CANVAS - FEBRUARY 2019 - THE YOUTH MOVEMENT

EMPOWERING MARKETING SERVICE PROVIDERS

The ABM Effect The Lumpy

FEBRUARY 2019

e l o R r e g g i B h c u M a e v a H s r e k a M n o i s i c e D g n You

FEBRUARY VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 1

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Inside this issue

BOILERPLATE

36

ALSO INSIDE

30 THE ABM EFFECT

Why it works, how to do it and ways you can make it work for you

04

Publisher’s Note

The Antidote

STAT PACK

06

BEHIND THE CURTAIN

12

IGNITE BRILLIANCE

CORNER OFFICE

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3 ways to answer the next magic question, ‘How?’ A creative’s guide to winning through villainy

CANVAS FEBRUARY 2019

Industry news & awards

7 essential steps to ensure a year of profitable conversations

CANVAS Buyer’s Guide

16 17 18 19

When the best gets better The latest breed Steeped in wealth Diamond Print Glitter — Show your shine

CHANGE MANAGEMENT

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Practicing the art of finishing

APT

14 22

The way forward

Inside this issue| Publisher’s Note

BOILERPLATE

CONTRIBUTORS Andy Slipher, Founder, Slipher Marketing @Andy_Slipher

The Antidote

Stefan Mumaw, Director of Creative Strategy, Hint @stefanmumaw

AmyK Hutchens, Founder, AmyK Inc.

A

rtificial Intelligence (AI) is the new black. In other words, AI is the current most popular trend that has all of us nervous and curious. We wonder if we can play a role in the future that’s dominated by AI. And yet, some of us wonder if this is just another new tool (like QR codes, social networks and augmented reality) getting the latest buzz.

Many of us have taken the bait on some of these new tools. We have cut advertising in favor of a relentless social campaign, only to find out that the ROI is negligible. We figured that people would use their phones to access QR codes at a frenetic pace, only to learn that people digest content when they want, and use their phones to engage friends and entertain themselves.

In our short-term economy, long-term success stories are hard to find. Twenty percent of businesses fail in the first year. Nearly half are gone by the five-year mark. And only one out of three survive to celebrate their 10th anniversary (Conduit Inc. will be 12 years old in June).

Between 2014 and 2016, median job tenure in the United States dropped 11.5 percent to 4.2 years. The decline is even steeper for chief marketing officers. Their tenure shrank by six months to 3.5 years. Overall, the short-term spin cycle simultaneously creates demand for a “silver bullet” technological solution and a scarcity of brands and careers that last.

The antidote is—and always will be—to build business based on legacy. In other words, we cannot rely on the past nor ignore the possibilities of change. We need to embrace a new legacy that includes the best of the past and the hope for the future. We can embrace new tools, but we must continue to remember what and who has always defined us.

Welcome to the 12th year of CANVAS magazine. We have never forgotten what we stand for, yet we are proud to have embraced new vehicles such as podcasts and online content. We are excited to bring you content that matters and will endeavor to inspire you to leave your own legacy.

The antidote is—and always will be—to build business based on legacy. We need to embrace a new legacy that includes the best of the past and the hope for the future.

Warmest regards,

Mark Potter, Publisher @MarkRicePotter

@AmyKHutchens

Sarah Mannone, Executive VP, Trekk

@JeffreyWFoley1

Jason Dizzine, Director, Marketing at Ricoh Americas Corporation @tweet_convert

GET IN TOUCH WITH US @THECANVASMAG

2009 Mackenzie Way, Suite 100 Cranberry Township, PA 16066 WWW.THECANVASMAG.COM

THE CANVAS TEAM MANAGING EDITOR michael j. pallerino ART DIRECTOR brent cashman SALES/MARKETING mark potter

EDITORIAL BOARD tom moe Daily Printing gina danner NextPage david bennett Bennett Graphics scott hudson Worth Higgins

PUBLISHED BY CANVAS, Volume 13, Issue 1. copyright 2019 CANVAS, All rights reserved. CANVAS is published bi-monthly for $39.00 per year by Conduit, Inc., 2009 Machenzie Way, Suite 100, Cranberry Township, PA 16066. Periodicals postage pending at Duluth, GA and additional mailings offices. Periodical Publication 25493. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to CANVAS, 2009 Machenzie Way, Suite 100, Cranberry Township, PA 16066. Please note: The acceptance of advertising or products mentioned by contributing authors does not constitute endorsement by the publisher.

