10 Ways I Am Messing Up My Social Media Efforts (Part I)

Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs (New Rules Social Media Series)
Our AlphaGraphics Social Media Activities Can Use a Lot of Improvement In Promoting Our Printing Business

I spent the last couple of days reading "Inbound Marketing" by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah.  I was attracted to this book because I am a fan of David Meerman Scott and he highly endorsed this book.  I will say that, at first, I thought the book to be a little simplistic since I have been studying this area for awhile.  However, as I got deeper and deeper into the book, I started to think about all the good advice that I was not following. I wish I had read this book a few months ago before I started on my Social Media journey I highly recommend this book to everyone who is trying to figure out how to market their business in this new Web 2.0 age. It does lay out the steps you should take in a very systematic way. Based upon my reading, here are the things I am doing wrong in my inbound marketing activities. These are the first 5 out of 10 items.

1.  My Blog is Hosted by Blogspot
When I initially set up my blog,  I took the easiest route simply because I did not know better. Brian and Dharmesh highly recommend that a blog needs to be hosted with the company website.  There are many reasons for this, but the best reason is that a blog drives activity to the website.  The way I have it set up is that the activity is driven to blogspot, which is a Google entity.  Google does fine on its own, and it does not need to have my activity to help its rankings. The same goes for those who have Wordpress host their blog.  How do I fix this? I really haven't figured it out.  Since the webpage for each of my three centers is a sub-domain of the main AlphaGraphics site and right now AlphaGraphics doesn't have a way to host blogs on their website, I am stuck.  I have considered a separate domain to host my blog outside of the AlphaGraphics website, but I am not convinced that this gets me ahead of where I am now.  Even if AlphaGraphics decides to give us the ability to have our blogs on a sub-domain of the AlphaGraphics site, I don't know how I will be able to cover my three centers with one blog. Someone smarter than me will need to help me with this problem.

2.  My Twitter Name Is Personal and Has Numbers In It
When I set up my Twitter account, I did not do a lot of thinking about the account name.  I did want to make it personal because I did not want to run an account that was an impersonal one of just "AlphaGraphics Arizona". I think people want to follow people and not business names. One of my salespeople posts to a generic AlphaGraphicsAz account, but he is not an avid poster and it really is his personal account. The number in the name was decided upon because there are about 4 million Steve Adams' in the world.  Maybe there is only 3.9 million, but you get my point. The 291 represents the store # for my Mesa center.  I have been using that number for years.  In most of my social media activities, I have been using my full name so I can track my activity on Google. Hence the Stephen Eugene Adams. (I got that advice from David Meerman Scott). So how do I fix this? I think I am pretty well set now but I did change my name on the account to Alphagraphics Steve.  We'll see how that works. I also might start using the AlphaGraphicsAZ account more.

3. I Have Protected My LinkedIn Account Too Much
When I set up my LinkedIn account, I treated it the same as my personal FaceBook account. I only wanted to connect with people I knew and did not allow anyone I did not personally know to connect with me. After reading this book, I figured out that I need to open this thing up.  I need to search for people I want to be connected with and I need to allow connections to people who want to connect with me. I also need to start posting on this channel more often to be able to start more conversations.  Although I have joined some marketing groups over the last couple of months, I need to work this area a little better.

4.  My Website Has Nothing For My Prospects To Do Except Call Me.
Our Alphagraphics site does have a limited CMS feature to it.  I am driving people to my website that may not be ready to buy at that point in time. I am able to control the middle of some of our pages, but not the outside frames.  At this time, I do not know how to put a sign-up form into my web pages and we cannot host a PDF file for download. So our websites lack a call to action.  They can call me, email me, send me a file or place an online order if they are an existing customer. The first thing I believe I should do is to figure out how to put a form onto my site(s) and how to have my PDF's hosted at another server.  Again, this will take someone smarter than myself.

5.  My Content is Not Remarkable
I have been trying to have a blog posting once a week since sometime in December.  Sometimes I go a couple of weeks, but mostly my postings have been weekly. I do not seem to be getting a lot of traction with the number of subscribers to my blog. Using Google Analytics and SiteMeter, I do see that I do get a few hundred people to read my blog each month and the readership does increase each month, but I can't seen to increase my subscribed readership.  So, according to Inbound Marketing, it has to be my content. I am not writing what the industry wants to see.  I think some of this is the paradigm shift that is happening in our industry.  We are printers that have determined that in order to survive going forward, we need to be more marketing and communications consultants.  So I am writing about that stuff and not about our core, legacy businesses. No one expects a printer to write about marketing and communications.  There's not a lot of people who want to read about printing, copying, bindery, mailing services and pre-press design. So what do I do.  I believe that I still need to continue to talk about our shift to marketing and consulting, but I need to figure out how to increase my subscriber base.  If anyone has any suggestions, please leave a comment below.

Next week, I will give you an analysis of points 6-10.  There just as brutal and will cause me a lot of work to correct.

