As managing director of our Rancho Cucamonga facility, I meet with customers on a fairly regular basis. I've been in the fulfillment business 13 years, and I'm still amazed by the sheer variety of challenges we're presented as new customers come aboard and existing clients work to optimize their marketing programs. But there's one common thread I see time and time again - spending too much on print.
Now, it's no secret that many companies are trying to get away from print altogether. That's a whole different topic - one that's worthy of its own blog. But, if your programs incorporate print materials like marketing collateral, you're almost certainly spending more than you have to.
How much are we are talking about here? Is this a big problem or a small problem? Let's take a look at some market data.
According to a survey of marketers conducted by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council, 90% of respondents said they spend at least 20% of their budget on print materials.
As a marketing leader, what would it mean to you to have 1% of your budget back? How about 5%?
Here's another fact.
40% of respondents who track obsolescence reported wasting more than 20% of their marketing materials due to obsolescence, while 30% said they waste between 10% and 20%.
I didn't set out to make this a blog about arithmetic, but there's an important lesson in all these numbers. So let's do the math and see what they really mean.
If you spend 20% to 30% of your budget on print materials, and you end up throwing away 20% of those materials, you're wasting 4% to 6% of your total marketing spend on items that return nothing.
It's almost as though you put that money in the trash and burned it. Can you afford to let 6% of your budget go up in smoke?
In addition to wasting valuable marketing dollars, obsolescence can hurt your results and your brand. Internet search engines base rankings on content relevance and freshness for a reason: because that's what people want. Sending your prospects generic, out-of-date or inaccurate marketing collateral can turn a hot lead ice cold. If you distribute materials that are obsolete because they don't pass regulatory muster, you're also risking sanctions, fines and even lawsuits, not to mention bad press.
Collateral waste: why it happens and what to do about it Marketing collateral can become obsolete for a number of reasons, including product modifications, price changes and the need to add disclaimers, terms and conditions or other fine print to satisfy regulatory demands. Then there are pieces that while not technically obsolete sit unused on a warehouse shelf because they just don't get results.
So how can you defeat obsolescence and waste, reduce your print costs and possibly improve your results, as well? Here are three tips:
Take a cold, hard look at your inventory. Marketing collateral has a way of proliferating (sort of like the socks in your sock drawer). You're almost certain to have materials that duplicate or overlap content with others, pieces that don't pull well, and items that are seasonal or rarely used, but still occupy costly shelf space. Categorize everything, then
Cull, consolidate and correct. Discard materials that are clearly unnecessary (this includes your obsolete materials) and vow to never create another piece unless it has a well defined business purpose that isn't met by existing inventory. Combine materials that overlap or contain redundancies. And find out why collateral that doesn't pull its weight is underperforming. As I mentioned earlier, it could be that it's too generic. One-size-fits-all materials usually fit no one, so consider adding personalization and customizing content and graphics to better match recipients' demographics. Relevance rules!
Streamline production. Another key to reducing your marketing collateral costs is choosing the right production processes. While there are times when it makes good business sense to use four-color offset printing, advances in digital print have made it an attractive alternative for a growing number of applications. It's the go-to technology for customization and for materials that change frequently.
In my next blog, I'll talk more about the role of digital printing services in effective collateral management. Stay tuned!
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As managing director of our Rancho Cucamonga facility, I meet with customers on a fairly regular basis. I've been in the fulfillment business 13 years, and I'm still amazed by the sheer variety of challenges we're presented as new customers come aboard and existing clients work to optimize their marketing programs. But there's one common thread I see time and time again - spending too much on print.
