC: Okay. That’s cool. All right. Along these lines, a term that I think that needs to go away is workflow automation. Again, it’s just such a big term that is not clearly being defined for people. There are so many areas in a printing business that could be optimized individually. In itself, the actual machine can be optimized. Then, the workflow of that machine could be optimized. Then, the workflow of that machine with another machine or with all of the machines could be optimized.
Software vendors, hardware vendors, when you’re out there talking about workflow automation, please be more specific to people. Specifically, what are you speaking about software automation, press – you know what I mean, Matthew? It’s just such a big term that –
[00:12:33] MP: I mean, everyone’s got an automated workflow already, haven’t they? I can’t imagine a printer without an automated workflow. Some may be automated more fully or better than others. Yes, there are plenty of opportunities for them to improve what they’re doing. But exactly as you said, the term workflow automation is just too broad.
[00:12:52] DC: Okay, cool. We agree on that one. What else do you got?
[00:12:55] MP: Okay, I’m going to go from broad to really specific now, and I would like to ban the term Delta E. For those who are not color geeks, it’s a way of measuring color accuracy, and I feel it’s been misused.
[00:13:10] DC: I have a question.
[00:13:11] MP: Yes.
[00:13:11] DC: Is it only for packaging? Is it for everything?
[00:13:14] MP: No, no. It’s for all colors.
[00:13:15] DC: Okay, I didn’t know that. I thought it was only for packaging.
[00:13:18] MP: No. It’s a way of measuring color. If anyone wants to find out more about Delta E and how it practically works, you should check out the blog of Eddy Hagen, who is a really sensible color expert who puts things into the right context. His blog is called insights4print and is excellent, and everyone should read it. We’ll put a link in the show notes. The issue that I have is that there are a lot of print buyers. There are a lot of color management specialists and maybe a few printers out there as well who are now absolutely convinced that everyone should work within minuscule tolerances, which are hardly visible to the human eye.
That’s just taking the science of print too far. People want good commercial-quality prints. They want the color to be right. But to say that you can only have a tolerance of three Delta E is wrong. In my opinion, that is taking things to extremes, which are not realistic in manufacturing these days, and which we don’t need to keep to that level. I’m all in favor of good color management. We all need good color management, but let’s not get hung up on trying to measure this to the tiniest mini micrometer that we’re doing at the moment.
[00:14:41] DC: Yet there are big brands out there that won’t go on digital equipment until they see that their conversions are within minuscule ranges of change from their hand tone color or their color. I don’t disagree with you. There are certain circumstances where that information is really important to people. But, yes, as a general practice, if you’re just an e-commerce printer, do you need to go to that level? I appreciate that you do because you know I’m always like I don’t like the sellable print thing. I like it to be the best it can be. But you’re right. There are some cases where it could be a little overboard. Although, again, it is a way to differentiate yourself from another business if you have people that even understand what you’re talking about when it comes to all of this.
[00:15:33] MP: All I’m going to say is we need to educate the buyers as well. These are our words and phrases that need to be banned across the industry, not just by printers but by buyers as well. We need to educate some of the buyers, particularly in brands, that maybe they’ve been listening a bit too hard to the color geeks and that they need to get commercially realistic. So, yes, I totally appreciate some of the requirements of customers. It’s the customers that are driving this, not necessarily the printers. It’s the customers that are wrong. They’re not always right.
[BREAK]
[00:16:04] MP: Do you need some direction or new ideas for your business? Would sales goals setting and accountability improve your revenues? Or do you have a member of staff who could be performing better? I’m Matthew Parker, the Champion of Print at profitableprintrelationships.com, and I offer a personal mentoring service. Together, we work out exactly what you need. We create a personal mentoring program for you, and then we speak twice a month. You get set goals and action points to make sure you progress.
What makes me different is that I’m the buyer. I’ve been approached by over 1,400 different printing companies, so I know what works, and I know what doesn’t. If you’d like to find out more, go to profitableprintrelationships.com, click the training tab, and then go to mentoring. Or, alternatively, just hit me up on LinkedIn. I look forward to working with you.
[EPISODE RESUMED]
[00:16:58] MP: What do you got next, Deborah?
[00:17:00] DC: The word digital, digital. I have a digital thermometer. Is that what I’m talking about when I say digital? I don’t know why it’s so difficult to say digital media, digital marketing, or digital printing. When people say print and digital, what are they referring to? I don’t know sometimes. Are you talking about offset print and digital printing? Are you talking about print media and digital media working together? I would just say that don’t assume that people know what you mean when you say digital, especially when digital printing is just called digital in our own circles.