You can always contact us at the following websites:

AlphaGraphics Mesa Printing and Marketing        FaceBook Fan Page
AlphaGraphics Tempe Printing and Marketing      FaceBook Fan Page
AlphaGraphics Phoenix Printing and Marketing    FaceBook Fan Page

Twitter: @steveadams291
LinkedIn: stepheneugeneadams

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We're Killing Trees....But Not the Forest

I would like to say that the title is true. At least I thought it was true when I started researching this article. Did you know that between the years 2000 to 2005, the U.S. lost a bigger percentage of its forest coverage than Brazil?  Sure Brazil lost more acreage but the U.S. lost almost 6% of its forest acreage during that time period.  Most of the lost acreage, believe it or not was in the southeast part of the country, and not the northwest where most people believe that the loss would occur. For more information on this phenomenon, go to http://bit.ly/bZPEu0 . However, in some countries as much as 80% of the timber is harvested illegally, often involving the violation of human rights and destruction of protected forests. A key factor behind the threats faced by natural forests is the perception by many societies that they lack economic value. The extraordinary social and environmental value of forests in comparison to other land uses is often not considered. In other words, forests are often converted to other land uses which lack many of the social and environmental values of forest but promise higher economic returns. You can read more about FSC at their website at FSC.org

So Why Does AlphaGraphics Believe That It Is Saving The Forests?

Just recently AlphaGraphics Mesa on Baseline Road in Arizona received its FSC Chain of Custody Certification. You can review this short video to see what this means in the printing industry.




The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is an independent, non-governmental, not-for-profit organization established to promote the responsible management of the world’s forests. This organization was formed for the express purpose of controlling the demise of forests around the world. Not only do they control the cutting of the old large trees, but they control the use of chemicals that may harm wildlife in those forests. The goal of the organization is sustainability.  The perfect environment is that as more and more timber is removed from the forest, it is naturally replaced and that over a long period of time, there will be just as much timber and coverage in that forest as when lumber operations commenced.  In addition, the natural wildlife of that forest will not be disturbed.

So how does AlphaGraphics fit into all of this.  The FSC certification assures that there are procedures in place so that wood that is removed from an FSC controlled forest is identified, tagged and followed all the way to the end user.  So our responsibility is to assure that when a customer requests that a project is printed on FSC certified paper, that we buy the paper from an approved source (Xpedx Paper in our case), that we control the paper when it is in our possession and that we notate on our invoice that the printed product is printed on FSC paper with our Chain of Custody number prominently displayed. 

The FSC label provides a credible link between responsible production and consumption of forest products, enabling consumers and businesses to make purchasing decisions that benefit people and the environment as well as providing ongoing business value.

There are three types of FSC Chain of Custody logos that our customers can put on their products.  The most common is FSC Mixed Sources. This assures that the paper used in the printed product is made out of paper from a managed forest, combined with recycled material.  The second is the 100% recycled logo, which is self explanatory and the third is Pure, which means that the paper product contains 100% new paper from a managed forest.
At this point, of my three centers, only AlphaGraphics Mesa on Baseline is able to print the FSC logo on printed products.  What this means is that our customers at AlphaGraphics Tempe on Elliot and AlphaGraphics Phoenix - Northwest Valley will have their jobs invoiced out of my Mesa operation to assure the proper chain of custody.
For those who might want to know more about FSC, here is a 20 minute video from their website showing the benefits of FSC.  It is quite moving.

Who is the Real AlphaGraphics Millennial Customer?

I found this video on YouTube a few days ago.  I think it precisely presents the gap between what a lot of businesses think about Gen Y/Millennials and how the Millennials think about themselves.  Honestly, I think the perception is somewhere in between, slanted toward the latter view.


The reality of the matter is that a lot of the Millennials have not ventured into an AlphaGraphics Printing Facility unless they have been trained for a design background.  We are also finding out that the trained designers are being trained for all things Internet and very little print.  In a lot of cases, we have to train our young customers on what it takes to have something printed on an offset press or that things need to be presented differently if they want to take an Internet page and convert it into a printed piece.

The Millennials are not only a significant portion of today's market but they will be the dominate portion of the overrall market in the future. So we will need to learn how to promote ourselves to them.  They will eventually learn the value of the printed piece so we must be patient in teaching them the benefits of print, combined with the digital presentation.

Previously, I published a Blog post on this subject.  You can find my thoughts at: http://stepheneugeneadams.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-alphagraphics-customer.html

At AlphaGraphics Printing in Mesa, Tempe and Phoenix, Arizona, we do more than just print.  We are also marketing and communications consultants familiar with annual marketing plans, website design, SEO, SEM, Email marketing, direct mail campaigns, news releases and blogging.  We can be reached at the following websites:

Alphagraphics Mesa Printing and Marketing
Alphagraphics Tempe Printing and Marketing
AlphaGraphics Phoenix Printing and Marketing

Follow us on Twitter at:  @steveadams291

The Benefits of Social Media

I ran across this new video on how certain businesses can identify how they have benefited from being active in the Social Media arena.  You can see how the numbers can be mind numbing.

Social Media Video:

Wondering how Social Media applies to you and your business? Tired of battling through all that misinformation and theory, when what you really want to see is hard numbers? Still trying to decide if the time investment is worth it? Watch this video, "Social Media ROI: Socialnomics," to see how other big name brands are using Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms to boost sales, awareness and excitement.



