MIS Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Marketing, content, & technology to help printers sell more printing

Odyssey, MIS, Marketing Ideas For Printers, How Do I Know You're Print MIS Will Be Around

For those discovering Odyssey (our new Print MIS) and learning about Marketing Ideas For Printers for the very first time, it’s not surprising to have questions like this: How do I know Marketing Ideas For Printers will be around for the long haul? How can I be assured that Odyssey will be viable in the future if I choose Odyssey as my Print MIS? Those are good questions, and not too difficult to answer. It Starts with Our History The answer actually starts in the late 1980s with the birth of Ink Inc., which at that time was the name of the company that started the direct mail service provided by Marketing Ideas For Printers. Just click the history link at the bottom of any page on our Direct Mail For Printers website and you’ll see the story of how Ink Inc. began. Over time, we’ve added Websites For Printers (2001), Social Media Marketing For Printers (2009), and Email Marketing For Printers (2009) to the services offered by Marketing Ideas For Printers. Each service was quickly embraced by both new and existing customers, and each service quickly achieved sustained profitability. Each service has stood the test of time, and each service has adapted to continue to be relevant.

Odyssey, MIS, Marketing Ideas For Printers, How Much Does Odyssey Cost?

If you’re a “just give me the facts, please” type of person, the price for Odyssey is as follows: a recurring monthly subscription fee of $499 (USD), plus a $2,999 (USD) one-time setup fee to get started. Currently, Odyssey requires a website (with the Ecommerce Suite) from Marketing Ideas For Printers. That means you’ll have not only a forward-thinking Print MIS under your fingertips but also a world-class website! (Later, Odyssey will be available for use on any website.) Odyssey’s Pricing and Benefits So, I know what you’re probably thinking. “How does Odyssey help me sell more printing and pay for itself?” Or, there’s this one, “Switching to a new MIS is a huge headache. What’s so different about Odyssey that I’ll know it’s really worth it?” Finally, “I’m thinking about it, but why hurry?” Well, let me answer those questions for you with three of the benefits I believe will be the most impactful for you: Question #1: How does Odyssey help me sell more printing and pay for itself? By eliminating double-entry and creating a more efficient hand-off from your customers to your team. Just think of all the time it takes your team to copy the information from an online order and paste it into

Odyssey, MIS, Marketing Ideas For Printers, The Personal Touch is Gone. Now What?

Gone are the days when you could count on a friendly smile with your purchase. Sure, you can still get that warm smile, but these days we head to the self-checkout line and intentionally choose to skip the opportunity for that friendly smile altogether. That’s a topic I explored in a recent article published on LinkedIn entitled, Connecting People to Process. (If we’re not already connected on LinkedIn, please take this opportunity to connect with me while you’re there reading the article. Thanks!) Who’s In Control? You don’t have a self-checkout line in your print shop, but your print-buying customers probably feel like most Walmart shoppers. They don’t always want a personal touch anymore! They want control – the control to regulate their buying pace, the control to access and change their order whenever they want, and the control to not wait for you. The Easiest Process Wins If your customers are exercising their control and choosing to skip the personal touch, that means they’re going online to order printing. Today, over 70% of buying decisions are made before a conversation with a real live human even occurs. 70%!!! And all signs point to that number going even higher in the future. Let’s go back to the

“Odyssey” is a new breed of Print Management Information Systems (Print MIS) that eliminates double entry and expands the scope of Print MIS to include marketing. Odyssey Eliminates Double Entry Gone are the days when your customers place an order online, and you have to copy the information they provided and paste it into your Print MIS. With Odyssey, your website is your MIS, and that means no more double entry. Odyssey Includes Marketing What if your Print MIS not only managed your interactions with your customers during the production of their print jobs, but it also helped you communicate with your customers and prospects before and after the time they were buying printing? Because Odyssey is a Print MIS with marketing automation, Odyssey has you covered at all stages … before, during, and after! Learn About Odyssey Odyssey will launch in January 2017. If you take the time to learn about Odyssey now, you’ll save $2,000 off Odyssey’s startup charge. How do you learn about Odyssey? By signing up for one of our no-obligation webinars! The webinars are scheduled every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, pick the one (or more!) that works for you. The complete schedule can be found at the bottom of mi4p.com/mis. Sign Up for a Webinar