Publisher cannot accept responsibility for the correctness of an opinion expressed by contributing authors.

CANVAS magazine is dedicated to environmentally and socially responsible operations. We are proud to print this magazine on Opus® Dull Cover 80lb/216gsm and Opus Dull Text 80lb/118gsm, an industry-leading, environmentally responsible paper. Opus contains 10% recycled fiber and SFI and FSC chain of custody certification.

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CANVAS FEBRUARY 2019

SMART CHANGE STARTS HERE

THE OCÉ VARIOPRINT® i-SERIES IS SO FAST AND EASY TO OPERATE

that we’re able to run it at maximum capacity, as proven by our 10 million-plus impressions in a month. It allows us to serve more customers and has publishing-grade quality and color that jumps off the page.”

—Adam DeMaestri, CEO and President, BR Printers #INKJETMINDSET

Océ VarioPrint i-series press

READ MORE CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORIES WITH THE OCÉ VARIOPRINT i-SERIES PRESS: PPS.CSA.CANON.COM/SUCCESS Canon is a registered trademark of Canon Inc. in the United States and elsewhere. Océ and Océ VarioPrint are registered trademarks of Océ-Technologies B.V. in the United States and elsewhere. All other referenced product names and marks are trademarks of their respective owners and are hereby acknowledged. ©2019 Canon Solutions America, Inc. All rights reserved.

STAT PACK

Mastering the of the newsletter One of the key ways to complement your print and content strategies is via the newsletter, in which you can say, do and be anything (within reason, of course). But what is the most popular format? How many should you send each month?

How long should they be? There are so many questions. Now there are answers. According to Find A Way Media's "How To Build An Exceptional Newsletter," for a newsletter to remain enjoyable, one email per week is probably suitable. The study shows that brands sent, on average, 5.8 emails per month with a median number of five. Others use the "batch-and-blast cannon" approach, which is not recommended. Following are four formats most B2B marketers use:

%

69

The Summarizer emails that packaged pieces the firm had published

%

18

The Hard Sell emails focused on product/service benefits

%

8

The Homepage emails that curated content from across the Web and provided analysis/context

%

5

The Forwarder emails that provided no context and were simply generated when the firm published a new piece of content

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CANVAS FEBRUARY 2019

Insights

STATIS-

TICALLY SPEAKING...

The percent of B2B marketers who have a documented content marketing strategy. (“B2B Content Marketing 2018: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America” by MarketingProfs and Content Marketing Institute (CMI)

Factors slowing B2B purchases You made the pitch. You followed up. Seems like there was interest. What happened? According to Showpad's "The New B2B Buyer Experience” report, 37 percent of B2B buyers say they don't have enough applicable information, while 32 percent say they don't have enough information overall. The report, based on data from a survey of 656 B2B buyers in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany, showed that creating better, more trusting experiences and relationships is critical. Here's a snapshot of what's slowing down the buying process:

37.96% — Disagreement over price 32.62% — Difficulty understanding information 29.57% — Difficulty sharing information internally 22.87% — Disagreements over product capabilities 22.71% — Disagreement over ROI 12.96% — Sales rep wasn't knowledgeable

The percent of people who consider their jobs to be customer-facing that find their jobs meaningful.

Only 56 percent of people with roles that don’t interface with customers said the same. (“How a Customer Centric Culture Ties to Happier Employees”

by SurveyMonkey)

The percent of marketers who believe their organization has an “excellent” understanding of multitouch attribution. (“The State of Marketing Measurement, Attribution & Data Management” by ClickZ)

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Perspective | Leadership | Insights

CORNER OFFICE

BY ANDY SLIPHER

ways to answer the next magic question, ‘How?’

H

ow do we get it done? What’s our next move? Now that we know what we want and why we’re here, where do we begin? You’ve likely heard variations of these questions in your organization, particularly if you’re at any level of planning how to achieve favorable outcomes.

It’s one thing to know why you’re doing something, who you’re selling to, or even what makes your product or service better than your competitor. But until you can adequately and effectively answer “how”, your idea, product, sales or whatever you endeavor to achieve may not become all you hope for.