Maybe all of this Social Media Activity is worth it. I have often wondered how I am benefiting my AlphaGraphics Printing and Marketing business by being on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  This video helps to quantify what can happen if you devote some attention to Social media.

You can always contact us at the following websites:

AlphaGraphics Mesa on Baseline - Printing and Marketing
AlphaGraphics Tempe on Elliot - Printing and Marketing
AlphaGraphics Phoenix - Northwest Valley - Printing and Marketing

Follow me on twitter: @steveadams291

The New AlphaGraphics Customer

As I mentioned in my last post, I just got back from the Alphagraphics Gold Circle meeting in Naples, Florida. One of our speakers was Liz Brohan of Colman Brohan Davis a company specializing in brand strategy and creative marketing. The first part of Liz's presentation to us was explaining to us what the new Gen Y customer was like. In a nutshell, here is some of the things she asked us to consider.

First, Gen Y is defined as those young adults born between 1980 and 2000, essentially children of the baby boomers. They, in fact, do not like to be called Gen Y'ers but would rather be called "Millennials". The millennials have high expectations, they feel special, they are connected 24/7, they are very technical and, quite suprisingly, they want to serve their community. Liz also said that they feel indispensible, they love a challenge, they work best with friends, they are good with finances, they are goal oriented and they want recognition for what they contribute.

So, how do millennials go about making a decision to buy. In case anyone has not noticed, they go online. They go to the company website, they go to blogs, they go to business directories, they go to wikipedia, they ask their friends (online of course), they search out comments on the business in the social media networks of FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. Only when they have found out as much as possible about a business or product will they actually try and contact the business. One of the surprises in Liz's presentation was that the millennials will also look at printed items to help in their selection. The other aspect of how the millennials are doing their searches is that they are increasingly using their mobile device to do all of the research.

In the business-to-business environment, the millennial will probably present their decision to their boss, a baby boomer or a Gen X'er who will make the final decision. In the near future, the millennial will make the decision. Then, once the decision is made and the transaction is completed, the millennial will go back online, and will rate the quality of the service and product by going to sites such as Yelp, Merchant Circle, City Search, Google Maps, Bing Local, etc. In addition, they will post a comment on FaceBook, Twitter or probably Google Buzz.

So what is a business to do to help the millennials along on their search? We need to be active in the Social Media arena. We need to have our websites in good order so that when we are found, we can answer what they are looking for. Our websites need to have a mobile phone presentation. We need to blog. We need to have a presence on FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the ratings sites.

I am commonly asked. What has all of the work that you do in the social media area gotten you? My answer is that the rewards come slow, but they come. Just this week, I had a inquiry on Twitter about signs and posters and I had a customer compliment me on how high I ranked in their mobile Google search which got them into my door.

My thanks to Liz Brohan for her insight into our new customers and I hope that when she checks in with the AlphaGraphics owners in the future that she will see that all of our social media work has benefited us greatly.

You can reach us at AlphaGraphics at the following websites:
AlphaGraphics Mesa on Baseline 480-844-2222
AlphaGraphics Tempe on Elliot 480-413-1900
AlphaGraphics Phoenix - Northwest Valley 602-234-2944

Follow me on Twitter at: Steve's Twitter Account

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What I Learned at the AlphaGraphics Gold Circle Meeting

Last week was our annual Gold Circle meeting of the top revenue owners in the AlphaGraphics system. We held the meeting in Naples, Florida. There were 31 owner groups represented. Contrary to what a lot of businesses are doing in this economy, AlphaGraphics continues to have these meetings of top performers and also having our annual conference each summer. The location was not as exotic as in the past, but the company was, again, outstanding. Thank you to Kevin Cushing, AlphaGraphics CEO and the rest of the AlphaGraphics staff in having the foresight in continuing these meetings in these difficult times.

So what did I learn?

From the group as a whole...Yes these are hard times and many of us have experienced revenue declines from the prior year, but we still need to laugh and enjoy ourselves. We had several discussions about how to improve our businesses and how to gradually change ourselves to adapt to the changing business climate. There was a lot of laughter in our meetings and dinners.

From Grant Richey in Bountiful, UT...maybe its time to hire a person who devotes themselves to the marketing aspects of our business, especially for SEO and social media

From Butch Clarke in Dallas...the best way to transition into becoming marketing and communications experts is to bite the bullet and start having conversations with our clients

From Rodrigo Abreu in Brasil...being an expert in marketing does not mean we have to be on the bleeding edge. Man, this guy really knows his marketing stuff. Good choice Kevin.

From Chuck Stempler in Seattle...maybe we can make money in this marketing and communications consulting gig. Great work on the Humane Society.

From Rob Johnson in West Valley City, UT...there is plenty of money to be made in the large format arena. I'm going to take a look at vehicle wraps.

From Clair Meehan in Pittsburgh...If you have a creative mind, our customers will seek us out for their most important projects.

From Bill Meehan, her husband...before we can present ourselves as experts, we need to market our own businesses in the way that we preach.

