News Archives - Page 6 of 10 - Marketing, content, & technology to help printers sell more printing

Have you adapted your sales cycle to accommodate the Digital Dialog? It used to be that your customers ordered printing from you either by a voice-to-voice conversation on the phone or a face-to-face conversation at your front counter. That still happens, of course, but with the Internet being at everyone’s fingertips, the conversations about ordering printing often start with social media, email, and the use of your website’s order forms. The Online Version of You Is the online version of you able to sell printing as effectively as the real you? It’s worth taking some time to study the answer to that question, considering how often the print ordering process starts online in the digital world. You need to think about the Digital Dialog when you’re ready to answer that question. The Digital Dialog is, very simply, conversation facilitated online. The Digital Dialog is the online version of you that starts conversations, builds trust, and develops relationships online, so you can sell more printing. The Dialog of a Printing Order Before we get into the details of the Digital Dialog, let’s pull back the focus and look at the dialog of a printing order. To sell printing effectively you have to manage this dialog, whether it happens voice-to-voice,

Think back to a time before the Internet. (My kids always give me a puzzled look when I tell them that such a time actually existed!) Print buyers ordered printing face-to-face over a front counter or voice-to-voice over a phone. That still happens, but today’s print buyers order printing from your website, too! It’s easy to be friendly face-to-face, but are you being friendly online? Remember, you only get one chance to make a first impression. That’s why your online communication has to be clear, accurate, and friendly. Your online conversation, whether human or automated, is your digital dialog. Here are some tips to make your digital dialog as effective as possible. Say Goodbye to The Geek Your digital dialog shouldn’t be too geeky. Instead, it should be friendly … just like the face-to-face conversations you had before the Internet. Tips For Humans: Just because the conversation is happening online is enough to get some people talking geeky. Don’t. Imagine the conversation as if it was happening face-to-face, and then transfer that conversation into the digital dialog. Tips For Computers: This is where the geek-talk can really show up. Just because the message is automated doesn’t mean it can’t be warm and friendly. Use normal talk with real words. Put

Do you know anyone that does search engine optimization for a living? A typical day in their life might look something like this: Wake up. Put in an honest day’s work. Go to bed. Wake up. Discover that yesterday’s SEO rules no longer exist, and start learning new SEO rules. It’s not uncommon for Google to introduce big shifts to their ranking algorithm with little (if any) advance warning. However, the next big change is going to be different because Google has provided a solid date and plenty of information regarding the next big change they’ll be pushing our way on April 21, 2015. Google’s Mobile-Friendly Update According to Google, Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices. It’s no surprise that Google will be paying more attention to mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. Your Mobile Website Here’s something you may not know: Websites For Printers websites already have a mobile-friendly version, ready for you to use! For brand

Open a can of outstanding, we have some important news to share! It’s time to reveal a very big project that we’ve been working on for you; we are ready to roll out an update to the Websites For Printers order forms! The Best of…Everything! This update includes the best of the original Level 1 website order forms, the best of the Document Library order forms, and the best of the current websites’ order forms. These “best ofs” combine together to create a highly customizable, functional, and (dare we say) beautiful order form system on your Websites For Printers websites. We’ve also added items that we believe will show up on your “best of” list pretty quickly…things like the return of global questions, where you can define your question once and use it multiple times throughout all of your website order forms. We’ve also added question rules, so that the answer to one question (envelope size, for example) will determine the display of other questions (window selections, in our envelope example). Streamlined Pricing Management The new order forms will streamline the way pricing is displayed on your website. There’s now one place to manage all pricing displays for each order form. You’ll have the option to display everything from no pricing at all to a price calculated in real-time using a Harmony-enabled connection

