Dave Hultin, Author at Marketing, content, & technology to help printers sell more printing

We’d like to bring you with us to Print ’17 this year! After all, we’re already offering you a free hotel room while you’re there! Bringing you with us might not be as glamorous as it sounds, but you can still come away with some big wins by participating in these two easy-to-win contests! Contest 1: Be Featured on Our Brochure and Receive a $350 Credit to Your MI4P Account The last time we printed our brochures, the cover looked like the photo below, featuring a picture of the Heidelberg SM52 press from the Mike Stevens / Express Press era of our company: This year we thought, “Why not consider featuring one of our customers on the cover?” If you and your team are willing to make an appearance on our brochure cover and we select the winning photo from your photo submissions, we’ll reward you with a $350 credit to your account with Marketing Ideas For Printers. Requirements for the photos you submit: Photos must be high-resolution, professional-quality photography. We’re looking for an authentic photo taken by someone with a knowledge of photographic lighting and an eye for great composition. You must be willing to give us the copyright release (assigning

Marketing Ideas For Printers, Marketing, Sales, LinkedIn, Sell More Printing When You're 10% Pushier

Some of the very best sales advice I ever received was from Dave Fellman. It was such simple advice: Be 10% pushier. Simple. And powerful. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pulled that advice out of the dark folds of my memory. It has made such a difference so many times! Here’s the context in which Dave F. offered that advice. My opportunity to work with him came at a time after I had transitioned from various roles at Express Press, an award-winning print shop here in Fargo, North Dakota, to roles at Ink Inc. and Websites For Printers (the predecessors to today’s Marketing Ideas For Printers). Those new roles meant I’d be on the front lines “selling stuff,” and that required me to adopt a new way of thinking. A Quiet Salesperson I didn’t quite fit the stereotype of the typical salesperson because I was a quiet salesperson. I would engage in a conversation, but at that stage in my life, I just didn’t connect those sales conversations to the sales process as much as I should have. Every conversation should move your prospect closer to making a decision about what you’re selling. There’s room for lots

We’re now on the tail end of a rather nasty email service disruption. Here’s a phrase I use sometimes: Email’s like oxygen these days, we just can’t live without it. You really don’t notice oxygen when it’s there, but if the oxygen gets sucked out of the room, you notice pretty quickly. It’s the same with email, right? You notice when it’s gone. And that’s exactly what happened for a number of Marketing Ideas For Printers’ customers over the last few days. Personally, when I learned that there was an email disruption affecting our customers, my stomach started turning a little bit. I could feel the oxygen leaving the room. Thankfully email disruptions don’t happen often, but when those disruptions do happen, I always end up with that stomach-turning, oxygen-sucking feeling. When they occur, most email disruptions are measured in minutes. Less commonly the disruption may last an hour or two. So, in rare times like this when the disruption lasts for days, the feeling is downright sickening. Who’s Behind the Email Service? A company called Rackspace is our email technology partner. They’re big players in the web hosting and email universe, trusted by companies big and small. We’ve partnered with them

Here's How You Eat An Elephant, Marketing Ideas For Printers, Odyssey, MIS

You’ve started your next big project. It’s the big idea that will leapfrog you past other printers competing with you. It’s the revolutionary change that will usher in your next period of success. And it’s intimidating. You’ve lost your momentum, and you’re stuck. The mighty elephant in the room is your obstacle. It’s easy to see, but at the same time you don’t know how to get past it, so it seems even easier just to ignore. You can beat the elephant! How? You beat an elephant the same way you eat an elephant: one bite at a time. We’ve Been There Our “next big project” is our Print MIS called Odyssey. Building a new Print MIS from the ground up is challenging. It would be nice if we could say that we perfectly executed a plan that took us from concept to launch with no surprises. The truth is much different, of course. There were days we’d have a stare-down with Odyssey as we tried to figure out how to move past the elephant in the room. If you’re stuck on your project, borrow some ideas from us. Here are three ideas the team at Marketing Ideas For Printers

If Everyone Wins at SEO, then No-one Wins, Websites, Marketing Ideas For Printers,

Something we hear a lot is, “Do I really need to care about SEO on my website? I mean, aren’t you guys already taking care of that for me?” To get you an honest answer to that question, let’s unpack that a little. We’ll show you what we do to help you get the best search engine optimization (SEO) results, and follow that up with tips on how you can take your SEO to the next level. Form or Function? SEO is part form and part function, so let’s take a look at both form and function. Here’s what you need to know: We take care of the “function” part so that together we’re well-positioned to help you take care of the “form” part. How we help: We make sure your website functions in a way that makes search engines happy. We make sure the website code adheres to search engine best practices. One geeky example: Websites from Marketing Ideas For Printers embed properly-formatted sitemaps, and that’s a “must do” if you want to make it easy for search engines to index your website. That’s a little taste of what we do make sure you’re well-positioned for search engine success. Now, let’s turn the focus and

MIS, Odyssey, Marketing Ideas For Printers, Print MIS Reliability Check: Hard Drive or Internet?