From John and Karen Bickers in Madison...if you want to get into litigation support, you need to right business structure and the right software.

From Keith and Shelly Hermanson in Billings...we need to invest in new types of people in order to make this transition and we have to plan to maybe fail before we succeed.

From Mike Sparaco and Darin Osborne in Tempe...keep investing in the business, become an expert in everything we try to do, and have passion for the business.

From Jeff and Jill Lerner in Sunnyvale, CA...Being active in the community is where its at. Also, when you check your airline tickets for departing time, also check the departing airport :-)

From Sally McKenzie with Ecommerceconsulting.com...Google is taking over the world and our personal lives.

From Karen Brinker in Greenwich, Connecticut...starting another AlphaGraphics can be exciting and hopefully rewarding. I hope they learned a few things from me in that regard.

From Larry Furlong in Phoenix...continue to have a marketing mind. We need to continuously promote our businesses by direct mail, on the internet and wherever our propective customers' eyes might fall. And, as Kevin Cushing said, he continues to do God's work (love you Kathy!)

From Liz Brohan of Colman Brohan Davis...our customers do not want us to find them, they want to find us by researching and getting recommendations online. The Millenials are going to rule the world and we need to adapt to this change. However, we can still teach them about the benefits of direct mail.

And for all of the other Gold Circle owners and presenters I did not mention above, thanks for the most enjoyable and instructive meeting I have had in a long time.

You can reach us at AlphaGraphics at the following websites and phone numbers:
AlphaGraphics Mesa on Baseline 480-844-2222 FaceBook
AlphaGraphics Tempe on Elliot 480-413-1900 FaceBook
AlphaGraphics Phoenix-Northwest Valley 602-234-2944 FaceBook
Follow us on Twitter

The Future of Your Neighborhood Print Shop

As you can imagine, revenues are down and continue to decline in the quick print environment. This decline started in 2008 and continued through 2009. Everyone is hopeful that 2010 will be a growth year, but hardly anyone expects revenues to return to the 2007 levels anytime soon. Print industry experts are predicting a continuing overall decline in the traditional revenue streams that have been the stalwart of the quick printing industry for years, namely: offset printing, high-speed duplicating, digital printing, bindery and graphic design. Products such as letterhead, envelopes, business cards, fliers, newsletters, brochures, manuals, postcards, forms and direct mail have all seen declines due to the conversion to Internet marketing, the rise of Internet printing companies, or from companies purchasing equipment at the user level sufficient to produce these items in-house. Because of the overall decline of traditional printed items, there also is significant price pressure on those print shops that have survived this economic decline.

So, what is the future of your neighborhood print shop? Dr. Joseph Webb, a contributor to one of the industry's think tanks, What They Think, has written a book entitled "Renewing the Printing Industry". In addition, Barb Pellow, a contributor to InfoTrends, has also written many articles about the condition of print overall. Both of these individuals have analyzed the printing industry and have concluded that changes need to be made in order for all printing entities to survive.

There are several avenues that a quick print owner can consider. I will discuss two of them. The first is to fight the trend by being the best marketer of their service, to become more efficient than their competitors so they can compete on price, to implement on-line ordering to the general public, to acquire the business of closing print shops, and to, in fact, significantly reduce their pricing. I refer to this business plan as the commodity approach. Be the best in the traditional printing environment. There is still money to be made in the traditional printing environment for those who continue down this path. The biggest downside is that this market will continue to decline. The last maker of buggy whips was the most efficient of the bunch.

The second avenue of approach, and the one that most quick print franchisors are pushing is the conversion to becoming marketing and communications experts while milking the traditional printing area as much as possible. This approach also has significant risk for many reasons. At this point, there are few profit models to duplicate, there is little, to no recognition from outside the industry that a former quick printer can provide this expertise, there is a diverse expertise of franchise owners that does not include marketing training, and people that are already providing this service to businesses are also struggling to survive.

A couple of years ago, many in the quick printing industry developed personalized communications expertise. This allowed them to sell a 1-to-1 marketing piece for their customers, many of which were connected to personalized url's (purl's). This technique, combined with a targeted, well defined list allowed response rates to balloon from 1-3% to as much as 35%. What many in the industry found out is that the lead time to sell these projects were significantly extended over the time it took to sell traditional printed items and that not all customers could make the cost/benefit leap of faith. However, the ability to sell and produce these types of items led people to believe that they were now marketing and communications experts.

I personally believe that the second approach is the way to go for our industry. It will be a difficult road to travel and will probably see a lot of failed attempts along the way. Owners of these operations will need to commit to learning the marketing and communication business, will need to circulate within the marketing, advertising and public relations communities and will need to promote themselves as marketing experts within the business environment. It will be a long and slow path to profitability so the quick printer will need to rely on its traditional printing revenue to survive before the marketing area takes off.

So what is the future of your neighborhood print shop? It will depend on the path they take. If you are a customer, you should have a conversation with them to find out what road they are taking. A commodity printer or a marketing and communication expert. The downhill road or the uphill road.

