The problem is, you can’t always compete on price.

You can’t always be the best deal for your clients.

And that’s ok.

Because there’s a difference between being a price based company and a value based company. A value based company, redefines current trends and sets new ones. They don’t just meet deadlines, they exceed expectations. They anticipate concerns or questions from clients and take action to keep them from becoming problems. They are true consultants with an honest approach that makes them more valuable in the end than priced based companies.

Since this blog focuses on new production capabilities, who better to write this column than our VP of Operations, Gary Woolsey. But alas, because Gary is busy overseeing our press and bindery team, juggling job deadlines, coordinating equipment technicians and essentially making our customers happy, I’ll try my hand at communicating new product development from a production point-of-view:

It’s not easy being a behind-the-scenes production manager. While I was enjoying a tour of Israel (courtesy of HP after buying our new 7500 digital press), Gary was coordinating the de-install of our old press with the install of the new press and changing our work flow to accommodate larger paper sizes.

While our creative team was having fun planning the marketing of our new envelope capabilities, Gary was helping his team learn to print on the new envelope printer. If you’re a designer, most likely you’ll soon receive a sample of our new envelopes – 5 various-sized envelopes, each with personalization on the front, nested within each other. Gary had the challenge of planning that one.

While our sales team was spreading the news about our new perfect binding and photo book capabilities, Gary and his crew were busy testing lay-flat pages and learning how to create wrap-around hard cover books.

And of course, all the above had to be accomplished without compromising the deadlines of our regular work.

So there you have it – the introduction of new products from the perspective of an operations manager. It’s essentially a lot of work and a lot of stress, with little recognition. But fortunately, ImageSet is blessed with a production leader and crew who see the big picture, and will put up with virtually any hardship if it makes our customers happy, and grows our business.

So if you’re glad to finally have the benefits of short-run digital envelope printing, the cost savings of a larger sheet size, or on-demand book binding – thank Gary and his back-room crew – Miguel, Cesar, Ruben, Sam, Kenny, Scot, and Jill – they’re the folks really making it happen.

Rule One: Limit Your Fonts
Good design should have an overall look that is consistent. The fonts you select are the first variable you want to limit. I typically like to pick just 2 fonts per design; a header font which can have flare that your audience focuses on and a secondary body copy font that is very legible for larger amounts of content.

Rule Two: Limit Your Colors
Start with a color strategy and stick with it. Use the color palette you’ve set up cohesively throughout your design. Keep in mind color values, the brightness or darkness of the color will allow flexibility within your color scheme.

Rule Three: Add Contrast
Contrast is the value difference between the colors in the design. Contrast, when used properly can be an important tool. When misused can cause vibrating, which happens when two colors together of the same value seem to pulsate. If you use contrast properly you can draw attention to a specific area within your design.

Rule Four: Be Aware Of Spacing
Try not to put too much content into too small of a space. Space allows your copy to be easily read and your overall design to have flow. You can accomplish good spacing by using a grid, it’s your underlying system of organization for your entire design.

Rule Five: Add Depth
Depth (or dimension) is basically, what makes something look extraordinary. Adding depth to your design will help it bust off the page, or conversely, pull the viewer in. Here are a few techniques to help accomplish depth: overlap objects; vary object size, line weight and depth of field or focus; add drop shadows and adjust perspective.

Rule Six: Have Movement Throughout
Creating a sense of movement through a design assists in giving the end-user a clear path for their eye to follow. Sometimes this movement is instrumental in directing the viewer’s eye to the places you want them to look and even the sequence in which you want them to look.

Rule Seven: Put It All Together
Design composition is what you get when you skillfully combine all the pieces together to form a whole. The design should achieve function (purpose), which is determined by the client. Understand your design’s goal, know who the target market is and keep the industry history in mind.

It’s a challenge to educate about good design practices and why they should be done properly. But my motto is clean, consistent, functional and less is best. And finally, when you know the rules you can break them successfully!

This challenge is not entirely new. Marketing has always been a numbers game to some extent, and acquiring new customers has always required a lot of effort. As the old saying goes, “To find a prince, you have to kiss a lot of frogs.” Empowered and independent buyers make the job even more difficult than it was in the past.

