EPISODE 559
[INTRODUCTION]
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the future of print, from physical to digital, an XMPie Podcast Conference. XMPie is shaping the future of personalization with its award-winning platform to streamline the communications workflow, and put the customer at the heart of the conversation. Want an advanced personalization? Take your direct mail to the digital age, offer more from your packaging services, automate your print ordering. We’ll cover all that and more. We hope you enjoy the show. Now, over to our conference host, the intergalactic ambassador to the Printerverse, Deborah Corn.
[EPISODE]
[00:00:42] DC: Hey, everybody. Welcome to Podcast from the Printerverse. This is Deborah Corn, your intergalactic ambassador. This is actually the first of a series of podcasts of the XMPie Podcast Conference. XMPie is the leading provider of software for cross media, variable data, one to one marketing, offering solutions to help businesses create, and manage highly visual, and engaging print. and digital communications, either as singular pieces, or part of an omni channel campaign. This conference series consists of four podcasts that are going to show up in order on your playlist making it very handy. This conference is hosted by me, is presented by XMPie with guest. Each podcast is going to cover a dedicated topic. This podcast will cover the power of personalization. I am thrilled to welcome Dave Baldaro, the Marketing Operations Manager from XMPie to kick off this conference series.
Hello, Dave. Welcome to the show.
[00:01:49] DB: Hello, Deborah. Hello. Hello. Thank you very much for having me.
[00:01:53] DC: Oh, thank you guys so much for doing the conference and really sharing this information with everybody. As you know, I am a firm believer in creating engagement, and this is certainly the way to do it. I want you to share a little bit about yourself and what you do at XMPie. But I have to tell you, Dave, I did a little research, and I was trying to figure out what XMPie stands for and I couldn’t find the answer. Is it an acronym?
[00:02:24] DB: It is an acronym indeed and it depends on who you ask. The answer varies, but the official acronym and the standard acronym is Cross-Media Publishing in Ecommerce.
[00:02:35] DC: Oh, okay.
[00:02:37] DB: Obviously. So there you go.
[00:02:40] DC: Yes, obviously. Okay. So let everybody know a bit about you how you ended up in your role at XMPie and what you do over there.
[00:02:48] DB: So I’ve been in the print industry now for, I think, coming up to 24 years. My first job was with Xerox, and for the last 18 years, I’ve been in and around XMPie as an organization. I was responsible for launching XMPie, managing the business for them from about 2004, 2005. Therefore, I’ve been responsible for selling it, Biz Dev, you’re talking to customers, really engaging in the marketplace. I did that for a number of years. I took a step back and then set my own consultancy up in the UK, helping UK customers become successful with XMPie and use it. Did that for a few years, and then I’ve come back into XMPie into a marketing role. I like to think that I’ve seen all facets of the software. I’ve seen how it’s evolved. I’ve seen it over the years. I’ve broken it, I fixed it. I have so many – I have help. I think XMPie runs through my blood quite a bit, I guess.
[00:03:50] DC: As I mentioned in my introduction, XMPie is the software that powers personalization print. It’s definitely not the only one out there. But all the conversations I have with printers, I think it’s fair to say it’s the most well-known and used in the industry. Why do printers around the world choose XMPie? Most important, does the software work for printers, print shops of all sizes, and is it press agnostic?
[00:04:21] DB: Okay. Which one we do first? I think a big reason why many printers have taken XMPie and used XMPie within their business is – I mean that’s primarily what we’ve been focused for last 20 plus years. But it really presents an opportunity, I guess, for every printer that’s in digital printing. Your question about press agnostics, yes. It doesn’t matter what digital press you have, and that’s a big part of the value proposition. If you want to drive volume to those presses, which let’s face it, every printer needs to, everybody must do. That’s where XMPie helps. It helps drive volume and it helps drive value. That’s what we’ve been doing for 20 years, but even beyond that.
