Mastering Marketing in a Constantly Evolving Digital Landscape

It’s no secret that like most things, marketing has changed significantly over the years. At one point, a successful marketing campaign might have been taking ads out in the local paper, or even getting a commercial played on your city’s radio station. Today, marketing success is measured by how many subscribers your newsletter e-blasts have or how many clicks your LinkedIn post receives.

So, what can print service providers (PSPs) do to get the most out of their marketing campaigns? How can they stay ahead of the curve in this ever-evolving landscape where one minute, you’re perfecting newsletter subject lines, and the next, your Generation Z marketing person is making you learn a TikTok dance? There isn’t one answer, but we chatted with marketing experts from Vomela, Phase 3 Marketing and Communications, and Hatteras to offer guidance.

Make it Conversational and Educational

If you were to ask Susan Frost, the senior vice president of marketing and business development at Phase 3 Marketing and Communications, based in Atlanta, part of making a successful marketing campaign is making someone feel like they’re talking to another human. Don’t be afraid to add a little swagger or emotion into your content.

“First and foremost, you have to be human; the copy that you send to people needs to sound like it’s coming from another person,” Frost says. “We’re all bombarded with a million emails a day, and I never want to come across as a hard sell — I really want it to be more like a conversation.”

Frost explains that over the 20 years Phase 3 has been in business, it has been able to grow a robust client database through numerous acquisitions and expansions, so before anything else, Phase 3 aims to mine and maintain the clients it already has. To do so, Frost explains that Phase 3 has utilized several email marketing strategies over the years, but its most recent email campaign has really worked in Phase 3’s favor.

“We’ve done the typical newsletter stuff, but what we do now is more of a thought leadership case. It’s sent out from our executive vice president of sales and marketing, Jenny Harris, and it really is more educational,” Frost says.

According to Frost, these thought leadership cases typically link to a blog post on Phase 3’s website and they've done really well with its customer base.

Teri Mascotti, the director of brand marketing for St. Paul, Minnesota-based Vomela, agrees that marketing campaigns should have an educational aspect. Especially now that Gen Z print buyers are entering the market.

“We’re finding that with a new generation of print buyers, there’s not as much education at their level, so we’re providing them content by way of educating them. ‘What type of print would be best for me?’ 'What substrates can I use to design an interior of a building?’”

Mascotti, like Frost, believes that at the end of the day, people are people, and they’ll respond best when they feel like they’re talking to another person, and not an AI-generated blog.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a business or a consumer, people gravitate toward that human emotion. And I think that ChatGPT doesn’t necessarily have that,” Mascotti says.

Social Media Is Your Friend

In this day and age, having a social media presence is critical. Mascotti describes it as an awareness tool that also acts like a “beauty brochure” that allows you to show existing and potential clients the amazing work that you do.

“When COVID hit, digital selling strategies really expanded," Mascotti says. "So many of our sales team members needed a way to get in front of their customers. They couldn’t get face to face. Sometimes people weren’t even accepting Zoom calls or Teams calls because they weren’t physically in an office. So, we thought the best way to share with people our beautiful images, some of our content, and the work that we’re doing is putting it out across social media channels."

Michael Noerr, chief marketing officer at Hatteras, says that his company, based in Tinton Falls, New Jersey, is very active on social media and uses it as an awareness tool to boast Hatteras’ abilities, client stories, staff accomplishments, and so on.

Given that social media is a tool, however, you need to know how to use that tool correctly — just posting isn’t enough.

“You can get people to like a post. But ultimately, you want them to act on it. And we know that they’re eventually coming to the website, and that they’re eventually requesting quotes,” Mascotti says.
And to measure who is coming from social media to Vomela’s website, Mascotti says it utilizes HubSpot business software to track how well social media posts are doing. Phase 3 uses it as well.

Noerr agrees that social media is a tool to generate conversation, not just to like a post. “Since our marketing and sales teams are closely aligned, the sales team is pretty good about sharing the company’s posts and helping to cast a wider net, he says. "It’s common that our social media posts turn into new discussions, quoting opportunities, and new customers.”

Frost says that Phase 3 also uses social media as a primary marketing platform through sponsored social media posts that take place primarily on LinkedIn. “We use our customer list and being able to look at engagement for which people from our customer lists are actually engaging with our content and trying to create more content that people engage with.”

Not Everything Has To Be Digital

Say you are old school, and you want part of your marketing strategy to be face-to-face, you’re in luck because in-person events also serve as a fantastic marketing tool.

“We’ve been having success with trade shows and conferences," Noerr says. Being able to meet face-to-face with prospective clients, allowing them to interact with our team and hear about examples of how we’re helping brands like theirs overcome challenges and leverage the power of print has been very effective in accelerating the sales cycle and generating new relationships."

Frost says Phase 3 holds private industry events where attendees can come and view look books the company has put together. And while it’s not an event, says Mascotti, it utilizes direct mail marketing, which is actually growing.

“One of our divisions does what we call intelligent mail, and it uses a personal URL to feed you, as a recipient of this direct mail piece, exactly what you like. It’s like if you were a patient at a healthcare facility, they know what you’ve been through, or whether you’re a cancer patient or not. This is very similar. So, we’re one of the few printers in the country who has a SOC 2 certification to protect a company’s data.”

If you’re a PSP thinking about upping your marketing game, whether through educational blogs, tradeshows, or direct mail, Mascotti has this word of advice for you: “So rarely does a sales rep in today’s market get to that level of intimacy that they used to. But they can do it with the help of a good marketing team. So don’t look at it as it’s going to cost us money to do it. Look at it as there’s a great return on your investment when you do marketing.”