A recent article on the Memphis Daily News Website about Consolidated Graphics-owned Mercury Printing's customer education program is a perfect example of another great opportunity to engage your customers and potential customers (Read last week's Trade Shows Should be an Important Part of Your Marketing Strategy for another opportunity).
The Daily News article includes a quote from a Mercury customer that shows the relevance and influence educational seminars can have:
As director of communications for Lipscomb & Pitts Insurance, Amy Bingham said she has found the courses beneficial. Bingham has attended courses on direct mail and Adobe seminars at CGX.
Lipscomb & Pitts already is a client of Mercury, so Bingham said in her case, she doesn't believe being invited to attend the free seminar was some sort of pitch to show how Mercury could help take care of the company's print needs.
"It was more along the lines of showing me the different options that I have as the communications director of Lipscomb & Pitts," she said, adding that she would love to attend any future seminars offered at the university.
Offering a "Print Buying 101" seminar that will familiarize your new (and old) customers with terms, materials and processes is a great place to start. Other seminars topics will depend on your service offerings and and audience.
If you have recently integrated digital printing into your service offerings, hold a seminar on designing for digital print. Offer Variable Information printing? Invite customers to attend a seminar to learn more about the technology and the potential marketing rewards of using it in their next campaign.
If you have "greened" your operation, hold a seminar to show the benefits of using sustainable materials and processes in their communications.
Customer education programs and seminars are a great way to engage your customers and potential customers. They provide a opportunity for print buyers and media specifiers to learn more about your service offerings and the printing industry. They can increase sales when customers learn how to leverage modern printing technology. They can lead to reduced production costs (for you and your customer) when customers learn how to submit the appropriate premedia files, and project manage print jobs.
I would be interested in hearing from printers that have hosted educational seminars for customers. What topics are hot? What has reaction been to them?
Discussion
By David Locke on Dec 12, 2007
One of the things that print customers miss is including contact info in their marketing print. Then, you get to calls to action, in particular requests for another document, print or online. If customers used unique contact addresses for each document, then they could use web analytics to justify print the same way that moving things away from print and to online. The ROI would be obvious.
This leaves several opportunities for printers to educate their clients. If you taught customers about enactment chains, you could capture more print and fulfillment work from each customer. If you taught touchpoint design, likewise more work and more of the customer's lifetime value.
By Michael Josefowicz on Dec 12, 2007
This makes a lot of sense. Just wanted to add 2 cents as I have been in the formal education space at Parsons teaching designers for 7 years and until last May and now at a Bottom of the Pyramid High School in NY. The research and my experience says that the most effective education is when it is embedded in the day job activities of people. While separate sessions can be very useful, the real payoff happens when "learning" can happen at "teachable moments". Teachable moments happen when someone has to solve a real life problem. Given how many real life problems printers' customers are entangled with the printers, this might actually be an opportunity to learn that is even greater than in formal courses. Given the newest developments in on line learning and web 2.0 conversation management tools, this may turn out to be a real differentiator for the printing companies that really focus on it.
By April Biddle on Dec 13, 2007
If you build it, they will come!
It's all about presenting the right material at the right time, to the right audience. Hosting educational seminars for our prospects and customers has proved very valuable.
We've had success presenting new techologies that enable better marketing results, as well as design-focused seminars. From the surveys we've done, attendees really appreciate the offering.
Discussion
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