You can reach us at AlphaGraphics at the following websites:
AlphaGraphics Mesa on Baseline 480-844-2222
AlphaGraphics Tempe on Elliot 480-413-1900
AlphaGraphics Phoenix - Northwest Valley 602-234-2944

Follow me on Twitter at: Steve's Twitter Account

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The Do's and Don'ts of Email Marketing

I spent part of this last weekend between watching football games reading a new book entitled "The Constant Contact Guide to Email Marketing" by Eric Groves. Eric is the Senior Vice President of Global Market Development at Constant Contact. Constant Contact is the largest provider of email marketing software and tools for small businesses, associations and nonprofits. Eric wrote this book because he noticed that a lot of their users were not avoiding some of the biggest pitfalls when it came to using their services. Eric is big on lists about the do's and don't of implementing an email marketing program. In fact, the first chapter is a summary of all of the lists condensed down to 40 items to consider.

As I said in my last posting about the benefits of direct mail, I am a firm believer in Email Marketing. At AlphaGraphics, we started a practice in 2009 of sending out monthly email newsletters to our customer lists. We are also active in getting our customers and prospects to sign up for these emails. What I found out after reading this book, is that I can do a significantly better job with these emails by using the information in this book. I do use Constant Contact for my emails and I do highly recommend their service if anyone is serious about doing this on a frequent basis.

The biggest concern that Constant Contact has and the one I have always been concerned about is the number of spam complaints received from any of the emails sent. Eric stated that if an issuer can keep the spam complaints to less than 1 in a 1,000, then there should be no concern. Since the emails are sent out by the Constant Contact ISP, any large spam complaints effect both Constant Contact and the issuer's domain name which could result in excessive blocking and filtering by the larger email providers or worse yet, a CAN-SPAM complaint. That is why Constant Contact makes the issuer assure them that they have permission to send emails to the recipients prior to accepting the list. The biggest gray area, however, is in the area of implied permission. Eric stated that if the recipient knows who you are, has done business with you in the past, or if you get them to give your permission then you probably can avoid any CAN-SPAM problems.

There is also a couple of chapters on how to decrease the number of emails that are rejected by the recipients and the number of unsubscribes. Some of the discussion centers around being recognized by the recipient, using a good subject title, avoiding spam words and giving the recipient what you promised when they signed up to receive your emails. The length of the emails was also discussed, which is an area that I struggle with. The longer the email, the faster the recipient will lose interest and unsubscribe. If you do have a longer message, it is usually better to give the essential information in a paragraph or two and then link to your website where the full information is available. This is also a great way to get the recipient to go to your website.

Although emails that promote your product are acceptable, the most favorably received emails are the ones that are informative in nature. Writing as an expert in your field are the best emails. Even though you don't feel like and expert, you certainly know more about your field than a majority of your readers. Having a call to action is also very important. Getting the reader to go to your website to download a white paper, participate in a survey or receive a promotional offering is important when you consider why you are sending these messages out.

Constant Contact, as well as most of their competitors provides a lot of analytical information on each email that is sent. They can tell you how many people have opened your email and who they are, how many people forwarded your email to someone else, who opted out of future emails from you and how many emails were non-deliverable for a variety of reasons. These analytics allow you to adjust your message or your subject line to increase readership.

Eric does spend a lot of time trying to help the reader address the concern about content. He acknowledges that this is the weakest link in having and maintaining a long-term email marketing program. His biggest suggestion is to write like an expert but don't say everything in the first email message. He also states that the value of an email marketing program is significant enough that you might want to consider hiring someone in charge of content whether it is an in-house employee or a consultant.

I do believe that anyone who is currently using an email campaign or are contemplating a campaign should both read this book and consider using a company such as Constant Contact for their provider. AlphaGraphics can help you design an email marketing program and has access to content writers.

You can reach us at AlphaGraphics at the following websites:
AlphaGraphics Mesa on Baseline 480-844-2222
AlphaGraphics Tempe on Elliot 480-413-1900
AlphaGraphics Phoenix - Northwest Valley 602-234-2944

Follow me on Twitter at: Steve's Twitter Account

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Is Direct Mail Dead?

We, at AlphaGraphics Say Definitely Not!

One of my salespeople had a conversation with one of her customers last month where she asked the customer whether they had thought about doing a direct mail campaign. The answer she got back was laughter. Why would anyone consider a direct mail campaign when you have email newsletters, a drop-dead website, a business FaceBook page, an active Twitter account and an ongoing blog? Why pay anyone to design a mailer, have it printed and pay postage to distribute it?

Here is a short print industry video to kind of illustrate the point:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ3Je3zpMqg

I am not here to bad mouth Social Meda and the Internet. I, myself, have adopted all of the practices I described above and I believe that each of these items are a critical part of any company’s marketing arsenal. However, I believe that direct mail is still a vital component of a comprehensive marketing plan.

First of all, here are some of the discussion points that most people use to justify an email only approach:

-According to the Direct Marketing Association, a properly constructed email campaign returns about $45 per dollar of expense compared to $15 for direct mail.

-Admittedly, an email newsletter is cheap to distribute. No printing costs, no postage.

-There is a perception that the printed piece is hard on the environment, wasting valuable forests and energy costs to produce and distribute.