The biggest “how” you can ask begs for a coherent approach. It means building a distinct advantage toward a favorable end. This level of “how” is best answered with strategy.

Strategy exists to solve problems. More often than not, calling upon strategic planning means that your problem is big—significant, complex, and with higher-than-average stakes. That’s why we call upon strategy. It is the means to simplify and unify activity to get from Point A to Point B with greater clarity, effectiveness, confidence and efficiency.

Planning without strategy is like feeling around in the dark. Sure, you may eventually find what you’re looking for, but it will most certainly be unpredictable, take longer than anticipated, and you run a greater risk of falling on your face along the way.

Here are three things you need to know about strategy in order to adequately answer any big “how” and to improve your planning process, no matter what the challenge:

1. Strategy is about choice

Strategy is a word and concept that's abused today. People love to use it because it sounds, well, strategic. Unfortunately, calling something a strategy doesn’t make it one. Strategy, in order to function as it’s intended, means choosing—making significant choices throughout the planning process.

In any complex or challenging situation, such choices are hard. Something must be sacrificed in order to move in a true and distinct direction. If you’re not making hard choices in your planning, ask yourself and others how distinct, clear and achievable is your approach?

Consider this example: When Steve Jobs returned to a struggling Apple in 1997, one of the first things he chose to do was to stop selling so many products. He literally put an end to more than 70 percent of Apple’s products (laying off more than 3,000 employees in the process) in order to focus on a handful of truly innovative products. This hard choice allowed Apple to focus its resources on innovation—developing something truly game-changing. The result? The Apple iPod. There’s little doubt that Jobs’ efforts would have been significantly more difficult and unclear if he had not made this critical strategic choice.

2. Strategy fits between your goals and plans

Strategy is not the most important thing. But good strategy is necessary and often critical in order to be successful. Once you’ve defined your goals, strategy comes next. To delineate between goals, strategy and plans: Goals answer, “What is the end for the effort?”

Plans, which follow strategy, answer, “What are the blueprints for success?”

Strategy is the point in between that answers, “In what way are we going to coordinate our efforts to get there?”

A good example of this hierarchy can be seen in the successful approach of the Allies in WWII. The goal (the end for the effort) was clearly to win the war—to defeat the Axis

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powers (Germany, Japan and Italy). At the time, the U.S. was faced with the prospect of a two-front war. Without a clear strategy, plans would undoubtedly be murky. But the overwhelmingly critical factor was the clear and growing threat of Germany to Europe and Russia.

Therefore, the Allies made the critical strategic decision to focus first on taking back Europe and defeating Germany. The resulting plans included the D-Day invasion of Normandy (effectively thwarting a German invasion of Britain) by the U.S., the Allied movement upward from Northern Africa, and the Russian forces fighting the German army to the east.

3. Strategy marries strength with opportunity

The beauty of strategy is that it coordinates and integrates activities around a common goal. What’s more, good strategy finds the sweet spot where strengths meet opportunity. If you identify an opportunity, yet have no strengths to take advantage, how effective will you be? Likewise, if your strengths abound in a certain area, yet no opportunities exist, your strategy could come up short.

Know that in order to improve the odds of achieving your goals, your strategy will need to amplify your strengths while playing to the opportunities at hand. A great example of this can be seen in the way Procter & Gamble (P&G) has nearly cornered the consumer package goods market. With its humble beginnings in soap and candles in the 1800s, P&G slowly and methodically built a strength producing, packaging, marketing and selling package dry goods of all types.

Over the years, the company has taken advantage of opportunities to both develop new products and acquire its way into new product categories. Today, the company’s product holdings cover close to 80 products spanning roughly seven categories of products we buy every day. P&G has employed different business strategies over the years, but has always weighed opportunity in light of the company’s inherent strengths.

Whatever your challenge, follow these three fundamental principles for better strategic planning. Your strategy will be both more clear and coherent. What’s more, you will be incrementally farther down the road toward more successful outcomes sooner.

Andy Slipher is founder of Slipher Marketing. An accomplished strategist, interim CMO, speaker and writer on marketing strategy, Slipher is marketing lecturer for SMU’s accredited Bank Operations Institute for professional bankers, and for the Independent Bankers Association of Texas (IBAT). He also is the author of “The Big How: Where Strategy Meets Success.” For more information, visit TheBigHow.com.