It’s almost like we take our own inside baseball knowledge. That’s an American expression. We just say it out loud to people as if they know what we’re talking about. If you’re speaking to customers about print and digital, meaning you want to add a QR code to something, then just say “print and digital media” or “and digital marketing” and just make it clear. Then the next time you’re talking to somebody about digital printing, just say printing at the end of that. Matthew, it’s a little nitpicky, but it drives me crazy when I see it in content because there’s no context behind the digital when I see them speaking to customers.
[00:18:20] MP: No, I totally get you. I think a lot of what we’re talking about today isn’t that the driving forces behind what is being said is wrong. It’s the way it’s being expressed. It’s the way it’s being talked about. With that in mind, I’m going to put my next one in, which is sustainability. You know me. I’m down with –
[00:18:40] DC: You love sustainability.
[00:18:42] MP: Well, I’m the ultimate eco warrior in the printing industry, and yet I think we should ban the term sustainability for the same reason that you want to ban digital. It’s just too broad. What does sustainable mean? We say, “Oh, paper’s sustainable. Print’s sustainable.” I would argue with a lot of that. Just because we can recycle paper doesn’t mean that everything that we’re doing is sustainable. We’re sometimes hiding behind a screen of some nice and outdated ideas.
Let’s get more specific when we talk about the good that we are doing and that we should be doing more of in the printing industry. Let’s talk about carbon footprint reduction instead. Let’s talk about single use. Let’s talk about chemicals. Let’s talk about transport. Let’s talk about the carbon footprint of digital marketing as well because we’ve got a very good story to say there. We may not be quite as good as digital, but digital’s footprint is a lot worse than people would like to think.
With that basis in mind, let’s stop talking about sustainability, and let’s break that down and be a lot more specific when we’re talking about trying to make the print industry reduce its carbon footprint, trying to make the printing industry better for the planet.
[00:19:48] DC: Very interesting coming from you. I think this ties into that. AI is a term that I want a lot of clarification behind that term these days. It’s probably the most buzz-worthy word that’s going, the initials that’s out there at the moment. Now, I have been looking into this DeepSeek thing. I’m not sure if you’re –
[00:20:15] MP: Oh, yes. I’ve been hearing all about that.
[00:20:16] DC: Yes, the new AI technology that’s coming from China. What I mean by that, Matthew, is that, yes, it’s still going to use a lot of energy, but it’s going to use a lot less energy. I mean, everybody already knows that more power plants and potentially nuclear plants have to be built to handle all of this stuff. Now, the reason why I’m bringing this up and the reason why I’m bringing up the term AI is because where the focus is, in my opinion, is what’s in it for me right now. Obviously, the software companies and the presses and the press makers and anybody who’s creating something that can use AI technology to optimize specific workflows of specific reasons. I know I’m being general about that, too, but I’m not a workflow or AI developer, so I can’t be more specific than that.
Obviously, the generative art is something that comes up with the printing industry because we need to know how to deal with that. Of course, there’s a significant amount of people using ChatGPT and other tools like that for content, for business plans, for creating a digital marketing plan. I mean, you could do amazing things with that. The reason why I’m specifically bringing this up is because I’m hoping that the printing industry is paying attention to the broader AI industry.
The reason I say this is because DeepSeek pretty much tanked energy companies in the stock market when it announced that all of the infrastructure. It tanked construction companies. It tanked the stocks of all of the companies that were heavily investing in building these power plants, building these infrastructures that potentially won’t be needed anymore. Everybody just stopped. I think it’s super important because there are opportunities in that bigger industry, which I didn’t even realize until this guy on TikTok was talking about what it actually did to all the investors in AI with this new technology.
Where there are also – in other words, it shows the opportunity. I didn’t really tie it into construction companies. But if they’re going to have to build power plants, you need construction companies, and construction people need things like breakfast and clothes and work shoes and things of that nature. I write about this all the time that construction sites are really great places for local print marketing, marketing to those companies. You need a place to get an egg sandwich in the morning, and you need a place to get a beer at night. How do we market to these people?
What I’m saying is that AI, think about the industry. Look at the AI industry. Look at all the components. Print is needed in there for communications, so get in. There might be a lot of construction companies now and energy companies now that have to put out materials about –they kind of got the rug pulled out from under them or anything like that. My advice here is don’t be myopic about AI and only how it affects you. Look at the industry. Follow the industry. There are business opportunities for print in there. You just got to pay attention.