-A properly run email campaign will allow the issuer to obtain valuable analytics. You will know how many people opened the email, and how many people clicked on the enclosed links.

So what are the benefits of Direct Mail?

-Direct mail has almost a 100% deliverability factor. If a customer or prospect has changed their address, the Post Office will give you the new information. Most emails sent will have between a 33% to 67% undeliverable factor depending on spam filters and blocking. If someone leaves a company or changes their email address, there is no notification received with the correct information. EMailLabs did a survey in 2006 with company executives which asked the question: How significant a challenge is deliverability for your company’s email marketing programs? 30.5% responded that it was a significant challenge and 51.8% responded that it was somewhat of a challenge.

-Direct mail can support and enhance a great email program. Royal Mail, Britain’s Post Office, did a study and determined that an email marketing program supported by a direct mail program increased the effectiveness of the email program by 65%. Quite an improvement.

-Direct mail can stimulate web traffic. In today’s SEO world, the name of the game is to attract prospects and customers to your company website and/or to your blog. Sometimes the only way to get people to these online locations is through the printed piece.

-Direct mail can keep the company’s database current, including active email addresses. Mailers, with attached personalized url’s drive people to a landing page that has the customer update their data. I should note that the recipient will need a good reason to go to the website such as a gift certificate or a downloadable white paper.

-Believe it or not, there is still a big portion of the market that is not Internet savvy. There also needs to be a way to contact customers and prospects that opt-out of your email messages. Understanding the demographic targets of a company’s customers and prospects will allow the right choice on media to use.

-Most of the paper used in a printing operation comes from FSC certified forests. These are forests whereby the trees used in the manufacture of paper have been grown specifically for that purpose. Most of these papers also have a high mix of recycled content thus reducing the energy used in its manufacture.

John Jantsch, author of the book “Duct Tape Marketing: The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide” had this to say about Direct Mail:

“…one of my favorite forms of advertising for the small business—direct mail. The reasons I like direct mail are pretty simple, but it all leads back to my prevailing principles when it comes to analyzing any form of advertising.

1. Does it allow you to specifically target your Ideal Prospect?
2. Does it provide a high return on investment?

Properly executed, direct mail offers a resounding yes to both of the above questions.”

He also wrote, “Few advertising mediums are targeted enough to offer the small business a high enough return on investment, but the primary reason I believe direct mail is the best choice for most small businesses is that you can start very small, test very quickly, and easily expand your efforts when you have a winner.”

He then goes on to discuss the ability to personalize direct mail and the need to have a great list, which is the subject of a later posting.

I leave you with some final statistics supporting Direct Mail. In 2009, marketers are estimated to have spent about $149 billion on direct marketing, which accounts for 54.3% of all ad expenditures in the country, according to the Direct Marketing Association. Measured against total U.S. sales, these advertising expenditures will generate approximately $1.78 trillion in incremental sales.

You can reach us at AlphaGraphics at the following websites:

Mesa 535 W. Baseline Rd., Mesa, AZ 85210 480-844-2222

Tempe 720 W. Elliot Rd., Tempe, AZ 85284 480-413-1900

Phoenix 8041 N. Black Canyon Hwy, Phoenix, AZ 85021 602-234-2944

Follow me on Twitter at: Steve's Twitter Account

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Hey AlphaGraphics, Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

So now that I have published the Top 10 Ways to Market Your Business in 2010, the question being asked is, "Steve, how are your going to market your three businesses in 2010?" Well, after much thought and discussion, here are a few of the things we are going to do.

1. Website and SEO-AlphaGraphics, Inc., our franchisor, controls much of the formatting of our local websites. They use a Utah firm with the appropriate name of SEO.com. At the local level, we can tweek the home page and certain pages in the "About Us" section. We will continue to adjust and evaluate our content and keywords to get our centers a higher ranking with the search engines. We are evaluating whether we want to hire a local firm by the name of VirtualIT to help us with the local page rankings. In addition, the Phoenix Owners Group, which represents the 15 AlphaGraphics franchisees in the Phoenix metropolitan area has contracted with AZPixels to help with our SEM (search engine marketing) placements. This year, we will also ask our customers to rate our performance on our Google, CitySearch and Yahoo pages. To entice them to do this, we will give our customers a $5 Starbucks card. The search engines evaluate the number of reviews when deciding which businesses get shown on the map on the first page. It is also our goal to significantly increase the amount of links to our websites from outside sources by asking our customers, our vendors and our business contacts to consider a like-for-like linking.

2. Blog-Well, your reading it. I intend to continue with a weekly posting until I get a little more comfortable with a more frequent publishing schedule. I have referenced this blog in my websites, my twitter page, my LinkedIn page, my personal Facebook page and on each of my centers' Facebook pages.

3. Demographic Profile-We plan on completing a demographic profile of our best customers at each of my centers this year. With that information, we will identify about 500 companies that are similar to our best customers and we will market to these companies with all our resources as discussed in the points below.

