Innovation, Focus, Digital: all keywords to their success

I recently had the opportunity to visit four printing firms in the Rochester/Buffalo NY area and was delighted with the level of enthusiasm the leaders of these innovative firms bring to the office with them each day. Their stories are worth sharing.  We hope you enjoy these brief vignettes of Cohber, Mercury, Monroe Litho and Packstar.  Also watch for upcoming video interviews on WhatTheyThink.  There is a lot more under the covers at each of these firms!  Part one covers Cohber and Mercury, while Part Two covers Monroe Litho and Packstar.

Eric Webber, President & CEO of Cohber (formerly known as Cohber Press) is the third generation Webber to join the company, after gaining a degree in Finance from Indiana University. Cohber, located in Rochester, NY, has 91 employees and annual revenues of $15.2 million.

The company was an early adopter of digital printing and variable data.  According to Webber, "In 1997, we started pursuing the education and gaming (casino) vertical markets.  They had data you could work with, and we believed data would be an increasingly important component of marketing programs."

In 2011, Cohber expects to achieve 50% of its revenues from digital and 50% from sheetfed. Webber adds, "We focus on everything being done under one roof."

As for sales, Webber indicates that the company has tried a number of different configurations since 1997, and now has a sales force that is responsible for selling the entire suite of services.  He says, "They understand return on marketing investment, the right questions to ask, and they listen. Their objective is to give suspects, prospects and customers a bigger bang for the marketing dollar, with web-driven, data-driven services.  To be successful today, you need to be talking about combining the power of print with the power of the Internet, and our sales team gets that. You still need an infrastructure to support individuals.  All of them have different degrees of understanding and presentation capabilities.  We do a lot of team selling."

Cohber has also experimented with a number of customer-facing web front ends.  Webber explains, "We now have a homegrown storefront system.  With a packaged system, you always reach a point where a customer wants a custom hook and we couldn't do it. Sometimes that would be a dealbreaker. We have a team of six data experts here that can do anything, and we haven't had to say no. We have people capable of writing various degrees of code, people who can do Rules Based Automation." Today, about 20% of Cohber's work comes through web portals and the company expects that to continue to grow. As customers get more experience using these portals, according to Webber, they are changing the way they are marketing. The projects and campaigns may not be as print-centric-they are moving to more of a cross-media format. Webber says, "As this happens, customers will spend more because they are making more."

Cohber is also experimenting with QR codes. Webber explains, "You have to practice what you preach.  Each sales rep has a couple different QR codes on their business cards; one is directions to the plant; the other goes to a web site explaining QR codes. We have done about eight different QR code jobs; one was tied to Google Maps, another linked back to a web site for a special offer in the form of a coupon, and we have done some trade show QR code applications, anything from Visit Booth #65, to having them visit a web site or enter a contest to win something."