A frequent question that comes up when printers explore moving to any cloud-based service is: What happens if my internet connection goes down? Our new Print MIS, Odyssey, is a cloud-based service, so it’s important to us that you get a clear answer to that question. If internet reliability is a concern in your area, then a cloud-based MIS service like Odyssey may not be the right choice for you. You may be better served by a legacy Print MIS like Printer’s Plan or PrintSmith Vision that resides on a hard drive. However, hard drives have reliability issues too. Whether your internet connection goes down for a cloud-based system, or your hard drive crashes for a legacy system, your primary concern is to get access to your data. So, when data access is needed, which option gets you there quicker and with less hassle? Let’s take a look at both contenders. In Corner One: Hard Drives Hard drives are not immortal. In fact, it’s just a matter of when (not if!) your hard drive dies. When that happens, think about this: what if that hard drive contains all of your Print MIS data? Now, calculate the time and hassle required to recover from a

Be Prepared for the Next Phase of the Canadian Anti-Spam Law, Email, Printer@Work, Marketing Ideas For Printers

Back in December 2010, Canada passed a sweeping anti-spam law that entered into force on July 1, 2014. The super-short version of the law that’s important to our Canadian printers is this: Before sending any electronic messages, you are required to have the consent (permission) of the recipient. (Note that “electronic messages” means more than email; it also includes messages sent to social networking accounts and text messages sent to a cell phone.) At this point, you may be thinking, “It’s 2017, and this is old news. Why are you telling me this now?” Well, although you may already be aware of the law, what you may not be aware of is that this new law is wrapping up a “breaking in” period of three years, with the full force of the law taking effect this summer. Starting July 1, 2017, individuals or organizations affected by those violating the law will be able to pursue court actions to seek actual and statutory damages (up to $1 million for individuals, and $10 million for business). Some Quick Tips To make sure you’re prepared, here are some quick tips to help you navigate Canada’s anti-spam law: If you obtained express consent from your recipient before the law went into effect

Each week we present two webinars to talk about Odyssey, the new Print MIS from Marketing Ideas For Printers. Last week’s webinar was one of the best because Cindy Heitman and Don Jones joined me. (That means you don’t have to listen to me drone on and on!) Cindy and Don both have a unique perspective on Odyssey, and you’ll find it helpful to learn more about Odyssey from a different viewpoint. Cindy is on our sales team and helps printers see the benefits Odyssey offers. Don is Odyssey’s lead developer and shares his excitement of Odyssey from the perspective of all the technical details that make it work. A New Print MIS: The Odyssey Live Event Web Meeting Enough of my words, let’s get you watching and listening. Here’s a recording of the Thursday, March 16, 2017, Odyssey webinar: Table of Contents Miss a spot? Here’s a convenient table of contents for you to get to the exact right place, along with links to pages referenced in the webinar: 0:45 – Book: The Influence of “Hooked” on Odyssey (Blog post: http://on.mi4p.com/hooked-blog) 3:55 – Odyssey from Cindy’s Perspective 8:53 – Meet Don Jones (Blog post: http://on.mi4p.com/meet-don-jones) 9:22 – Odyssey from Don’s Perspective 12:40 – Demo of

Odyssey, MIS, Marketing Ideas For Printers, Can I Import My Existing Print MIS Data Into Odyssey?

Sometimes Odyssey prospects fall in love with Odyssey (our new Print MIS) when they see it, then second-guess their new-found affection by letting this thought rattle around in their brain: What will I do with all my customer history and existing Print MIS data? I’d make the move if that were easier to deal with. Respectfully, if you’re thinking that thought, then you do not see Odyssey’s true potential, and you might be acting lazy and a little selfish. Don’t Be Selfish Remember, your Print MIS isn’t about you; it’s about your customers. Which MIS solution is going to serve their needs best? A modern, cloud-based Print MIS that puts them on the same platform as you and your team, or a legacy MIS that puts a digital wall of separation between you and your customers? Sure, it’s easier to stay with your current Print MIS, but is it better? If you think about what’s easiest for you without thinking about what’s best for your customers, selfishness is creeping in. Someday, maybe even today, you’ll be vulnerable to losing your customers to another printer that does see how a cloud-based Print MIS allows their customers to do business more efficiently. When that happens, it’ll

MIS, Odyssey, Marketing Ideas For Printers, Odyssey is a Print MIS for Online and Legacy Success

As I’ve visited with printers about Odyssey and told them that Odyssey is a Print MIS that directly connects to their website, it’s easy for them to see that Odyssey easily manages online print orders. Because of Odyssey’s seamless connection to websites from Marketing Ideas For Printers, printers can sometimes overlook how well Odyssey handles legacy orders too, which leads to printers asking this question: How does Odyssey handle legacy orders? Here are three of the entry points for print orders in Odyssey. Self-Serve Online Orders These are the online orders placed by your customers with no assistance from you. Your customers sit at their desk at work (or at home in their pajamas, for that matter), fill out an order form on your website, and click the Place an Order button. Just a fraction of a second later, there’s an order in Odyssey (your Print MIS), and everyone on your team is alerted that print production can start. Guided Orders Guided orders are like self-serve orders because they also use an order form found on your website. But, these order forms are intended to be used by your team to guide your customers through the process of ordering printing. Your team will want to

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