4. Direct Mail-As part of our AlphaGraphics program, each of my centers will do a monthly mailing to a combination of customers, prospects and leads. We grew our businesses on direct mail and we continue to see benefit for continuing the practice. In fact John Jantsch, in his book "Duct Tape Marketing" stated that direct mail is still one of the most cost effective ways to reach your prospects. In our direct mailing campaign, we will use personalized url's (purls) to obtain additional information from these prospects. As a Phoenix Owners Group, we plan on distributing a series of 3-dimensional mailings matched with a purl site and some type of give away such as a gift card.

5. Email Newsletters- We have started a monthly email newsletters to our customers and prospects. We are currently using Constant Contact to help us with this process. Each of these newsletters will be based upon a marketing and/or a printing theme and will be associated with one of my blogs. Our email newsletters will be information and hopefully will not come across as purely promotional.

6. Social Media-We are now very active in the Twitter, Facebook, Plaxo and LinkedIn arenas. The trick now is to get all of these areas linked in with each other so that we only have to do one posting at at time.

7. News Releases- We plan on issuing one news release per center per month. We use, through AlphaGraphics, Inc., a company by the name of GrassrootsPR to help us with these news releases to the local media. Our news releases will be on items such as new equipment additions, promotions of key people, awards won or nominated, information that will benefit the business community or a host of other things. From an SEO standpoint, we will us PRWeb.com to distribute these news releases on the web so that they are searchable by the search engines. These releases by PRWeb cost us $80 per release.

8. Community Activities-We plan on continuing to be active in our local chambers of commerce, the Mesa Rotary Club, the Mesa United Way and BNI. We believe that it is important to be active in the community to help others and ourselves.

You can reach us at AlphaGraphics at the following websites:

Mesa 535 W. Baseline Rd., Mesa, AZ 85210 480-844-2222
Tempe 720 W. Elliot Rd., Tempe, AZ 85284 480-413-1900
Phoenix 8041 N. Black Canyon Hwy, Phoenix, AZ 85021 602-234-2944

Follow me on Twitter at: Steve's Twitter Account

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Top 10 Ways to Market Your Business in 2010

As we go into 2010, full of promise and change from 2009, it is time to think about economical ways to market your business in the coming year. In this internet, social media age, the old marketing plans can no longer be copied into the the new plans. Here are our top ten things AlphaGraphics suggests that you do:

1. Update your Website- Your website is no longer a brochure for the company. The internet search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo have changed the rules. Your website needs to be searchable, it needs to have outside links refer to its content and it needs to be changed very frequently. If you have not had a major overhaul of your site in the last 5 years, its time to invest in a total makeover. Even if you do not make any major changes, the site needs to be editable by the Marketing Department or the owner. There needs to be a system of updating and changing the site on a weekly or monthly basis and having an easy to use edit tool accessible to the marketing people is a must. As discussed in the next item, the use of keywords is also essential for the search engine.

2. Invest in Search Engine Optimization- SEO is the word of the new decade in the marketing arena. For as little as $200 per month, you can hire a company to make your website land on the first page of any search. They do this by testing your website to make sure it has been optimized, by making sure the keywords are in the right place, by making sure that there is activity outside the website that points to your website such as blogs, news releases, email blast, etc. and they use tools to monitor your website activity. You may be able to do it yourself. There are many books written and being written on the subject.

3. Think About Search Engine Marketing- SEM is the sibling to SEO. When you do a search on Google, there are two distinct parts of the results page. There usually is a couple of listings at the top of the page and there are several listings to the right of the page. These are the sponsored links. If you click on one of the links, the sponsor will pay a click-thru fee, usually averaging about $3 per click. The other part of the page is the organic listings where SEO activities dictate the rankings. SEM is done by bidding on the keywords you want to sponsor with the search engines. With Google, you can bid on certain words using their AdWords feature. It is usually a good idea to hire a consultant to place the words for you and to monitor the results. You might also want to design different landing pages within your website for each category of keywords so that when the customer does click-thru to your site, where they land is relevant to the search term.

4. Send out Email Newsletters- This is an email world now. Monthly email newsletters are a great way to inform your customers and prospects about your business. You do have to be careful not to come across a selling a product or service too much or people will opt-out of future mailings. Emails that are informative and specific to what your customers want to know are the best types of emails. Occasional promotional postcard email blasts are OK, but do it too often, your will lose the ability to send future emails. Companies such as Constant Contact are perfect for distributing these emails. They have templates available and they monitor the email addresses for bounces and opt-outs.

5. Do a Demographic Profile of Your Customers- How would you like a listing of the companies or prospects that are out there that are exactly like your current customers. Well, it is possible to get this listing by doing a demographics profile of your existing customers. Once this information is put into the system, we can identify a listing of companies and prospects that have the same attributes as your existing customers in your market. This process usually runs around $1,000 to have done, but it will allow you to better target your market with a reduced number of mailed or emailed items.

6. Don't Forget Direct Mail- Direct mail is still one of the best ways of contacting prospective or current customers. Email filters and the rapid changes in email addresses reduces the overall benefits of doing email only. Using an efficient mailing list such as the one discussed above, greatly enhances your chances that the direct mail item will be read. We also use three-dimensional pieces and personalized url to improve responses rates on our mailings. Personalized url's (purls) are a great way to get your prospects or customers to go to a website to capture additional demographic information on that customer.

