News Archives - Marketing, content, & technology to help printers sell more printing

Are you going to be at Print 17? Great! We are, too, and we’d love to meet you there! We’ll be at the show in Booth 351, so stop by and say “Hi!” In our booth: A New Print MIS, DesignEdit 2, and John Henry. Get on the Calendar Better yet, if you’d like to reserve some uninterrupted talk-time, here’s a direct link to the calendars of select members of our staff. Cindy Heitman Solutions Specialist You may have already met Cindy through phone calls and emails, but seeing her in person will be a completely different experience. You’ll really be in for a treat! See for yourself and reserve some time to experience her in person on Cindy’s Print 17 calendar. John Henry Owner, Mitchell’s Speedway Press Sales, Marketing Ideas For Printers John is a familiar face to so many of you, and John recently joined our team! He’ll be at the show representing Marketing Ideas For Printers! Here’s a link with direct access to John’s Print 17 calendar. Dave Hultin President And, don’t forget about Dave. He’ll be there, too, ready to “talk shop!” Here’s a link with direct access to Dave’s Print 17 calendar. Meet More of the Team One of our developers,

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

Don't Pass This Up!, Marketing Ideas For Printers, Print 17

Print 17 is coming soon and you need to be there! There are countless reasons why heading off to Chicago this September 10-14th for the Print 17 Conference is in your best interest. In fact, in a recent blog post, we skimmed the tip of the iceberg by listing 5 Reasons You Should Join Us at Print 17! But, even if you overlooked those five reasons, here’s another one, and it’s BIG!!! Get Your Free Pass Until August 25th, 2017, we are excited to be able to offer you a free exhibits-only pass! Not only can you attend at no charge with our complimentary exhibits-only admission pass but you’ll also receive a $50 discount on the PRINT 17 education sessions (including the OUTLOOK 17 conference held Sunday, September 10th, from 8:00 am to noon). Say Hello! Stop by and visit us at Booth 351! We’d love to speak with you one-on-one and learn how things have been going with you and your business. Brush up on what’s new, network with others, and explore solutions to help increase your sales and grow your business. Can you feel your excuses slipping away? Come connect with us and let us show you how we can help you sell

We’ll be traveling to Chicago this September to take part in the Print 17 conference, and we want you with us! If you’ve never had the opportunity to attend “the largest gathering of print and graphic communications buyers, decision makers and suppliers in North America,” here’s your chance! The Print 17 Conference is coming this September 10-14th, 2017, to McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois. We’ll be at the conference in Booth 351, ready to visit with you, and we’d love for you to join us! If you’re thinking, “what’s the big deal?” here are five reasons why you should attend and meet us there: 1) Learn What’s Hot See what’s new in the printing industry! You’ll walk away from the conference with an excellent grasp on the latest trends and innovations, and be able to bring yourself up-to-date if you haven’t made it out of the shop in a while. 2) Flirt With New Ideas Discover your next great idea in an environment that inspires creativity. Whether you’re looking for new products or ideas to overcome business challenges, or simply seeking knowledge to increase your productivity and efficiency, you’ll find that your experience and participation in the show will have an

Marketing Ideas For Printers, MIS, Meet the Team: Justin Carlson, Team

What do you get when you combine the words “creative” and “analytical”? You get “create-alitical,” and that’s the word Justin Carlson on our Customer Care Team uses to describe himself. Justin is our resident comedian. He’s the guy that ensures there’s at least one light-hearted moment at every company meeting. He is quick to listen, eager to help, and seems to have an endless supply of unique ways to solve a problem. I enjoy innovating, creating something new, as well as educating and helping our customers use our services. I’m happiest when I’m connecting people with transformative ideas through creative ways. If you’ve ever called us or emailed us for help with your website, you’ve no doubt had the experience of working with Justin in some capacity. What you may not know is that Justin is responsible for building our latest company website at MarketingIdeasForPrinters.com and is an excellent videographer. In fact, when asked what his favorite project at MI4P has been so far, he says: So far, my favorite company project has been looking at old company photos while making a company history video. Justin has the unique ability of offering as much hand-holding as you need when you’re

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

Volunteering Together Makes Life Better, Marketing Ideas For Printers, Others First, Core Values

So much of success as a business involves developing a close connection with your customers and community. This is especially true in smaller, local companies (like printers!). Sure, we should tell you that a well-designed piece of direct mail can do this (and it can), but nothing says “we care about you” quite like volunteering together as a company within your community. Not only does serving together increase the presence and awareness of your business within your community, but your employees can benefit from this experience, too. These types of activities double as social functions, offering a fun opportunity to get together with co-workers outside of the business environment. It allows them to get to know each other a little better and to learn to love being in the service of others. Service in Action Joanna Erber, our Financial Services Director, recently coordinated a chance for us to see the benefits of volunteering up close and personal when we volunteered at the Great Plains Food Bank here in Fargo, ND. She has a real passion for looking for ways to benefit others and says: Businesses should absolutely do these types of volunteer events and give back. It betters the community,

Marketing Ideas For Printers, Are You Sure Your Software Is Up-To-Date?, Direct Mail

Recently, a customer contacted us looking for help with customizing their direct mail content. They had experienced a series of weird hiccups while trying to open their Adobe InDesign file with no clear indication of what to do next. After some digging, we discovered that their version of Adobe InDesign was outdated and had been corrupted. Thankfully, they subscribed to Adobe Creative Cloud, and a simple update to their software fixed the problem and got them back on track! What You Should Know If you’re an Adobe Creative Cloud subscriber, the newest updates for your current software platform are available to you at any time. Additionally, you have access to the freshest software releases as soon as they become available from Adobe. If that’s news to you, keep on reading! Every Adobe Creative Cloud subscription includes the Creative Cloud app which manages your Adobe software and notifies you of any updates available. This app also gives you front row access to the newest versions of the software available. You can check out the “What’s New?” section to find out exactly what you’re getting with the update. To access the “What’s New?” section within any Adobe application on either Mac or PC,

Websites, Ecommerce Suite, Sell Printing While You Sleep, Marketing Ideas For Printers

We’ve all been there. You hear about a fantastic new product on the radio or read about it in an article, and you decide you must get one for yourself. Within minutes, you’ve found a store online that sells that product, chosen the best shipping option for your needs, and even paid for it. Within days, it’s going to be on your front step. From the instant you first thought about buying the item to the moment you’ve hit the checkout button in the online store, your order can’t have taken more than ten minutes! Wouldn’t it be great if you could offer your own customers that kind of accessibility and convenience? With the Ecommerce Suite, available in the Conquer Bundle for your Marketing Ideas For Printers’ website, you can. Be Ready Any Time Let’s face it; your customers can get an idea for their next printing purchase at any time of the day or night. But, if you’re like most printshops, your sales team probably isn’t working around the clock. It would be ideal if you were able to not only take orders but also complete the sale right when they want it, instead of waiting until morning when their