All aboard 11 ways direct mail can work for you

Everything is digital these days, right? Not so fast.

According to the Data & Marketing Association’s (DMA) "2018 40th Edition Statistical Fact Book," response rates for direct mail increased 37 percent over the past few years.

And get this—even millennials who love their technology love direct mail, with 84 percent saying they take the time to look through their mail, according to the USPS Mail Moments Review. In addition, 64 percent say they'd rather scan for useful information in the mail than email, USPS says.

Here are 11 reasons DMA says direct mail will work for you:

Direct mail is...

Proactive Tactile Personalized Integrated High tech Welcomed Valued Noticed Memorable Trusted Green

CANVAS P9

Perspective | Leadership | Insights

CORNER OFFICE

BY STEFAN MUMAW

A creative’s guide to winning through villainy

V

illains are some of the most creative characters in stories because they pursue a uniquely defined goal and are willing to circumvent the rules to achieve it. Creatives can learn to find previously hidden ideas by taking this same villainous approach.

By understanding how to break problems down to reveal their true nature, knowing the rules so well that one can see the spaces between the rules, and working the periphery of a subject as much as the subject itself, creatives of all trades will learn that thinking like a villain can not only lead to creative insight, it’ll produce a repeatable process.

In this three-part series, we’ll explore how we can take the best practices of a story’s best villains and apply them to our creative work. First up, let’s talk about goals.

Know your goal

“In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power.” — Tony Montana, from the movie “Scarface” Al Pacino’s villainous turn as Tony Montana in Brian De Palma’s 1983 film “Scarface” could easily be summed up as the stereotypical bad guy in the unlawful pursuit of money. But when you dig deeper, Tony wasn’t obsessed with money; he was obsessed with power and respect.

In his mind, there was one way to get the power and respect he felt he deserved, and that was through flagrant wealth.

The thing he was making wasn’t the goal. It was just the way to get there.

You create things. It could be designing a website, writing a headline, illustrating a logo, building an app, filming a video. Naturally, you want that thing to be amazing; you want it to be both relevant and novel. So you focus on the thing intently. You research the most effective techniques, processes and production methods. You do what you were born to do: you craft.

Why are you crafting what you are crafting? Each of the things you create has a purpose, something it is designed to do. Your goal isn’t to create a thing; it’s to change a behavior, or reveal a need or share an emotion.

The thing you’re making is not the goal. It’s just the way to get there.

Villains always start with a goal, something they want that they don’t or can’t have. And since they can’t get it through traditional means (or fast enough for their taste), they create an alternative path. The

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world only sees the path and then assumes the destination; they rarely see the ultimate goal. And that’s the villain’s power: strategic misdirection. It can be your power, too.

Understanding why turns you from maker to creator. Makers are people who start with a thing they want to make and expertly craft it to their own exacting standards.

Creators, on the other hand, start with a goal they want to achieve and craft things that achieve that goal. Knowing the difference between a thing’s purpose and the need that thing is designed to fill helps make that transition possible.

Purpose versus Need

Have you ever noticed that one of the key indicators that a character in a story is a villain is that they stop caring about the consequences of their actions? If you no longer have regard for human life, you can achieve almost any material goal, especially if the human life you disregard is your own. Caring is a natural response to human relationships. This goes for brands as well.

The success of a brand is often attached to its ability to create relationships between itself and its audience. Brands want relationships with people. People want relationships with people. Hence the dilemma. A brand’s purpose doesn’t always meet a person’s need.

Kodak is best known for producing film, some would say the best in the world, but their brand architecture doesn’t state their purpose as “producing the best film in the world.” It says that they manufacture immortality. Why? Because people don’t want film; they want the immortality of a moment to last forever. Film is just the medium that accomplishes that goal.

Every piece of communication you create has a purpose. In most cases, it’s to communicate something that the brand wants to say.

But it also satisfies a human need. One of the greatest values the creative can be to a brand is to act as the translator between the purpose and the need. This is done by asking the great philosophical question of our time: Why? Why does a person need to know about this product or service? We know why the brand wants them to know, but why would the person want to know? What inherent, human need does it fulfill? These aren’t easy translations but they answer the question of why.

