BY WTT Columnist Bill Farquharson September 9, 2002 -- The email read: "Take This Magic Pill, You’ll Lose 30 Pounds, Grow Your Hair Back, Turn Back the Clock Five Years and Effectively Market Digital Printing in Just Ten Days …Guaranteed!"* Sadly, if you found such a SPAM email in your inbox, you’d probably open it and buy whatever was offered. Printers LOVE quick fixes almost as much as they LOVE to buy equipment. But when it comes to marketing and market planning (digital or otherwise), that’s a different story. The seminars I offer on sales issues sell out, whether the subject is on digital, offset, or prospecting. The ones on marketing issues create as much interest as a Boy George reunion tour. If someone sent you an email entitled "A Plan for Digital Printing" you’d not only throw it away you’d call the FCC and complain about the obscene communication you’d received. Marketing? Plan? Hogwash! Digital printing sells itself. I saw a pie chart at a trade show that said so. You just open the door and yell, "We’ve Got Digital!!!" and then watch the clicks mount up. I received an email yesterday from a printer in California that prompted this ranting. He was terribly frustrated over the lack of response he’d received to his recent digital sales efforts. "They either have digital equipment in-house or go to Kinko’s," he complained. In his message, however, he made an interesting comment while explaining a little about his background. His strength, he noted, was in the prepress department. Then, he went on to give a full description of his product list, right down to the voltage each box used. With such a wide array of iron, he bemused, how could anyone not want to buy from him? Can I save you a trip to a seminar on marketing digital printing? All you need to know about the subject can be summed up in this statement: "It’s the File, Stupid" You need to become technically superior to your competition. Let your clients know that you excel (pun intended) in the major software programs and can help them with their file issues. Run educational seminars of your own and show your customers how to make print ready files from Publisher, PageMaker, Quark, InDesign, Word, and that program written by Satan, Corel Draw. ANYONE can create this stuff, but not just anyone can prepare the file. Marketing digital printing is about education. It is a one-on-one process that requires your sitting with a client and teaching him/her how to make it work on their computer using their software. In the old days of printing (circa 1995), if you owned the negatives and plates you owned the customer, now if you own the file you own the customer. Focus your marketing message on that goal and it will not fail you. *MAGIC PILL FINE PRINT: Some settling may occur during shipping; Your mileage may vary; There is no MSG in Chinese Food; Allow 4-6 months for shipping; There are no quick, profitable digital printing applications; Offer void after swallowing.