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February 1, 2018 by Marketing Team

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“There is huge opportunity for brands to understand this shift and focus on a simpler more organic approach.”

With the first quarter over, now is the time is now to start thinking about how your Brand can make a big impact in 2018. Here are a few tips we’ve learned that can help.

Know your channels:

This is one of the most important parts of making a real connection with your audience. Without an understanding of the landscape, it can be easy to produce content that doesn’t resonate with the audience. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link and it’s important to make sure that every platform gets the same amount attention. If you are a big brand with enough resources you can utilize a wide variety of platforms. If you’re smaller don’t spread your resources too thin. Sometimes it’s better to do less. Focus on the channels that work best for you. The content may be great, but if it’s delivered through the wrong platform, engagement with suffer. With the expansion of digital channels it is easy to become overwhelmed. Our advice is to keep it simple and focus on the channels that are most important to your target customers. Look at all platforms as a single tool for engagement. The message and vibe needs to be consistent across the spectrum as more and more people will interact across multiple channels.

“Our advice is to keep it simple and focus on the channels that are most important to your target customers.”

Keep it authentic:

The support of millennials is critical to building a successful brand and driving growth. They are great at evaluating the authenticity of a brand or campaign, this is easy to see in the rise of digital and social media influencers. The millennials have looked to their peers for what they interpret as a more authentic or independent view on products. There is huge opportunity for brands to understand this shift and focus on a simpler more organic approach. The more the marketing campaign reflects your Brand and what has made it successful the better the engagement will be.

“There is huge opportunity for brands to understand this shift and focus on a simpler more organic approach.”

Connect:

This is at the very core of engagement, in order to truly engage with your audience the conversation has to go both ways. Brands need to be able to interact with the audience quickly and effectively. Digital platforms have opened up the ability for this real time communication. Dialogue needs to be consistent, valuable, and back to point number two, authentic. Whether you are developing a chatbot or a team to communicate with your audience, the message and approach needs to reflect your brand. Don’t try to do too much, focus on creating an individual experience for each interaction that brings value to your customers.

“Dialogue needs to be consistent, valuable, and back to point number two, authentic.”

We are really excited to see how brands are take engagement to the next level. While working with clients we have developed these strategies which have worked to drive engagement and build momentum.

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February 1, 2018 by Marketing Team

As technology advances it has become increasingly simple to advertise and market your business and brand to a large audience. Social media and digital advertising has opened the doors for smaller brands to reach huge audiences in seconds. In many ways this has leveled the playing field between big brands and emerging ones. Although this has been a positive for many businesses it has also created a huge amount of competition within marketing channels. As more brands take to digital and targeted traditional media campaigns the landscape has become very crowded. The crossroads between exposure and quality is where a huge challenge lies for many businesses. Content is king and without quality content the increased reach afforded by social media and digital advertising can unproductive or even detrimental if not produced correctly.

“Social media and digital advertising has opened the doors for smaller brands to reach huge audiences in seconds. In many ways this has leveled the playing field between big brands and emerging ones.”

The drive to deliver a constant stream of compelling content for their marketing campaigns can be very difficult. Whether your organization is small and nimble or in the Fortune 500 the challenges are often the same. Having an in-house design team is an expensive proposition, even with a team of your own there is often an overflow of work and projects. On the flip side a freelance designer can be a great way to keep costs under control during slow periods but can cause real challenges when work needs to be completed on a tight timeline. In many cases the answer to this problem is to have an external design team or agency that can deliver the best of both worlds.

“When you are working inside of a company it can be difficult to step outside and see things from an outside perspective.”

The rise of digital content has made a tremendous impact on the way people buy and interact with the brands that they love. As more consumers look to new channels for information and to do research it is critical to have the resources to be able to produce the type of content that resonates with your audience. YouTube is a great platform to be able to inform your audience about products, services, and value your brand offers. It takes a lot of experience to be able to produce quality content for these sites. By utilizing a design group you can leverage all of their resources and experience, in many cases they have case studies and experiences from working with other brands that can save significant amounts of time and money. The influx of ideas and perspectives from working with an external team can be a real advantage. When you are working inside of a company it can be difficult to step outside and see things from an outside perspective. Creative groups can be great resources to see your brand from the same perspective as your clients and that input can be invaluable to building and refining your campaigns.