What you must establish is the basic, human need that the brand, product, or service satisfies. It’s not about the product or service—it’s about the person that the product or service is serving. This is a human-up approach instead of a branddown, and it’s a diabolically creative plan of attack.

So? There’s a nefarious wickedary to understanding the real need that your creative is designed to solve. It’s like knowing a secret and acting on it in the shadows, producing solutions that almost magically hit the nail on the head over and over again. When you know the difference between the purpose and the need, and then understand that need on the most human level, you quickly realize that the thing you’re creating isn’t the goal. It’s just the way to get there.

Stay tuned for our next piece, “Know The Rules,” in the June issue of CANVAS.

Stefan Mumaw is a designer, author, thought leader and creative thinker extraordinaire. As director of creative strategy for Hint, Mumaw is helping lead the firm in new directions. The author of six books, including “Creative Boot Camp,” a 30-day crash course on creativity, Mumaw also is a highly sought after national speaker on creativity and the creative process.

Perspective | Technology | Insights

CORNER OFFICE

It’s never been more obvious to us that we make decisions based on emotion, gut instinct and knee-jerk reactions. We have to remember, we often are mentally primal beings, and our brains are wired a certain way.

— Belinda Green, head of strategy at B2B agency Gyro, on how emotions drive the B2B path to purchase

Customer

FIRST

DROP THE

Why being a thought leader matters to your brand

MIC

How to do content marketing right

If you don't think the power and conviction of your words and thoughts matter, think again.

Too many B2B marketers and salespeople underestimate the impact of thought leadership on demand generation and sales efforts.

According to the "2019 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study," nearly six in 10 buyers say that strong thought leadership has directly led them to award business to a company. Conversely, 29 percent have decided not to award business to a particular company due to what they viewed as poor thought leadership content.

Here's the problem—despite thought leadership's ability to attract and grow business, most B2B marketers and sellers struggle with ROI. So write this down: 58 percent of senior decision makers spend an hour or more per week consuming thought leadership content.

Might be time to reignite your thought leadership/content strategies.

When it comes to content marketing success, the formula is pretty simple: audience over a salesy message. According to the “9th Annual Content Marketing Survey” by Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, that’s how nine in 10 of the most successful B2B marketers approach their content campaigns. Focusing on customer-centric strategies over company-focused wins every time.

The research found that 73 percent prioritize their audience’s informational needs, with 52 percent crafting content based on specific points/stages of the buyer’s journey and 56 percent putting a priority on delivering the right content to the right audience at optimal times. The study queried 1,947 recipients from around the globe, representing a full range of industries, functional areas and company sizes.

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BEHIND THE CURTAIN

Leading the charge Graphic Arts Alliance funds new scholarship

T

he Print and Graphics Scholarship Foundation (PGSF) and the Graphic Arts Alliance (GAA) have joined forces on a new scholarship for young people interested in a career in the industry. The GAA Scholarship endowment will be initially funded at the Print Heritage endowment level of $25,000. The scholarship is being established by GAA in recognition of the organization’s concern with supporting the future workforce of the industry.

The GAA Scholarship will provide young students who are pursuing a course of study in the graphic arts with the opportunity to enhance their education. The offspring of employees of member companies will be given preference

Personnel Moves Printing Industries of America has named the members of its 2019 officers and board of directors. New members include John Fulena, Ricoh; Joe Lyman, Great Lakes Graphics Association; Mike Magerl, Trabon; Cathy Skoglund, ASU Printing & Imaging Lab; and Kerry Summers, Vibrant Group.

In addition, Bryan T. Hall, Graphic Visual Solutions, was named chairman of the board; Paul Cousineau, Dow Jones & Company, first vice chairman; Michael M. Marcian, Corporate Communications Group, second vice chairman; Roger Chamberlain, Cincinnati Insurance Companies, secretary to the board; and John E. LeCloux, WS Packaging Group, treasurer.

Bill Rojack, VP of Midland Paper Packaging & Supplies, has been elected to the Two Sides North America Board of Directors. Two Sides is a global independent non-profit organization created to promote sustainability as well as the responsible production and use of print and paper.

for consideration, thereby providing an enhanced company benefit. Over the next few years, GAA plans additional contributions to build this endowment into a six-figure fund.