Digital printers see that opportunity, see that value. But a big part of that is that it doesn’t stop there. As you’ll see further in the four podcasts that we’re doing, it’s not just about print. There’s a breadth of solutions within the portfolio of XMPie that helped drive volume, that help gauge more customers, to bring more customers to your door through ecommerce and web to print. And there’s more opportunity by then adding digital channels onto the back of print. So again, if you’re a print provider, and you’re looking to build a business now, at some point has a real value proposition to you to say actually, by taking this platform on, you can help shore up your business today and grow your business for tomorrow.
[00:05:50] DC: Dave, it’s interesting that you’ve mentioned volume twice, because I don’t necessarily see it as a volume play as much as a meaning, a concrete meaning play. Especially now with the supply chain still trying to write itself and printers are doing more with less people in their print shop. It’s almost more about keeping those customers printing and offering them solutions for how to really have a return on their investment, and a generic piece of print versus something that has meaning to a recipient are two completely different things. That’s what we’re actually going to speak about now, the why of all of this, whether you call it personalization, or customization, or an engagement strategy for your XMPie, the printers out there and their customers. Certainly, XMPie helps brands of all sizes, marketers, and businesses of all sizes, as I said, create meaning with their messaging, or rather, it could.
[00:07:00]DB: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I talk about volume. In some ways, it does help volume, but the overriding factor is the value, and what that opportunity presents itself to customers. The why I think is easy for customers to see, certainly, for their clients to see. Because let’s face it, everyone wants to be spoken to as a consumer. You expected, you’re a pizza lover, piece coming through the door. It just infuriates me anyway. So pieces that aren’t communicated to me or have relevance to me, whether it – it doesn’t have to be personalized, but it has to be relevant, and it has to be timely. Organizations, brands, customers, whether you’re at a coffee shop on the corner, whether you’re a big brand, it makes no difference. You are looking at ways in which you can engage your audience, either that you know, or that you want to know, in a much more engaging way.
Printers on the back of that conversation have to be the ones or in many cases are the ones that are being asked, “How do I do this? I know what I want to say. I need your help in order to get my message out through print or through digital and get it to the doorsteps.” This is really where the value comes into play because this is where XMPie helps now with the simplest level, with the plug-in to InDesign. We’re talking directly here about print. If you’re designing full prints, the high chances are that you are using InDesign. Or if you’re not using InDesign, your customers are using them or the designers are using it. We’re already within that ecosystem of design. Because we’re using design, we have – right term to say, unlimited credibility. So really, whatever the designer wants to do. You can start to create meaningful, highly relevant, highly visual messages within print. Because we sit within InDesign, everything stays the same. There’s no conversion, there’s no working between, there’s no passing different files.
So any printer can work with any designer across the world to start creating templates or highly visual pieces of communication. And then they can produce those pieces on mass, 1, 10, 100, a million within their print shop and get it to their digital printer. Again, the print agnostic thing, piece comes into place. So any digital printer can use XMPie to help drive those valuable conversations. This is where many printers I think have to ask the question as to why their clients are doing what they’re doing and they have to add value to that conversation.
[00:09:38] DC: There was certainly a time where marketing service provider was tossed around, “Printers must be marketing service providers and provide marketing communications.” I’m saying it like that, because just the – most of the time, the printers like I print, that’s my expertise. I’m not a marketing agency. I don’t disagree with that; however, we don’t live in that world anymore. We definitely live in a one-stop world of instant gratification. I am not suggesting that printers become marketing agencies, but I am suggesting and I believe you are too, that conversations about marketing are now part of your sales talk track. Kelly Mallozzi, who is girl number two, Girls Who Print. She calls it, smarketing is the new sales. Sales and marketing combined.
I think that we should focus it that way, because I agree, there are going to be printers listening to this, who are going to say, “Dave, I’ve heard this for the last five years, that is not what I do.” So let’s really help them maybe develop some ways of discussing this with their customers. The most obvious way to me besides having education on the website, saying, there are two ways of doing this, we can do it this way, which is a to whom it may concern, or we can do it this way. You decide what you want to do, but at least you know that there are the options. How do you suggest that printers open up these conversations with their customers, and let’s not go really lofty here. Let’s not assume that someone’s going to get an XMPie and become a master at it. All of a sudden, they’re going to be printing for Nabisco. That is not going to happen. But there are plenty of local businesses that can benefit from connecting with their customers, and keeping them and retaining them on a much more personal level.