There’s no silver bullet that will completely eliminate the “frog kissing,” but there are several steps you can take to improve your marketing efforts. These are basic, well-known marketing principles, but they’re worth repeating.

• Define your target market – Understand what kinds of buyers make your best prospects and focus your marketing efforts on those buyers.
• Use accurate data – Make sure your prospect contact information is accurate.
• Make your offers as relevant as possible – Use information about your prospects to customize your marketing messages and materials.

Following these three principles will make your marketing efforts more effective, but there’s a fourth component of effective marketing that’s equally important – persistence.

In the 1930′s, the film industry conducted research and concluded, on average, a person had to see seven advertisements for a movie before he or she would buy a ticket.

Over time, this concept became widely used throughout the marketing industry and came to be known as the Rule of 7. In its current incarnation, the Rule of 7 says that a potential buyer must be exposed to a marketing message seven times before he or she will respond.

Seven may not always be the right number, but  it’s undeniable it takes more than one offer to entice most potential buyers to respond. This is especially true in customer acquisition marketing, where you are reaching out to potential buyers who may know very little about your company.

So, you need to treat marketing as an ongoing process – a series of planned contacts that are regular and relatively frequent – rather than as a one-time campaign or sporadic event.

When it comes to marketing in today’s environment, the old saying needs to be expanded a bit: “To find a prince, you have to kiss a lot of frogs, and you usually have to kiss the frogs more than once.”

For the record, we are not morphing into:

• A social media company
• A marketing strategy consultant
• An advertising agency

What we are transitioning into is a marketing communication service provider who helps companies plan, produce, execute, and analyze all kinds of conversation starters, from print to  email to mobile to social media.

Yes, printing is still a big part of what we do, but  we acknowledge printing is only one way to communicate a company’s message and branding.

As our customer’s customers and prospects migrate to non-print digital media, we’re incorporating those forms of communication into print, and sometimes even eliminating print altogether.

For example, we’re creating and adding 2D barcodes onto signage, direct mail and business cards so recipients can respond via smartphones.

We’re creating customized web portals for   ordering marketing collateral and as often as     not, these portals contain non-print marketing communications such as emails and PDFs.

Instead of just printing and addressing static postcards, we’re adding personalized URLs with interactive landing pages to help companies engage in conversations with their customers.

And in addition to printing event collateral, we’re creating customized event sites where attendees can register and access hotel and venue information from a cell phone or tablet computer.

If today’s new world of marketing communications has changed the way you converse with your customers, we can help you start, sustain, continue and enhance the conversation.

Just as this conversation started with print, it can continue in many different forms. So for more information, call us, email us, scan us, friend us, share us, or tweet us. Regardless of your communication medium preference, we’ll be there!

Let’s see…there are a whole variety of terms that were bantered around in the past few days, which include: Marketing Services Provider, Marketing Communications Organization, Cross-Media Communications Channel Partner, and so on and so on. From time to time, as you gathered in the back of meeting rooms folks began to really talk about the true challenges they face. We all come from some form of the print industry. And our industry has been in a rapid state of change over the last couple years. The world of print remains a very important channel in the communication process, but the true thought leaders in our industry have begun to focus on the actual content itself. Well managed content can be integrated into personalized communications which deliver targeted, personalized content in a timely and relevant manner across a variety of channels which include print, email, web, and even video.  Organizations who have delivered stellar quality products and services for several generations are being forced to reinvent themselves and their go-to-market strategies. 

I, for one am excited to watch the future of marketing communications unfold. Although we hear the term “cross- media” used quite often, what we are really talking about is multi-channel interactive communications. The ability to deliver content across a variety of channels and then engage and expand distribution based on the recipient’s preferences is nothing short of awesome. 

Industry experts project a continued growth and sophistication in the ability to centralize, manage and personalize and respond to these targeted messages. And, based on recent studies which indicate consumers are responding well to shared media, we can count on continued investment into the social media channel. 

The future of our market segment offers a great deal of opportunity for those of us who are willing to hang on, or even better for those of us who choose to lead.

Each of his points, when taken into consideration while planning a campaign can make a huge difference.  We have to remember that we want quality vs. quantity when it comes to targeting our audience.  The purpose of the code is to provide a shortcut to a more enhanced dialogue between two parties.

