Turning Problems into Opportunities

You've all heard the statement "It's not a problem but an opportunity." That's never been more true than it is now and BPI Media Group wants to help you capitalize on those opportunities to help your sales grow!

Think about your biggest challenge right now. Is it lacklustre sales, issues with collateral materials, problems with marketing campaigns? Let's put a positive spin on these problems and consider some of these options for turning these opportunities into growth.

Slow sales? Consider taking a long, hard look at your data, big data. BPI can help you with data analytics which will break down your data into segments, so you can version your marketing messages or even make them 1:1 messages. These types of positive changes yield big numbers.

Overwhelmed by collateral? Think about a web portal where you can manage all your collateral in one place, see inventory levels and order as print on demand rather than order large volume just for the sake of a lower unit cost. BPI's web portal can help with managing your collateral, provide approval steps and order history with reporting.

Struggling with flat ROI? Let BPI help you with putting together a marketing plan using multi-channel communication. Our integrated campaigns help target your message to the prospect using the channel(s) best suited for him or her. We can provide a dashboard to help you track results and respond to the hot leads in real time.

I'm as guilty as the next, so let's stop focusing on the problems and think how we can turn them into opportunities which have a greater chance of being converted into a sale!

Until next time...Elizabeth.

First Impressions Count

Today I have a meeting with a new prospective customer. I've never met either of the gentlemen before, so I am a bit nervous. In talking with my boss about the meeting yesterday afternoon (my pre-meeting pep talk, he reminded me that if I go in nervous, it will show. He encouraged me to be confident and reminded me that I know what BPI Media Group can do, so there's no reason to second guess myself.

You know what, he's right (but don't tell him I said so!). Being with BPI for almost twelve years has revealed to me that we take care of our customers, we deliver on time and we have fair & competitive pricing. Even though I am confident in our services and execution of them, I still wanted to do my home work and be fully prepared. Why? Because first impressions still count.

Samples of our work were carefully chosen to shown the prospects the quality of our work, professional business attire was chosen from my closet to present myself as a competent sales person and quite a bit of time was also spent scouring their website to gain insight into what the customer does. Being prepared will help me have a better conversation about which of BPI's solutions are a best fit for this prospect: printing, digital printing, mailing, fulfillment, promotional items, website? I cannot wait to talk with them and find out!

While a first impression of what you present (outwardly and inwardly) are important here, it occurred to me that this prospect, and all of BPI's customers, actually are trusting us with their first impressions to their customers and prospects. Sometimes it is a catalog, a mailer or collateral at a trade show that is the first impression on a prospect. Wow! What an honor for our customers to trust us with such a responsibility as producing their first impression pieces.

Until next time...Elizabeth

Merging of the Minds

27. That's how many times just today that I used my smartphone to do something other than make a phone call. Wow! If you're not using mobile technology as part of your marketing mix, think of the sales opportunities you're missing.

Some of those 27 tasks included emailing, texting, checking facebook and twitter, looking up an address on Google maps, and checking the store hours of a local shop.

How often do you use your smartphone to access the web to make plans or shop? While it may not be as often as me (I'm addicted to my phone), I bet you'd reach for it all day long if I took it away from you. So, reason would have it that if you and I are using our smartphones this much, aren't our customers and prospects? What do we do about that and how do we engage them in mobile marketing?

While most people still think that the internet will be the death of print, we at BPI Media Group beg to differ. We embrace the web and simply incorporate it into print and that's what smart marketers do as well. Here are four ways we encourage you to merge mobile marketing into your print campaigns:

• QR Codes. They're easy, they're quick and they're catching on.
• Short Codes. Great for promotions. Great for gaining phone #'s for future campaigns.
• Text Alerts. It's the best thing to happen to customer service for many places (think of your pharmacy or for dining out).
• Mobile Landing Pages. Use them for campaigns or promotions. Have a mobile-friendly version of your website & folks will be more likely to use it while on the go.

These are just a few simple ways to include mobile marketing and how to incorporate it into your print messages. Read more about ways to combine print with mobile in our next issue of BPI's Graphic Advisor. Want to subscribe to our quarterly newsletter? We'd love to add you to our mailing list!

Until next time...Elizabeth

BPI's Ladies of Print

Tuesday, October 9, 2012 was National Girls Who Print Day! I'd like to take this opportunity to recognize the other ladies of print at BPI Media Group who I work alongside.

My long-time friend and mentor, Wendy Sherrod, has been with BPI Media Group for 22 years.

She is fiercely driven and takes excellent care of her customers. This shows by how many of her customers have been loyal for such a long time. Wendy's experience at BPI transcends that of most as she has gone through the changes in technology seeing film fall by the way side as the digital world of printing closes the gap on traditional printing methods. Her knowledge of "how things work" in print bring something special to client meetings because she sees things from a start-to-finish perspective and offers good insight when planning a project.

One of our newest additions to the team at BPI, Ann Dunaway, has been with us a few months, but she is very eager to help our sales team reach new heights! Ann's positive attitude and sales & marketing experience give her insight into her customers' plans for a campaign or strategy.

Ann says, "I am still fairly new to the industry, but I thoroughly enjoy learning everything that our company is able to do! We have many different services to offer that can truly help our customers be successful. It is a great feeling to know that you were able to help someone in their success!"

Other ladies who rock at BPI are our customer service team of Pam, Jolie and Angie--without them, we would be lost. We have several other awesome ladies on our team at BPI who help us make things happen: Renee (specialty products), Susan (accounting), Jan (prepress), Leisa (creative design team), Doris (mail and fulfillment) and Judy (shipping). Don't get me wrong, we have some great guys working with us at BPI to make it happen, so take a look at our staff page to learn about all of the team members.

Just a shout-out to all the ladies of BPI who are seldom recognized for all their hard work! They have each taught me so much over the past eleven+ years, and I'm sure the learning will continue as we learn and grow together in the print industry. Celebrate Girls Who Print every day!

Until next time...Elizabeth

Marketing Check Up...Take One and Call Me in the Morning.

You may have received a folder in the mail from us at BPI Media Group lately, and if so, I hope you'll take advantage of our marketing check up.

You'll see that we can help with:

• Out-of-date collateral materials
• Slow to marketing with sales
• Inability to obtain reporting on usage of marketing collateral
• Lost or misplaced inventory items (collateral, stationery, promo items)
• Lack of approval system for materials ordered
• Multiple sources of branded material resulting in inconsistent messaging in the market place
• Multiple sources of data assets

If these sound like some of the headaches you experience, let us perform a marketing check up to help alleviate these pain points and keep you focused on a healthy, forward-thinking marketing team!

Take one of these and call me in the morning to discuss how BPI can help relieve the stress of your marketing headaches.

Until next time...Elizabeth