Print Solutions December 2006
Cover story
What Are Your Clients Thinking?
Print buyers want tech-savvy printers that are strong in customer service and
offer multiple solutions.
by Lashell Stratton
She should have known something was off when he didn’t bring a briefcase.
Linda Patterson, traffic and production coordinator for the publications
division of the Museum of Science, had agreed to meet with a prospective print
vendor. She had invited him to her office because he said he wanted to discuss
“the museum’s customer needs.”
The Boston institution buys a lot of print and her division keeps a list of
nearly 20 manufacturers and distributors for potential jobs. Patterson says her
four graphic artists alone will contract about 700 print jobs this year that
include banners, catalogs, exhibit displays, brochures and scratch-off cards.
This vendor stood the chance of gaining a good client.
“So I asked to see some of his samples. He told me, ‘I didn’t bring any. I just wanted to discuss the museum’s needs first,’” she says with a chuckle. “But I need to know what you’re offering! It’s great that you want to talk about my needs, but you have to have a product
that you believe in!”
It was a silly mistake, meeting with a prospect empty-handed. A veteran
distributor would scoff at such a blunder but many of the print buyers
interviewed for this article shared similar tales of woe: A sales rep that made
a great pitch but never followed up, or a manufacturer who repeatedly produced
bleeding or hickeys on print jobs despite warnings that they were on the verge
of losing a valued customer.
“I don’t like unresolved problems or if they aren’t up front about making mistakes,” says Mimi Reid, office manager at the graphic arts firm, Addwater2, in Sonoma,
Calif.
“Mistakes happen but they should be able to admit when they did something wrong.”
To keep them happy, print buyers expect their distributors and manufacturers to
do four basic things. All fall under the realm of
“Good Salesmanship 101”:
1) Treat your customers with respect and show that you appreciate their
business.
2) Always keep lines of communication open.
3) Offer not only a good price, but value added service.
4) Understand their industry and the needs that drive each customer.
Also, despite complaints by some distributors and manufacturers that variable
data printing has yet to catch on with customers, many corporate print buyers
feel the pull of VDP and are looking for printers who can provide that
solution. With the responsibilities of print buyers becoming more diverse, they
tend to consolidate purchases to fewer printers who offer a multitude of
services and products, from commercial printing to mailing and fulfillment, and
even ad specialties.
“Buyers have figured out if they use too many suppliers it’s very taxing on their company,” says Suzanne Morgan, president and founder of Print Communications
Professionals International and printbuyersonline.com.
“If they had a huge list of suppliers, they’ve probably dropped it down to 100. If they had 100 suppliers, maybe now they
have only 10 or more.”
Print Buyers: An Elusive Folk
Part of the problem of understanding exactly what print buyers want and need is
the fact that they are so different. Print buyers are often dispersed
throughout corporations, agencies and non-profit organizations. They could be
in purchasing, marketing, corporate communications, creative services,
admissions offices, media relations or editorial departments. They could be the
company
’s marketing assistant, production specialist or even its office manager.
"The fact that [a print buyer is] probably a woman influences how you talk to them, what you show them and even how your web site should look."
Margie Dana, Print Buying Consultant & Founder
Boston Print Buyers, Boston
“The thing is that you don’t have just one person doing print buying anymore,” says Bob Davies of Printing Industries of Northern California. Davies says his
association has someone on staff to track down print buyers in organizations in
his region.
“The job is normally broken down among lots of different people who wouldn’t have done it decades ago. There’s not even a listing of ‘print buyers’ in the yellow pages or even company directories. They’re hard to find.”
But there are some characteristics of the “print buyer” that seem to remain consistent.
“It’s probably a woman who has a college degree,” says Margie Dana, a print buying consultant who founded Boston Print Buyers in
2004.
“But she tends not to have a lot of background in graphic arts.”
Katelyn Turner, assistant director of Alumni Relations at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, fits the “average print buyer” archetype. Turner studied English in college, but has had to learn about print
buying and printing during the course of her career.