The other thing is that it’s moving really fast and things change a lot, which is also another great place for print to be there if you can say to them, “We can handle all of your changes at any time that you need them. We can update materials. We’ve got you.” I just think that there’s a bigger opportunity than just the word AI and salivating over that word or term. AI is a term, right?
[00:24:14] MP: I think it’s an issue that’s been faced by many sectors, not just print. If you want to sound sexy at the moment, you’ve got to say AI somewhere, or you’re blurred very early on. It’s overstated. Clearly, AI is going to be a very important part of all walks of life going forward. But it was like, yes, we’re young enough to remember the Internet boom, when any company that was associated with the Internet, their stocks went sky high and then with the Internet bubble and it burst. I suspect we’re going to get something similar with AI, and AI is going to be as important as the Internet. But right now, it’s being overhyped, so I’m with you on that one.
I’m going to suggest you go with your next one, Deborah, because I’ve got one I really want to finish up with, which is just a big rant and hopefully a remembrance to the printing industry. I’d love to finish on that if that’s okay with you.
[BREAK]
[00:25:04] DC: Are you looking to elevate your game, take your bottom-line customer relationships, and events to the next level? Then, I want to work with you. I’m Deborah Corn, the Intergalactic Ambassador to the Printerverse. I engage with a vast, global audience of print and marketing professionals across all stages of their careers. They are seeking topical information and resources, new ways to serve their customers and connect with them, optimize processes for their communications and operations, and they need the products and services and partnership you offer to get to their next level.
Print Media Centr offers an array of unique opportunities that amplify your message and support your mission across the Printerverse. Let’s work together, bring the right people together, and move the industry forward together. Link in the show notes. Engage long and prosper.
[EPISODE RESUMED]
[00:26:05] DC: Okay. My last one is the blanket term workforce development. I use it all the time, by the way, so I’m talking to myself as well. Workforce development, to me, is the result of people wanting to work in your workforce. I think we need to stop talking about the result, and go back to making a campaign that is more than people love to touch paper and things of that nature, and really let people know how big the printing industry is and what it does and how it really helps people and how we grow, protect, and restore trees, simple messages.
Ultimately, print is still viewed as an antiquated medium. I like to use the example of the old guy in overalls, and he’s usually in a newspaper or something, running through a movie, going, “Stop the presses.” That’s what people’s idea of it is in many cases, or they don’t understand because they watch a screen all day long, and they’re like, “Why do I need something else besides this?” But print is cool, and we just really need to do a better job of sharing that. Instead of “work for us, work for us, work for us,” let’s give people reasons why and do not rely on that statistical comfort.
This is an emotional thing. You want to make people want to work in a dynamic communications company, helping the community grow. I mean, that sounds a lot better than $36,000 a year sitting in this cube and answering the phone for the rest of your life, which is kind of what some of these job descriptions end up looking like. Stop focusing on the results. Start focusing more on creating the result you want by being more human, connective, and emotional about the work you do and about the industry that we’re all part of. Matthew?
[00:28:17] MP: I think we’ve tagged Young People in Print are for the movement in the UK. They’re really good at going out to colleges and schools and starting that print can be sexy early on and getting people interested and realizing what the opportunities are. It’s not just about come and work for a printing company. It’s actually come and use prints if you’re in graphic design or something like that. Realize the advantages of print as well.
I think you’re right. We need to start getting this, and we need to make it further down the line because there’s a lot of people coming up who are going to be the next generations in business. We need to start educating them now. I’m all in favor of workforce development. I think we should make that again much more specific about how we can upskill, multiskill, make our places better to work in. All of those are important, but we need to have places that people want to work in as well, and we need buyers who love the idea of print and want to use print.
There’s a big movement to be done out there. There are people talking about it enthusiastically. It’s beginning to start, at least in the UK, to come together as a movement rather than a lot of separate initiatives. But there’s a lot to be done, and I really hope that 2025 will be a year in which we see that coming to the fore more. I know how much work you’ve personally done in trying to do that in the US as well. I applaud the initiatives that you have founded, that you’ve supported, that you’ve driven and given publicity to because it’s so important.
[00:29:56] DC: Thank you, Matthew. But I want to hear your rant.
[00:30:00] MP: Okay. My last one, I think we should brand the word price. Because every time we use price, we can monetize print. As an industry, we’ve been busy commoditizing our product for so long, for too long. Let’s talk about investment. Let’s talk about value. Let’s talk about return. Let’s talk about solutions. All of these things we can talk about without having to say price. If we get price-oriented and it is the print industry so many times that it’s making it about price or is reacting to the buyer making it about price and going along with that, we can do better than that.