[00:11:52] DB: I think it comes down to like any business owner that gets a new shiny press understands the capabilities that press know what it can take in, what it can put out, how it does it. The capabilities of what they know, the opportunity that they have at their doorstep. But no customer is going to suddenly rock up at the doorstep and say, “Hey, I want you to do this for me, and it just happens to correspond with the shiny press I’ve got.” The same analogy holds true with software. Software, many people don’t see. It doesn’t take up the room, it doesn’t need air conditioning, but it does need the same amount of focus. So any customers – where I’ve been into customers that have sold XMPies, consulting XMPie, it’s like you have to understand what is possible, you have to understand the capabilities of what it could do. XMPie is capable of doing a lot.
It’s almost too much to ask every customer to understand everything that it can do. It’s just too much. However, when I do say, “Look, you need to understand who your customers are. If you don’t, you really should. And you should understand what it is that you’re doing for them. And every piece that comes in, you should be asking the question, how can XMPie potentially help this customer or help me in improving the value of this particular piece?” I think that’s the critical bit, you have to understand the capabilities. You don’t have to understand everything, you don’t have to be a guru, but you do have to understand what the software can do and how that correlates to opportunity and producing valuable pieces of print on the back of the engine.
I’ve walked around print rooms, and you’ve always had the print room tour. I walk around and there’s been pallets of paper. Of course, they’re waiting for the finishing. I asked the business owner, “What is this job? Now, there’s a palette here full of postcards.” I’ve had the answer before, “Oh, it’s just – no, we do it every few months. It’s like 50,000 postcards we send out.” “Why? Why are you doing this? What’s it for? What’s the end goal? What’s the call to action? What’s it driving?” Too many times I get the answer, “I don’t really know. We just get asked to print it, and I print it, and it goes out the door.” For me that’s a dangerous place to be because you’re not understanding the business.
Actually, if you took the time to answer the questions as to why this was happening, what you’re looking to try and get out of it. Then you can easily start, “Well, how about we don’t print as many, but we do print them for the correct people at the correct time, personalized, and made relevant to those people.” That will drive you a higher response rate, you’ll achieve a higher ROI. It’s probably not going to cost you as much, because we don’t need to print as many because let’s target the people that you know are going to respond. So it’s really about understanding the opportunity.
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[00:14:40] DC: Print Media Centr provides prints operation and resources to our vast network of print and marketing professionals. Whether you are an industry supplier, print service provider, print customer, or consultant, we have you covered with topical sales, and marketing content, event support, and coverage, these podcasts, and an array of community lifting initiatives. We also work with printers, suppliers, and industry organizations, helping them to create meaningful relationships with customers and achieve success with their sales, social media, and content marketing endeavors. Visit printmediacentr.com, and connect with the Printerverse. Print long and prosper.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUES]
[00:15:25] DC: I’m sure there are plenty of printers listening to this going, “Well, I’m not messing with that account. I print my 50,000 postcards a month. I’m not rocking the boat.” I understand that, but I think, to your point, that’s a very dangerous place to be as we have emerged from the pandemic and as we move forward. Because somebody else is going to tell that customer of a more targeted way of doing things to help them, to your point, achieve the business results that they’re trying to achieve through that printed piece. Even if those clients decide, “Nope. I want my 50,000 stagnant postcards a month, and I don’t want to do anything else.” No problem, at least you have educated them.
The other thing I would want to say is that, I appreciate that if I’m printing less, it would cost less money. But I also think that’s a slippery slope for printers as well, and that there is an opportunity if you productize it. In other words, this is our response acceleration program, and you don’t have to lower the price, you could actually raise the price. I know people are falling off their chairs. But that is something I actually never understood as a print customer, when printers got digital printing equipment, and they will like – it’s less volume, so it’s less money, and it’s faster, so it’s less money. I’m like, you’ve set the bar at the wrong end. You should have charged everybody more for it to begin with, because it does more, it generates more results.