“In this job, I have not been trained,” Turner admits. “However, in my previous job at Recorded Books LLC, as an editor, I was exposed
to the print buying and print process. The phrase I most dread hearing is
‘We have lots of blueline changes.’”
Ken Posman, manager of the Rochester Institute of Technology Industry Education
Programs, says for many of those who sign up for RIT
’s seminar on Print Buying Essentials, “most likely, it may be the first time in a long time that they’ve had official training. There are people who are new to print buying and there
are those who are just getting a refresher course in new technologies.”
Dana says these characteristics of the average corporate print buyer—female, college educated, little or no printing industry background—are very important. “The fact that it’s probably a woman influences how you talk to them, what you show them and even
how your web site should look,” she says. Dana remembers when she supervised several female print buyers at a
financial services company
“and each day sales reps would come in that were these ex-college jocks, athletic
types that kept talking about golf. Needless to say, they really didn
’t speak to us.”
She says most print buyers don’t read trade journals and aren’t going to do a lot of research into the industry. “They know only what their vendors tell them,” Dana says. “They don’t have the time to pay attention to rising paper prices or ink. It’s important for their print providers to keep feeding them information.”
Pat Nichols, senior production manager at Nicholson Kovac Inc., a marketing firm
in Kansas City, Mo., agrees.
“We expect our vendors to keep us up on things,” she says. “Our printers usually tell us about these things before it hits the trade
journals.”
For the print buyer, time is always an issue. She is a multi-tasker whose job
partially consists of print buying.
“It’s much more of a broader job now, especially because many are working on web
content too,” Dana says.
In addition, corporate print buyers often operate autonomously within their
companies.
“Print buyers in corporations are the only ones who typically know about
printing,” Dana says. “It allows you to work independently, but it can get lonely. Print buyers often
have to defend their decision to management for why they chose Printer A over
Printer B. They may win the battle; they may not. That
’s why I call print buyers, ‘the company stepchild.’ But what’s really true about the buyers is that they love what they do. They’re very passionate about printing. They often tend to know more about printing
than their own industry. I was in financial services for 11 years and I still
know more about printing than I know about mutual funds.”
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Insights About Print Buyers:
They’d rather get an email. Many say they’d rather communicate with vendors by email than by phone or face-to-face to keep
a documented trail of conversations.
Keep the schmoozing to a minimum. Their time is precious and a manufacturer or
distributor who acts too friendly can annoy them and scare them off.
Understand that not all print buyers are created equal. The skill set of print
buyers varies widely. When you make your sales pitch, modify your presentation
accordingly.
They’ll remain loyal if you treat them well. Even though a competitor may offer lower
prices, some print buyers have been with vendors for decades because of their
quality work and customer service. Some even follow the good sales reps as they
move to a new companies based on this superior service.
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A Happy Customer Is a Loyal Customer
William Fong, owner of Wilmer Fong Designs, San Leandro, Calif., says the
longest he
’s been with one of his five local printers is 29 years and the shortest is three
to four years. He switched to one printer
“simply because the sales rep moved so I followed the rep. The others have
dropped off mostly because my business load has decreased over the last few
years. A couple went out of business and one I tried to start a new
relationship with recently but they weren
’t proactive in following up.”
The ways that Fong came across these vendors varies widely. One he knew before
he started his business. One was an office neighbor who was nearby and
“just seemed like the right fit.” Fong says he met his digital printer at a trade show and he struggles to
remember if he came across his large format printer through a cold call or
referral.
Frederica Allen, a print procurement specialist, says Fineline Graphics and
Design, Santa Clara, Calif., keeps a list of about nine printers to handle its
two million print pieces a year. But the graphic artists at the design firm
have all worked with these printers before, back when they were designers or
production managers at other companies.
“We just continued the relationship,” Allen says.
Though customer loyalty can wax and wane in such a competitive market, Dana says
print buyers are more likely to stick with companies they trust and feel
comfortable with.
