Most of us are already familiar with the four "P"s of marketing. They include Product, Price, Promotion, and Placement. With the challenges surrounding the sale of a cross-media solution, InfoTrends has identified four "P"s for a successful cross-media sales approach. Selling a cross-media solution in today's market requires the following critical attributes:

Proactivity
Proficiency
Patience
Performance

In today's economy, business doesn't come to you on served on a silver platter. In the past, printers were transaction-driven and were able to wait for customers to reorder jobs, but today's salespeople must proactively seek projects and clients.

Customers don't come knocking on your door anymore, so you have to drum up your own business. Business owners and salespeople commonly complain that there's not enough business out there, or that they're struggling to find new clients when nobody is spending money on marketing and advertising. The truth is that people are still spending money, but they are spending it differently.

In late 2010, InfoTrends published a Multi-Client study entitled The Cross-Media Direct Marketing Opportunity. Over 500 marketers were asked how many different types of media they used for a typical direct marketing campaign, and the average number was three. This means that salespeople who are focused only on printing are missing two-thirds of the business opportunity.

Figure 1: How many different types of media does your company use for a typical direct marketing campaign?