If you think about it, the last thing I’m going to say. Those 50,000 postcards, let’s just say it’s for regional car dealership, and they’re sending it to everybody. How many cars do they need to sell? One or two before that postcard pays for itself, what if they can sell six because they’re getting me with the right car at the right time with of my customer journey, without being annoying, with just giving me information, incentivizing me to come take a test drive, making it personalized, letting me design one online, and sending me the postcard of what my car looks like? It changes the entire dynamic of what that print is for, and the relationship between the customer and the printer. How do we kind of convince everybody that this is the best way of doing it?
[00:18:12] DB: I mean, coming back to some of your points there. I mean, it’s the worst place that any printer can be in is that price conversation. I can get it done cheaper for less, and you’re immediately on the backfoot. Whatever you’re doing, you need to be looking at the value. It’s like, yes, you may print more, but you’re right. You can charge potentially more for what you’re printing. You put more value on the sheet coming at the back of the press. If the sheet coming out the press is pennies or cents, I want to be charging pounds or dollars for it. Same piece, same process, different value. We’ve seen it time and time again. You brought up the example there of the car dealer, for example.
We had one customer that took XMPie or had XMPie, worked with a car dealership to promote a used car sales event. Okay? It was the first time they did it. They didn’t know what to charge for, or how to do it. But they did the whole communication piece, they printed the personalized pieces to the audience that they knew about. It was targeted, it was relevant, it was personalized, it drove the ROI. At the end of the event, they said, “Okay. Well, how did it work?” I remember sitting down with the director, and he was going through a slide deck. After about 18 slides to show me what he had done, he had one slide at the end where he broke down the cost. At the bottom of this slide was the ROI, which essentially at the back of the event, they’d sold so many cars at the campaign. He was selling a car for I think 118 pounds. That’s like, and I said, “Stop. Forget the other 18 slides. This one piece this. So you put this campaign together, you’ve targeted their customers, you brought their customers to the door, and they’ve sold more cars than they would have done previously. Forget the cost, forget how much it cost them. You are telling me that they sold a car for 118 pounds. That’s it. That’s your gold. Off you go. Then rinse and repeat that for every other car dealership that you can do. Because if you walk into any car dealer and say, ‘Hey, I know I’m a printer, but the last time I did this, I was selling cars or I was enabling you to sell cars for 118 pounds. Would you be interested?’” That’s value
[00:20:20] DC: Wait, 118 pounds doesn’t sound like a lot of money for a car.
[00:20:25] DB: No, they’re not selling the car for 118. That would be nice, but it’s costing them. The ROI was for every car, the price of the campaign, okay, what they charged to put the campaign together. The number of cars that they sold, essentially, each car was being sold or marketing budget of 118 pounds to sell the car.
[00:20:43] DC: Okay. So I get it. That was the ROI. They basically spent 118 pounds, probably 125, 130 American dollars and made 35,000 – to make $35,000 or whatever.
[00:20:57] DB: Absolutely. Yes.
[00:20:59] DC: Okay. Hello. You’re right. That’s the only thing I’d be broadcasting left and right. Something else I think is really interesting, Dave, is that printers don’t often tout or promote that they have invested in technology to help their customers do things like this. Also, optimize the workflow and speed to market is – help with the speed to market, which is super topical for everybody right now. A way of doing that, and also, everything you’re saying is to send did you know emails to your customers. Did you know we can change the imagery in your postcards? We don’t care. Send us a PDF. Did you know that everyone can get a different offer? Did you know that everyone could get a different landing page?
Now, that’s not up to the printers to decide what the marketers, or the designers, or the customers want to do. But to your most excellent point, this is why you also have to segment your email list, because there might be customers that need that type of help. To your most excellent point before, so much of this stuff can be templatized to just plug in the correct information, put their logo here, and get a small victory. One tiny victory. More calls than they’ve ever gotten before a promotion, more website visits, more people connecting with them on social media, or making some sort of inquiry. Which then allows them to say, “Hmm. What else can we do?” Then the printers in a winning smarketing conversation. Do you have any examples of companies that might have started these communications with their customers and have ended up really in the winner’s circle?