Eighty percent of consumers’ disposable income is still spent on businesses within 10 miles of their homes. Are you helping your print-buying customers reach their customers within those 10 miles? Direct mail is still relevant in a digital world, and Every Door Direct Mail makes connecting with consumers fast, easy, and effective. Connie Jacoby, Direct Marketing Specialist at the United States Postal Service, presented the webinar, The Power and Simplicity of Every Door Direct Mail, on March 4, 2015. In this webinar, Connie gave attendees a quick introduction to EDDM basics, and then talked about how you can use EDDM to bring more value to your print-buying customers’ direct mail projects. The recording of the webinar is available to: Members of the National Print Owners Association (NPOA): This webinar was presented by the United States Post Office for the National Print Owners Association (NPOA, www.PrintOwners.org), and sponsored by us here at Marketing Ideas For Printers. The recording of the webinar is available to members of the NPOA in the members-only section of the NPOA website. And Upon Request: If you don’t have a login, we’ll still be able to get you a front-row seat to the webinar. Just give us a call at 800-736-0688.

Yesterday we launched MI4P.info for Ink Inc. customers! Everything went pretty much as we had planned. Except for one tiny detail. For a short period of time, Ink Inc. customers logging in at MI4P.info saw this: And that request didn’t go over very well. The request was intended to be presented only to a subset of Websites For Printers customers. We got a wire crossed, we should have never presented this request to Ink Inc. customers. Once we realized the message was being displayed to the wrong audience, we quickly turned off this request for Ink Inc. customers. But the whole incident got us thinking … we need to do a much better job on telling our Websites For Printers customers exactly why we’re making this request when they log in to MI4P.info, and that is what we’ll cover in the rest of this post. It’s For Your Protection It’s for your protection. That sounds like something you’d say if you were trying to make something bad sound like something good. However, in this case, the request for identification truly is for your protection if you’re a Websites For Printers customer. Here’s the rest of the story. We’ve been building websites since 2001, and

We recently announced the passwords are being removed from the Ink Inc. packages. Instead of using passwords, the Ink Inc. packages will be secured by placing them behind the login of your MI4P.info account. If you haven’t already done so, it’s now time to create your account! The following video (4:36) explains how Ink Inc. customers can create an account at MI4P.info: http://youtu.be/vvWzf-PunfM Do you have questions about your MI4P.info account or your Ink Inc. packages? We’re here to help, just give us a call at 800-736-0688.

Starting with the March 2015 Ink Inc packages (which will be released in mid-January), Ink Inc. customers will begin retrieving Adobe InDesign files (and related artwork files) in a brand new way! The learning curve is pretty tame on this change, so if you consider yourself an old dog and hate learning new tricks, there’s no reason to worry. In fact, you’ll probably find this change makes things a lot easier for you, because we’re dropping the passwords that protect the monthly Ink Inc. packages. Instead of using passwords, the packages will be protected by placing them behind the lock and key of the Marketing Ideas For Printers Info Center at MI4P.info. Huh? Info Center? MI4P.info? What’s that? That’s where everything related to your account with Marketing Ideas For Printers is managed. (If you’re a Websites For Printers customer, you may already be familiar with the Info Center and MI4P.info. Now, you’ll find your Ink Inc. account information there as well.) Each month, we’ll continue to send you an email when the Ink Inc. packages are ready. Instead of including your Ink Inc. passwords, that email will contain a link that directs you to log in to the Info Center at MI4P.info to download your Ink Inc. packages. In

Who do you think is going to make more money? A printer whose web address appears on page 25 of your search engine results, or on page 1? Here’s the story behind that loaded question. If you search for “Ohio Printers” you’ll see Northern Ohio Printing (nohioprinting.com) right at the top of the list of Google’s organic search results. Northern Ohio Printing (nohioprinting.com) used to be on page 25, but now, nohioprinting.com is on page one … in the #1 position! How does something like that happen? For Northern Ohio Printing it happened because they upgraded their Level 1 website with Websites For Printers to the current Websites For Printers platform. We recently created a helpful web page you can use to learn about the SEO improvements that lead to more opportunities to sell printing. Selling more printing: that’s the very best reason to move to the current Websites For Printers platform. Want to get the sales opportunities that come with great SEO? We’ve got you covered!

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