We are a creative industry. We’ve got so many innovative solutions. Sorry for another buzzword. That’s probably another one we should kill off in 2025 is the word innovative. But we’ve got so many great ways to help our clients build their companies, create better business. Surely, we can do better than just saying, “Oh, we’re a few dollars cheaper than the company down the road,” which is what so many sales is still based on. It really winds me up because when I came into doing this with Profitable Print Relationships, I lost count of how many years it is. But I think I might be getting on for about 20 in Profitable Print Relationships. I was talking about that when I first came into it, and that bit of a conversation hasn’t changed.
So much in the print industry has developed, has moved on. But we still sell as though we’re in the 1950s, and it really winds me up. Stop ever using the word price from now on in 2025, please.
[BREAK]
[00:31:40] DC: Like what you hear? Leave us a comment, click a few stars, share this episode, and please subscribe to the show. Are you interested in being the guest and sharing your information with our active and growing global audience? Podcasts are trending as a potent direct marketing and educational channel for brands and businesses who want to provide portable content for customers and consumers. Visit printmediacentr.com, click on podcasts, and request a partner package today. Share long and prosper.
[EPISODE RESUMED]
[00:32:13] DC: I was on LinkedIn one day and just scrolling through my status, and I came upon a post where somebody had asked for advice on having a conversation about price with a customer. Bill Farquharson, who’s a sales coach in the United States, he answered, and I’ve taken his answer as the best answer I’ve ever heard to the question. Besides, of course, I took your workshop, which I highly recommend. Do not buy on price.
What he said is your customers don’t want to talk about price. They want to talk about getting more people into their store. They want to talk about how you’re going to help them get more people to sign up for the conference or the meeting. They want to know how you’re going to help them get more food orders from people in the restaurant on a Thursday night. At the end of the day, if you have had that conversation with them, and you have a plan, then in many ways, the conversation then isn’t what it costs. It’s what it’s worth.
How many dinners on a Wednesday night pay for that mailing, that local mailing, selling how many cars from the used car lot, pays for that door drop you did, or whatever it might be, a postcard? How many appointments were made for the dentist through that postcard, right? It is semantics, but it is a conversation about the customer, not about the price of what the offer is. I just thought that that was a great angle to take and to turn that conversation around to it’s not what it costs. It’s what it’s worth.
Then you can put the ideas in people’s heads. If you sold two cars, would it be worth it? Yes, it would be worth it. Okay. Let’s focus on how do we sell two cars the fastest and most efficient way possible so that you get that return. Now, I might not even be thought of as a salesperson. I’m a consultant. I’m a partner in your business plan, right? I just thought it was a great way to change the conversation, even though you’re still having a conversation.
Now, yes, customers on the other end might be like, “Okay, I asked you how much it’s going to cost, and now you’re giving me this whole story.” There’s always people out there like that. But if it is focused on them and not you, I think you have a better chance of seeing that conversation through till the end, and then the customer has to make a decision. Now, are they willing to save a half a cent of postcard or something to just save a half a cent of postcard? They might be, or they might say, “This other person actually cares about what we’re doing here. They are a little more expensive, but I feel like they’re with me on this. They’re not just taking my order.” I think it’s a good strategy.
[00:35:27] MP: Target audience paying difference. Don’t have a generic message because then it does come down to price. Instead, be very specific about who you want to win. Know the challenges they are having, which are not how can I get better service or better quality print or anything like that. It is, as you’ve been saying, as Bill’s saying, how can I get more customers through the door? How can I improve the return on my marketing? All of those things. Then understand what makes you different from your competitors, which is why you will win the work, and there won’t be that discussion about the half cent between you and somebody else. Understand what it is that makes you different that it is important to the customer.
That’s very different from saying I’ve got better quality or service. That’s all about your process or the uniqueness of your products, but it makes you different from everybody else. If you do those three things, then you’re fulfilling the have to stop buyers choosing on price mantra that I always go with, and you will get more customers with a better profit margin.
[00:36:28] DC: Excellent. Well, thank you for an excellent conversation, Matthew Parker. Thank you to everybody who’s listening to this podcast and continues to do so. Everything you need to know that we spoke about today is in the show notes. Until next time, print long and prosper.
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[00:36:49] DC: Thanks for listening to Podcasts From the Printerverse. Please subscribe, click some stars, and leave us a review. Connect with us through printmediacentr.com, we’d love to hear your feedback on our shows and topics that are of interest for future broadcasts. Until next time, thanks for joining us. Print long and prosper.
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