[00:23:00] DB: I think there are two approaches. There are two routes, and I think both are complimentary. It’s how most – pretty much all the customers that I talked to is one, know your customers. Now, if you don’t know who your customers are, you have a broad range of customers, it’s difficult to talk to everybody about everything. It becomes very confusing. Some of the customers, our customers that have been really successful are ones that have developed niches. Okay? So it might be in the charity market, it might be in the sports industry. They might have a few customers that are in the same industry. If that’s the case, learn everything about that industry, go to their events, bring yourself into that community, engage with it, understand the language, understand their pain points. Because it might not be 100% relevant to your business, but if you can add the value to their conversations, and you know their pain points, and you can say, “Hey, I know you’re a football club, and I know that getting people on seats in season tickets is a real issue for you. So if I can improve that by delivering you 10% more people in response to the season ticket request that you put out every year, would that be useful for you?”
A print is not going to have that conversation off the cuff, unless they know that customer, unless they know that industry. Part of it is know your customers, know your industry or if you don’t, create one, embed yourself in it, and learn it. We’ve got customers that have done that very successfully. I think the second piece, the second route, is self-promotion. Customers aren’t going to knock on your door, and rock up and say, “Hey, I need you to create this XMPie piece.” Never going to happen. Don’t expect. Even if you promote the fact that you have XMPie, customers don’t know what XMPie is or what it does.
[00:24:45] DC: I didn’t even know what it meant, and I’ve been doing this for 13 years.
[00:24:49] DB: There’s no point. I would love organizations to promote they’re using XMPie, it’s great for me, pointless for them. Developer proxy, development, or brand, white label, call it whatever you want to call it. In some cases, customers are set up completely separate arms to their business, that focus on personalization and driving communications. That is about – that has to be sold. You have to educate your customers. Now, you can do that in a raft of different ways. In many cases, it does take time, it takes marketing, and many digital printers. They don’t have a marketing budget; they don’t have a marketing team. But in some ways, you have to try and engage that. You have to try, and get that marketing presence to say, “This is what we do. This is what we could be doing for you.” That could be self-promotional pieces.
If you have the capabilities to do this, and you brought a new shiny press, you’ve got XMPie in there, you’ve got some finishing kit, then you should really be understanding and producing your own in-house mailers, your own in-house piece. We’ve seen some great examples over the years that have really been self-promotional pieces, because the conversations easily. If I can produce a self-mailer, or a self-promotional piece, using XMPie, using all my capabilities in my shop, and I can get it to the MD of an organization. And he opens it, and he calls me, there’s my value. If I can get you to give me a call, I can get your customers to give you a call. This is what I do this. This is everything that we do. That piece is really one that needs to be focused in off.
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[00:26:26] ANNOUNCER: You’re listening to the future of print from physical to digital, produced by XMPie, the personalization platform that powers the print industry. With XMPie and its plug-in to InDesign, you can merge design and data in real time, and automate the production process for creating variable data print and digital files. Customize your marketing designs to one, thousands, or millions of people, win more jobs, especially more high value, profitable, repeatable work. And increase the profitability of every job by eliminating errors, reducing costs, and saving time. Learn how at xmpie.com.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUES]
[00:27:09] DC: If I may, I’d like to chime in with some such suggestions on top of that. First of all, it is impossible to understand that you are looking at something personalized or customized unless you see another one that is personalized or customized to somebody else. In the lowest hanging fruit, my suggestion is always a veterinarian. Cat people get cat things. Dog people get dog things. And you can show customers the different campaigns, how the imagery, and all the different parts of the personalization, or I prefer to say customization because I think it’s less scary for people. We really only deal with reptiles, birds, dogs, and cats here. Okay, so you have four different potentials of messaging, and then maybe three people have a chameleon. You want to get crazy, put a chameleon on the front. Otherwise, put a snake and call it a day, right? It’s very, very important that you don’t show customers just one and say, “But the other ones would be different” and make them think about what that would be. You want to make a kind of idiot proof, as we say here in the United States.