How many customer lists are you currently maintaining? One of your most valuable customer lists is the one in your print management information system (Print MIS). After all, that’s where you’re keeping track of everyone that’s placing orders, and everyone that’s paying you for the privilege of doing business with you. That’s a pretty significant list! When do you add people to that list? Do you add them to your Print MIS before they order printing from you? No, because that’s when they’re on your prospecting list. However, that’s also a pretty significant list because, after all, that’s where your customers are coming from. Prospecting for Print Buyers How do you turn prospects into print buyers? It starts by building relationships. Think back even further. How do you build relationships? By telling your story and starting a conversation with your prospect. Consider this: If your goal is to turn your prospects into customers, and your customers are managed by your Print MIS, doesn’t it make sense for your Print MIS to manage the marketing campaigns that target those prospects (i.e. your soon-to-be customers!) right from the start? Shouldn’t your prospect list and your customer list be managed together, as one list? We think so, which is why

We’ve heard over and over again about the challenges printers face when they receive an order online and then need to re-enter the same information into their print management information systems (Print MIS). Copy-paste makes the job easier, of course, but who wants to sit around copying and pasting all day when you could be spending that time working and selling more printing? Odyssey Changes Everything! “Odyssey” is the new Print MIS we’ll be revealing at Graph Expo, and Odyssey changes everything! Odyssey powers not only the Print MIS but also the order forms on your website. Any information your customers provide when they place an order on your website instantly and seamlessly becomes data in Odyssey. With Odyssey, your website is your MIS, and that means no more double entry! When your website and your Print MIS are two different systems, online print orders look like this: But when Odyssey eliminates double entry by keeping all of your data in the same system, the process flows smoothly, like a peaceful stream, like this: Six touchpoints are reduced to TWO! Not only is double entry eliminated, the whole workflow is streamlined, communication with your customer is more efficient, and you get more done

A print management information system (or Print MIS) helps printers manage their day-to-day production activities. Would you agree that a Print MIS should connect you with your print-buying customers from the time an order is placed until the time an order is completed? That’s common ground that we can all agree on pretty easily. Would you also agree that you should be communicating with your prospects and customers even when they aren’t ordering printing? Once again we can all come to a pretty quick agreement. Communication is, of course, important. It’s what leads to relationships. You can (and should) be building a relationship with your customers and prospects even before production begins, before they place their very first order! And after the job is complete, you can (and should) continue nurturing and growing those relationships with your customers to make sure they come back to place even more orders! Limits of a Traditional Print MIS What if your Print MIS not only managed your interactions with your customers during the production of their print jobs, but it also helped you communicate with your customers and prospects before and after the time they were buying printing? If your Print MIS removed the “before” barrier,

One of our core values at Marketing Ideas For Printers is Positive Attitude. A slightly longer version of that core value reads like this: Positive Attitude: We find the best in every experience. It’s easy to “find the best” in good experiences, but we desire to find the best in every experience, including the not-so-good experiences. We had one of those not-so-good experiences happen a little over a year ago when a customer left us. Finding The Best Gut check. What just happened? Why did they leave us? Their answer: they were frustrated that their website wasn’t communicating with the technology they used to manage production. They wanted a website that communicated with their Print Management Information System (Print MIS). They wanted the efficiencies that would result when a website and a Print MIS can have a two-way digital conversation with each other. What they wanted wasn’t happening. That was the moment we said, “We can never be in that position again. A lack of integration with a Print MIS can never again be the reason we lose a customer.” Print MIS Integrations How do we “never be in that position again” and get our websites and Print MIS talking with each other? We could pursue integrations with existing Print MIS systems, but we’ve been

« Previous Page