Printing companies now have their own industry-based marketing manual to help to reach their positioning and competitiveness goals with the release of the Australian written and produced, A Practical Guide to Marketing your Printing Business.
The 230-page manual, available through Printing Industries, contains just about everything a printing company could need to create and implement their own marketing plan.
Printing Industries National Communication and Technical Services Manager, Joe Kowalewski, said the manual could best be viewed as the business “workflow system” for printing companies in the same way a production workflow system was essential to achieve and maintain good production standards.
“The marketing plan identifies and brings together critical elements of the business into a focussed system of processes and actions to achieve your objectives – and for a printing company that’s usually about market positioning in order to gain new business and maximise profitability,” he said.
The manual is a hands-on how do to it guide across a wide range of marketing areas including the use of branding, advertising, public relations, promotions, employee training, customer service, incentives and loyalty programs, complaint management, identifying prospects, and staff engagement. It even covers the use of delivery trucks and presentation of premises.
Author John Weaver spent more than three years compiling the manual based on his 30 year career in the graphics arts industry as a graphic designer, business manager, marketer, print buyer and print manager. He is head of the Weavers Design Group providing visual communications solutions for print and electronic media.
“John was always conscious of the difficulty printers had in marketing themselves in constantly changing and challenging environments. Many either didn’t have the resources or understanding of how to market their business,” Mr Kowalewski said.
“He set about bringing together into a book the ideas and techniques that could help. In order to make all this information user-friendly, the book became a step-by-step manual finally launched as A Practical Guide to Marketing your Printing Business.
“Importantly, the manual answers the “how do I do it?” questions. There are detailed templates and explanatory guides for every section – from the basics of writing to clients (what do I say?) to monitoring and measuring campaign results – the basic work has been done for you. Just customise, print and action the components you want.”
The manual is sectioned for easy use and has an accompanying CD with all the referenced marketing templates and proforma letters for campaigns.
A Practical Guide to Marketing your Printing Business is available from Printing Industries' bookstore at www.printnet.com.au for $395 (members $345) via this link or by calling (02) 8789 7316.
Printing Industries Association of Australia
www.printnet.com.au