[00:28:17] DB: I think personalization can be quite scary. We talked about personalization, because that’s a capability that we have. But as consumers, we’re quite worried about personalization, because that involves data. If I start saying, “Hey, Deborah. I know that you purchased this product, at this particular place, and this particular date, would you like a refresh of it?” You’re, “Whoa! No. How did you know that? I don’t like that. I know I did it, but I don’t like it.” So you have to be careful, and I think it there’s a balance to be had, where it’s not – everything needs to be personalized, because I need to talk to you as a consumer. I need you to realize that I’m talking to you. That just could be something easy and straightforward to establish that point. The rest then comes down to relevancy and timeliness. Am I talking to you about the right thing at the right time? There’s no point me talking to you about your cat and your vaccinations for your cat if it had it last week. That is an insult, because I clearly don’t know who you are, because I’ve just sent you a piece of communication, which is completely the wrong time. Renew your car finance, I just did it. Why are you telling me this?
It has to be relevant and it has to be timely. I think that’s the piece that really from a communications point has to be honed in on. You get that right. It doesn’t matter if they see that 20 different things are changing on this particular piece. They know that it’s the right conversation at the right time. Deborah, I know you’re looking at buying a house in this particular area, because you’ve already started those conversations, so this is what I’m going to chime in and start sending those pieces.
[00:29:51] DC: Yes, absolutely, 1000% to that. The other thing is that, you mentioned before about a football club, which they mean – he means soccer Americans.
[00:30:02] DB: Yeah, sorry.
[00:30:03] DC: No, it’s okay. You could be British. Enjoy your – I will give you permission. The way I see it now is that most increase unless you’re a professional print buyer, or a customer, and you have a real relationship with the printer. Most increase starting with find a printer near me, how do I market something, tickets for a game. Using your examples of – I’ll be British with you. Getting more bums in the seats, right? Create to get a bums in the seat program that could – like productize it, which could also apply to theaters, events, and anything that people need attendees. In that, on your website, because I guarantee, most situations out there, there is a long journey on your website to your point for me to be able to see me and my needs. “Oh, they understand me. They know what I’m doing.” So bums in the seat package, and then good, better, best it, which is a step and repeat for a printer who might not have a marketing resource, as you mentioned. So this is a way to make it very simple.
In the good version, which is just a direct mail postcard that static, some sort of banner ad, or if you want to go into the digital marketing realm, or maybe just a follow-up postcard, or some posters for the community. Best, you start adding in more customizations to it. You start adding in targeted partnerships, maybe other logos are involved. The best version is everything you could possibly do, but it’s a menu so they can pick and choose. Then, you can take those packages, and apply to a landscaper. Maybe you take one thing out, you put something else in. But I believe that’s a really simple way for printers to introduce all the opportunities that there are in customization, and personalization, and really start to spark the designers who we need on board with this. Let’s focus on that now.
Is XMPie part of your mission to communicate directly to the, let’s say the file creators, because not all of them are designers. The file creators and yeah, I mean, a data conversation is going to have to come up although I as a print customer say, that should be the last thing you mention. And only if they ask how it happens for as long as possible. Just say don’t worry, we will get to that. Let’s talk about why you need to do this first and why there’s no other option.
[00:33:00] DB: You’re right. There are many ways that we try to help. There are many ways that we try to educate. There are only so many ways we can, but we do try. We know for example, we do and we are trying and talking to the creators, the originators. You’re right, not all of them are designers. But everyone’s a designer, right, and we are talking to them. Recently, we sponsored Adobe MAX, for example. Talking to the Adobe designers, we’re talking with Adobe advocates, and getting them to start showing what is possible inside InDesign. Again, this is part of the beauty of this software, is that it isn’t some sideline plugin, it’s natively inside InDesign. So any designer that uses InDesign, they can start incorporating this immediately, in any way, shape, or form. That just blows many of their brains, because they’re not realizing they can do this. So we’ve got XMPie into universities, into courses. So we’re trying to drive that adoption rate, so people come out of their education knowing what is possible.