“Brands and business can no longer exist in a vacuum. The rise of social media influencers and content creators has increased the popularity in collaborations between different people and ideas.”

Brands and business can no longer exist in a vacuum. The rise of social media influencers and content creators has increased the popularity in collaborations between different people and ideas. This same idea has applied to Brands as well. There has been an explosion in cooperation and creativity in all industries. A great example is the recent collaboration between luxury fashion house Louis Vuitton and the legendary streetwear brand Supreme. 10 years ago this type of collaboration between different companies would have been unthinkable, but social media and the change in consumer demand has made this one of the most popular fashion releases of the year. Working with an agency enables access to their experience working with other brands and contacts that can make the process of collaborating with other companies much more approachable.

“Brands today must flexible and nimble when it comes to creative design and development.”

When looking at the changing landscape it becomes clear that Brands today must flexible and nimble when it comes to creative design and development. Trends come and go faster than ever. Utilizing an external creative and design team is a great way to meet these challenges and achieve a positive ROI. An external creative team is a great way to build or augment your existing resources and reach your customers with new ideas and concepts that will drive engagement, sales, and growth.

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January 2, 2018 by Steve

“The value comes from the positive impact on their bottom line.”

In the first phase of my career, I spent more than 20 years and several progressions in sales and sales management working in the world of commercial print. For the most part those years were challenging and exciting. Hard work made personal and professional achievement a consistent reality. Many of us experienced a period of self-satisfaction as we grew as professionals and our companies grew and prospered.

“A vital component of any value proposition, requires the resources and ingenuity that will allow our customers to market their business with more impact and efficiency. The value comes from the positive impact on their bottom line.”

Our focus was on the 3 axioms of the time: competitive pricing, consistent quality and superior service. This was a golden period for the print industry. Now, years later, the 3 axioms remain in place. That reality will never change, however, as we reflect on the current state of our world of commercial print, just about everything else has changed.

Growth has been replaced by overcapacity and the emergence of sophisticated data and digital/electronic communication. The ability of our customers to reach out to targeted markets, literally in real time has become the new reality. Print producers have lost the luxury of extended production timelines. Changing expectations has intruded on the love affair that printers have long had with their equipment.

“While we certainly cannot abandon one of the basic linchpins of our industry, we must extend our thinking in ways that will provide an essential new offering – value!”

Obviously, equipment and production processes are still vital. The challenge comes when today’s processes become obsolete a year from now. We have always thought that state of the art equipment coupled with quality and service would carry the day in our marketplace. While much of this holds true today and tomorrow, the huge and perpetual capital requirements to maintain this ability creates a new set of very significant challenges.

For printers to service and yes, even prosper, in the face of these challenges, what needs to be done? I very much believe that a refocus is in order. While this is not revelatory, the emphasis of this refocus is worth strong consideration. Remember the value we have always placed on presenting superior service of our customers? While we certainly cannot abandon one of the basic linchpins of our industry, we must extend our thinking in ways that will provide an essential new offering – value!

To be clear, value does not represent the combination of pricing, quality and service. We don’t get off that easy. Value stands alone as the new given simply because our customers are demanding it. So what represents value in our customer’s world? It is simply presenting and offering solutions tied to their challenges.

A vital component of any value proposition, requires the resources and ingenuity that will allow our customers to market their business with more impact and efficiency. The value comes from the positive impact on their bottom line. To borrow a line from Field of Dreams – If you build it, they will come. In other words, if we focus on presenting and delivering value to our customers, opportunities to thrive will be there in the world of print. Stay tuned, more to come.

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Know your channels:

Keep it authentic:

Connect:

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