7. Write a Blog- Every company needs to have a blog. The best way to drive people to your company's website is to have them read your blog. As in the email blast discussions above, blogs should be informative and not promotional in order to capture and maintain a frequent audience. Starting a blog is easy. I started this one by going to Google and typing in "starting a blog". Don't worry that it appears that no one is reading the blog. Your readership will expand over time and it will be very beneficial with the search engines. Link your company website, your Twitter page and everything else within your blog. Just remember, link, link, link.

8. Be Active with Social Media- Most people understand Facebook and LinkedIn now. A lot of people do not understand Twitter and its benefits. "I'm sitting on a corner in Winslow, Arizona" does not appear to make a great business tool. However, using Twitter to make an occasional statement about something of interest in your business or industry will get you some followers. On Facebook, having a separate company page whereby people can become fans of your business has its benefits. Cross linking your website, your Blog, your Facebook page and your Twitter page will enhance your readership and your search results.

9. Issue News Releases- Commit to issuing a monthly press release about something of interest that has happened to your business. This can be about a new product, a new piece of equipment, a move or something that one of your employees did. Before your do the first one, you need to develop a contact listing of your local media outlets. Once the news release is written then it needs to be distributed to the local media outlets as well as placing the news release on the wire. Putting the news release on the wire allows the release to be searched by the search engines and catalogued.

10. Go to Trade Shows- Re-commit to going to trade shows. At least plan on getting a booth at the local Chamber of Commerce Business Expo. Trade shows are an inexpensive way to get in front of prospective customers. The use of large format graphics and brochures helps to make your booth pop. Capture business cards of prospects by offering something of value such as a prize or free service.

At AlphaGraphics, we are positioned to either providing the above listed services or to helping you to contact a company that provides the service. We would be happy to meet with your to plan out your full year marketing plan.

You can reach us at AlphaGraphics at the following websites:

Mesa 535 W. Baseline Rd., Mesa, AZ 85210 480-844-2222
Tempe 720 W. Elliot Rd., Tempe, AZ 85284 480-413-1900
Phoenix 8041 N. Black Canyon Hwy, Phoenix, AZ 85021 602-234-2944

Follow me on Twitter at: Steve's Twitter Account

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

I spent this last weekend reading David Meerman Scott's book entitled "The New Rules of Marketing and PR" which I believe is a must-read for anyone in the advertising, public relations and printing businesses these days. David is also the author of a continuing blog entitled WebInkNow. The thrust of the book is how to get your business to the top of the heap when customers are searching for you online. He discusses many activities including writing a blog, email blasts, news releases, podcasts, video and continuing to update the company website.

All of this activity feeds upon itself resulting in a better ranking of the company website by the search companies such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. The vernacular being used to describe this activity is Search Engine Optimization ("SEO"). When you do a search using Google or one of the other search engines, there are two different results displayed on the page. At the top and to the right are the paid search or sponsored link areas. These are companies that have paid to be listed in those areas based upon the search terms that were typed. If you click on one of these terms, that company will pay a fee to Google based upon a bid price, usually pennies to $10 per click, based upon what words were typed.

The best area to be on the search page is below the sponsored links, but as close to the top as possible. These are free clicks to the company. Those companies that do not have a great web presence, will probably not be on the first page, and depending on the term, may be several pages back. Most customers do not leave the first page during their search. Therefore, in order to improve their rankings, companies need to increase their web presence and activity. Not only does the website of the company need to have all the right keywords, but the site needs to be active. The more web activity that links into the company site, the higher the rankings by the search engines.

There are many ways to improve the web activity. I will be writing about what companies can do to improve their rankings as time goes on. Suffice it to say, that creating a blog, sending out news release, especially those that the search engines can scan, having other companies link-in to your site, being active on the social media scene and updating your websites frequently can only help your rankings.

You can reach us at AlphaGraphics at the following websites:

Mesa 535 W. Baseline Rd., Mesa, AZ 85210 480-844-2222

Tempe 720 W. Elliot Rd., Tempe, AZ 85284 480-413-1900

Phoenix 8041 N. Black Canyon Hwy, Phoenix, AZ 85021 602-234-2944

Just the Beginning

Well I've heard so much about Blogging that I decided that I just had to give it try. I am the owner of three AlphaGraphics Digital and Print Centers in the Phoenix metropolitan area including Mesa (1990), Tempe (1997) and Phoenix (2006). We have been ranked in the Top 10 franchise operations in AlphaGraphics over the last 4 years and are consistently ranked in the top 100 quick printing operations in the U.S, ranking as high as 60th.

AlphaGraphics is a full service, visual communications business. We also consider ourselves as marketing and communications consultants reaching into the realm of front-end creative, search engine optimization, paid search, e-mail blasts, one-to-one direct mail, personalized url mailings and a whole host of other things.

You can reach my centers at the following websites:
Mesa http://us291.alphagraphics.com/
Tempe http://us436.alphagraphics.com/
Phoenix http://us106.alphagraphics.com/