But still, the world’s a big place, and people still don’t get it. I’ve still talked to designers that have no comprehension as to what variability is. They still think they have to create six different versions of it. There’s always still going to be a need for printers to educate their clients. And you’re right, it’s just in the same way they will put together a media book of all the different medias that they can print on. Do the same with VDP, do the same with print, put together a pack of things that says, “No, here’s a business card, here’s a flyer, here’s a trifold. Here is a raft of different examples of pieces communication that we could put out. Here’s something for a pet owner. Here’s something from a local dentist. Here’s something from a sports club” that is showing a raft of different ways in which you can incorporate both personalization, relevancy, timeliness in the communications, and you’re adding more value.
The worst thing you want to be is on the end of that conversation, when the phone picks up, “Can you print 2,000 of this?” The answer is yes, but it’s the end of the conversation. You want to be driving those conversations, say, “Let me understand what it is you’re trying to do.” What is your marketing goal? Do you have a marketing team. Let me talk to them. I’m not the printer, I can add value here.” We can start that relationship. But it also comes down to printers that have designers in place, and let’s be honest, that’s evolved. Twenty years ago, you used to have an artworker, and they were literally, it was all great letter setting, it was all just putting it through the press. Now, it’s got a lot more difficult. Now, they’re being asked to design, they’re being asked to pull communications together. So you have to make them aware of what is possible. They have to be there showing you as a business owner, what can be done because InDesign moves forward every year in capabilities. We stay along with that.
There are new things that can be done. There are new things that can be done with the presses with embellishments, and white tone, is it gold tone, is it – a whole raft of stuff. It’s self-education inside the organization, putting that together, and showing your customers as well. We try – for example, we’ve got websites up where you combine image personalization templates. For example, you can [inaudible 00:36:11] start to include those into the communication pieces that you’re putting in. Any of the stuff on the XMPie website, and the demos that we show our customers. I have customers say, “Hey, I like that. Can I use that?” Of course, you can. Remove the XMPie brand, and put your own, I’m fine with that. If it helps you sell more, I’m good. We’ll try as much as possible to facilitate these into our customers. We do that through the training as well, and we keep that. We try and push as much forward, but it really comes down to giving them, and the designers the capability to play, then to understand what can be done.
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[00:36:48] DC: Printspiration is streaming across the Printerverse on the Project Peacock Network. Our mission to provide education and resources for print customers, students, and printers around the world has never been more accessible. Watch what you want, when you want, where you want. It’s free. Visit projectpeacock.tv to access original programming, and replays from our online events. Learn about the Peacock partners and companies featured in our shows. Join our mailing list to learn about new episode premieres, and series launches, and create a free account to make watch lists. Ready for your close up, get your peacock show on air by visiting projectpeacock.tv. and request your partnership proposal today. Peacock long and prosper.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUES]
[00:37:40] DC: I think it’s so admirable and commendable that XMPie invested in the Adobe MAX Conference. I do mean invested, because that is not an inexpensive place to attend, or exhibit because they know how valuable that audience is. As a print industry member, I just want to thank you so much to begin with, because that’s the type of things that lifts the entire industry. You know, Pokémon GO was the best thing that ever happened to augmented reality, because now everybody knows what it is. I’m saying this with all due respect, in a lot of ways, COVID was the best thing that ever happened to a QR code.
[00:38:22] DB: Absolutely.
[00:38:23] DC: I mean, prior to that, a lot of people still didn’t know what they were. Also, the fact that sensors can read them on phones now. You don’t have to download the app. But I’m mentioning this because the digital acceleration has happened now. That also includes everything we’ve been talking about as why does this matter to me. That is what the recipients of print are thinking, and that is what the customers should be thinking when printers are having conversations with them. There is a conversation to be had with the design community. I think it’s actually a harder conversation to have. But again, what I would suggest is use your website to generate that door open for a conversation. If you have an online ordering system, which I hope everybody does. Fifty postcards call this much. Interested in expanding your return on investment, give us a call. Then, when I’m interested in this, great, let me talk to you about customization and lead it that way.
I think there are a lot of ways that it’s possible to do. Understanding that this is not really what printers do. They might not have the people in place in the print shop. But if they have access to their website, a small little button that just says, talk to us about our response rate generation for program, whatever it might be, and then speak to them about everything that you can do for them. Then, I believe, and I’ve heard from others who have taken this advice. First of all, you can’t be compared to any other printer. No one else has that program. Second of all, even if they wanted to price out all the items in your ecosystem that you can offer, they might need to source that from many different printers. By the way, it doesn’t mean that all those items have to be produced in-house by the printer, as long as they have partners for it. The point is, you make it a one-stop shop ecosystem.