I can’t tell you how many codes I have clicked on which simply dropped me off onto a website with no planned path for me to take.  As the use of 2D bar codes become more common place, and more sophisticated, I think we will begin to see some very interesting trends in how we can automate and nurture the lead acquisition process.  Stay tuned folks…this should get fun…

“Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.”

So what does this mean when using color in design?

Effective use of color is all about relationships and communicating your brand’s message. Without spinning the color wheel to hard, there are some simple theories at work. Color has relationship values to other colors on the wheel. But the color wheel can be used or ignored and you could use color meaning instead. Just as design is subjective, color meaning and theory aren’t an exact science either. And if you ask several people, you get different answers as to what a particular color means, but one needs a starting point, so I’ve listed some accepted color meanings (source www.aboutlogodesign):

• Red evokes aggressiveness, passion, strength and vitality
• Pink evokes femininity, innocence, softness and health
• Orange evokes fun, cheeriness and warm exuberance
• Yellow evokes positivity, sunshine and cowardice
• Green evokes tranquility, health and freshness
• Blue evokes authority, dignity, security and faithfulness
• Purple evokes sophistication, spirituality, costliness, royalty and mystery
• Brown evokes utility, earthiness, woodsy-ness and subtle richness
• White evokes purity, truthfulness, being contemporary and refined
• Gray evokes somberness, authority, practicality and a corporate mentality
• Black evokes seriousness, distinctiveness, boldness and being classic

Remember, colors can have different meanings for different people – it’s all about context and your brand as a whole. As a designer considering and understanding the power of color and how to use it effectively for your brand’s goals are key to an overall good brand message. Discover the reason for color and use it your maximum advantage.

Kathi Woolsey, VP of Marketing and Sales at ImageSet is proud to be part of the speaking roster chosen to share expertise and knowledge at PODi’s AppForum, the longest running independent digital print conference in the industry. She will be featured as part of a panel discussion focused on  “Successfully Selling Digital Solutions”, an exploration of “Transitioning to a Marketing Services Provider.”

Learn about what’s best and what’s next in direct marketing, cross media, QR codes, digital packaging, personalized video, augmented reality, web-to-print, social media, and more. Get unbiased straight talk and make lasting connections that will help you make better decisions in your targeted marketing efforts.

We’re happy to be able to offer you an exclusive Speaker discount on your AppForum ticket. Use this code when you register: SPK2012DIS, and enjoy a special $100 “ImageSet” Discount. Click here for more information: http://www.appforum.org/?red_attempt=1&sessionId=4A7yFd4kunCJHqZMYwTJDJR9KCZyAKec

Sales growth is at the top of the agenda in the boardroom. Buyers are not buying the same way they did in the “pre-recession” era. For those of us responsible for growing sales, we’ve got to develop new strategies and processes.

Whether you are selling to a prospective business partner or targeting the consumer, you must be able to address three key items in order to get the sale: Timing, offer  and relevancy.

Luck certainly plays a role in the entire effort. To sell my services to you, you must be “in the mood” to buy (timing). I have seen many folks over the years trying to strong arm a prospect into doing business with them. If they aren’t ready to buy…they’re not going to buy. Period.  I must be able to provide you with a compelling reason to buy my products or services and my offer must meet some sort of goal or objective for you. Otherwise, why would you choose to do business with me?

Technology has added a layer of complexity   to the sales process. Customers are able to find what they want online 24/7; they have voice mail to screen calls, and budgets are tight. So, if I want to sell something to you, I’d better have an appealing offer.

Relevancy is the third component in successful sales. To make a sale, I must be able to demonstrate how my products or services relate to YOU. It all sounds so logical and yet often we forget to address one or more of these elements and we lose the sale.

For the last several years marketers have been honing in on better ways to target their audience. If done successfully, it is both cost-effective and delivers results. This same methodology must be applied in sales efforts in order to be able to effectively grow sales.

As we watch the economic rebound, we must keep in mind that we are not simply returning to “normal”.  We are facing a new normal, and if we want to grow our businesses we’ve got to be tuned into those three key elements. Timing, offer and relevancy.

Happy Hunting!