“It all depends on how well their long-term printer knows them, their
idiosyncrasies and how their corporation works,” Dana says. “Plus, the bigger the job, the less likely they are to move on to someone else.”
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What Clients Want!
A rough survey of print buyers yielded findings about their preferences and
dislikes.
They’re interested in:
1) Digital printing and VDP
2) Multi-service providers (This includes mailing and fulfillment capabilities
and the selling of promotional products.)
The top four attributes that will keep them coming back:
1) Honesty
2) Strong customer service
3) Quick turnaround
4) Competitive pricing
The top four things that scare them off:
1) Repeated mistakes
2) Not admitting when you’re wrong
3) Delayed response to requests
4) Demonstrating little understanding of the products or their industry
The top five products*:
1) Brochures
2) Short-run printing
3) Digital printing
4) Newsletters
5) Direct mail
*Source: Print Communications Professionals International, www.pcpi.org
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What will make them break customer loyalty?
“Service is usually at issue when we let someone go,” says Nichols. “It’s one of those key factors. They need to be very responsive to what we need, and
keep in touch with us. They need to keep us informed so that if there are any
problems, we know early in the process.”
“I’d drop a printer if they didn’t respond to my inquiries in a timely manner,” Turner says. “Or if they charged an exorbitant amount for edits and if their printing was
sloppy, meaning the finished product wasn
’t crisp and clean and you have too much bleeding.”
In contrast, Patterson says she’s turned off by printers who have a “one size fits all” approach to selling. “It’s a combination package. It is quality, price and service,” Patterson says. “You have to take what you’re selling and match it to the right customer. Not all print buyers are created
equally. An executive assistant who is doing print buying is very different
from someone like me who agonizes over color quality and what the type looks
like.”
All Things Digital Are on the Minds of Print Buyers
The preferences of print buyers are not limited to how they like their printers
to behave and how they like them to respond to their needs. They are also
showing preferences for specific products and applications. According to both
Dana and Morgan, who have polled members of their organizations, digital
printing is growing in popularity among print buyers.
“One of the things we’re starting to see is that buyers are most interested in digital and VDP,” Morgan says. “We keep getting feedback that they want more information in those areas. In the
last few years, I
’ve also seen the shift from buyers just showing interest to actually purchasing
these applications.”
Print buyers are also responding to applications that can be used with digital
printing like web-to-print.
“Web-to-print is highly popular in addition to online stores,” Morgan says.
Mimi Reid, office manager of Addwater2, agrees that in addition to a printer
giving her convenience and a quick turnaround, she also considers it
“a plus if they can do online pricing.”
"Printers that have a niche still have something
that differentiates them from their competitors,
which is important."
Suzanne Morgan, President & Founder
Print Communications Professionals International, Alexandria, Va.
Another trend that Dana and Morgan see among corporate print buyers is
consolidation of services to fewer printers.
“The buyers see that as the number of suppliers goes down the quality increases
and they are able to better manage their brands,” Morgan says. “This is all part of the workflow, which remains a big concern. They want more
efficiency between the buying company and the supplier. This includes
everything from proofing to digital asset management to color management. Of
course, the downside of all of this is, the more collaboration between the
buying companies and the suppliers, the smaller the supplier base will have to
be, which means some companies that aren
’t as innovative will probably be left out in the cold.”
This doesn’t mean that the market will be gobbled up by large printers who can offer a
multitude of services and products. Printers that offer multiple print
solutions fall in line with the
“integrated marketing communications” ideal—a type of marketing that may not only include print but also the internet and
other channels.
“Printers that have a niche still have something that differentiates them from
their competitors, which is important,” Morgan says.
According to many print buyers, most printers fail in the area of
differentiation.
“We recently did a poll and asked print buyers how successful their suppliers
were in differentiating themselves from their competitors,” Morgan says. “Nearly 53 percent of the buyers rated their printers as poor to fair. Suppliers
have to really think about branding themselves and finding what makes them
unique in the marketplace.”
LaShell Stratton is assistant editor at Print Solutions magazine. Email comments
to lstratton@PSDA.org.