I do think that everybody with XMPie out there who’s not really generating the work that they can be, that they have an opportunity to trickle out some information to your customers, and get some feedback, and see how it goes from there. What is your final advice around this? You have invested in four podcasts. This is a conference. You’re going to be a row. Maybe share a little more with everybody about what is to come.
[00:41:13] DB: Okay. There are a few things here. I mean, clearly, we’re talking about print and variability in this particular one. You’re right, you touched upon Adobe. It’s a huge conversation with Adobe. We’ve been partners with Adobe for 20 plus years, you know, we constantly strive with Adobe, we work with them on things like PDF ET3. We’re absolutely embedded into it, and that’s great. But that also drives the scale conversation. Yeah, we talked about VDP and we talked about producing prints. But that’s – that can only be done just on your desktop with a single press. I don’t care if it’s a big production press, or a little, it makes no difference. But if you are a printer, then we scale up. So I don’t care whether you got 20 presses. We’ll drive the lot, and that’s the scalability. Using the same platform, using the same tools, I can drive all your presses in exactly the same way. But coming back right back to the beginning, we spoke about driving more opportunity, more customers. We don’t do that with just VDP. We’re going to touch on some of these other pieces. We’ve got a conversation, a podcast talking about direct mail with the Adobe, with the United States Postal Office. What they’re doing or what they’re trying to do, we’re going to touch upon packaging, and other niche areas that we can drive that are still emerging in the marketplace.
You spoke about ecommerce. We’ll talk about that in much more detail, because you’re right, the whole ecommerce piece for any digital printer, if they haven’t got it. Why? In many cases, I’ve seen successes where customers have put ecommerce sites together for their customers free of charge. Now, I have a customer comes in every month and does the same thing. Well, you know what, I’m going to take that job. I’m going to put it on their own portal, so they can log into that portal, they can kick that print job off whenever they want, and I can just reprint it. But then the baby step then said, “I’ll tell you what, why don’t I give you a few options here to personalize or customize that particular piece.” Then you start them on a journey, which is actually, you’re adding more value in each and every stage. You might start off free, but then you can start introducing costs. Those costs are validated because there’s value on the piece behind it.
Across the journey of these four podcasts, I’m hope we’re going to touch on all the areas where XMPie can help to drive volume, to drive value, to drive new customers to the premises, to drive new opportunities, new businesses, new conversations. And hey, essentially you can do more with XMPie.
[00:43:31] DC: Because these are audio programs, we are not going to get into the how to do it. For how to do it, XMPie’s here for you. All the links you possibly need are in the show notes. As Dave mentioned, they have tons of resources that you can use and share with your customers. These podcasts will also be available to share with your team, obviously so everybody can get on the same page. As Dave mentioned, our next podcast, we are talking about direct mail with Mike Scrutton. He is the Director of Print Technology and Strategy at Adobe. He will be joined by Rob Mothershead, who is the Technology Ventures and Alliances Representative at the United States Post Office. And Scott Houck, who is the Business Development CXM initiatives? What does CXM mean?
[00:44:22] DB: Customer Experience.
[00:44:23] DC: Oh, customer experience initiatives at XMPie. Look at you with all your acronyms over there. Dave, thank you so much for your thought leadership today. I think this is a great way to start off this conference. Hopefully, everybody listening has made only one call to action in their own brain, which is, I need to look into this if you’re not doing it and if you are doing it, how can I get more out of it. So until next time, everybody, personalize long and prosper.
[OUTRO]
[00:44:59] ANNOUNCER: The future of podcasts from physical to digital, an XMPie Podcast Conference was produced by XMPie, and presented by the intergalactic ambassador to the Printerverse, Deborah Corn. If you liked the show, tell a colleague, or leave us a review. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn at XMPie. Our team is standing by to answer questions and help you solve your communications challenges. Get in touch with us at xmpie.com.
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