Headquartered in Philadelphia, GAA has members across the country. Since being founded in 2002, the organization has grown to become the leading purchasing group in the industry. Its 221 members provide a wide range of graphic communication services and products.

For more information on how you or your organization can contribute to the future of the graphic arts industry, contact John Berthelsen at jberthelsen@printing.org or visit the site at www.pgsf.org.

Mergers & Acquisitons Quad/Graphics will acquire LSC Communications Inc. in an allstock transaction valued at approximately $1.4 billion, including the refinancing of LSC Communications’ debt. Under the acquisition, Joel Quadracci will be chairman, president and CEO of the combined company. Quad will expand its board of directors to include two members from LSC Communications’ existing board. The transaction is expected to close in mid-2019, subject to approval by Quad and LSC Communications shareholders, regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions.

Ricoh Company Ltd. has acquired ColorGATE Digital Output Solutions GmbH, a leading software provider in the printing industry with a specific competence in color management. The acquisition is designed to strengthen Ricoh’s growing industrial printing business. Founded in 1997, the Hannover, Germanybased company has been providing software for the wide format and industrial printing sectors. ColorGATE, as it will now be known, is a leading provider of performance-optimized color management and workflow software to standardize and automate growing digital print markets including décor and textiles.

Canon Solutions America has signed an agreement to become an authorized reseller of Kodak’s portfolio of workflow solutions and services, including KODAK PRINERGY Workflow, KODAK COLORFLOW, KODAK INSITE Prepress Portal and KODAK PREPS Imposition Software. The reseller agreement expands Kodak’s footprint in the commercial and packaging printing market through Canon Solutions America’s diverse portfolio of products and solutions, which includes production systems, large format printers, enterprise multi-function printers, print servers, and web-to-print applications.

Around the industry

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Industry news & more

Awards & Recognition Scodix has named the winners of its annual “Scodix Design Awards” competition, with one familiar name on the list. In the Publishing category, Bennett Graphics took first place as the printer of CANVAS Magazine. Submissions came from printers representing every major printing community around the world. A distinguished panel of judges rated projects for design quality, production complexity and overall appearance. The 2018 submissions covered a who’s who of global brands, corporate leaders, notable magazines and financial institutions. For more information and images of winning projects, visit scodix.com/news-room/scodix-design-award/ scodix-design-awards-2018/.

The winners included: Folding Carton/Packaging First Place: Subu Printing & Packaging (China) “Phoenix Mid Autumn Festival Gift Box” Second Place: CJ Graphics (Canada) “Revolution 81 Wine Box” Honorable Mention: Oriel (UK) “Staeger Red Wine Boxes” General Commercial Printing First Place: Omanim (Israel) “Music Calendar” Second Place: Bennett Graphics (USA) “Porsche Ultimate Drive Experience” Honorable Mention: Maison Lack by DLW (France) “Invitation Elysées 52” Publishing First Place: Bennett Graphics (USA) “CANVAS Magazine” Second Place: Oriel (UK) “What Adventure Children’s Book” Self Promotion First Place: Textile Printing and Packaging (USA) “TPC- Rise/ Shine Promo Piece” Second Place: Omanim (Israel) “Passover Kit” Honorable Mention: Directprint (Morocco) “Guide de l’originalité (Creative Printing Solutions)” Honorable Mention: GSB Digital (USA) “Capture the Value of Touch—Digital Embellishment Showcase Book” Technology First Place: GSB Digital (USA) “Folex Silver Spirits Labels” Second Place: J Point (Bulgaria) “Infiniti Artwork” Honorable Mention: J Point (Bulgaria) “The Surfing Bear” Jules Van Sant, executive director of Pacific Printing Industries Association, has been named the "2018 Naomi Berber Memorial Award honoree" by Printing Industries of America (PIA). The award honors outstanding women in the graphic communications industry for their exceptional record of accomplishments, extraordinary contributions toward the development of the graphic communications industry, and for having advanced the interests of the industry.

American Litho, a leading print and direct marketing firm based in Carol Stream, Illinois, has been named the best mid-sized company to work for in the Chicago area by the Chicago Tribune.

Ricoh USA Inc. has been named a gold winner in the "Most Innovative Company" category of the "Best in Biz Awards," the only independent business awards program judged each year by prominent editors and reporters from top-tier publications in North America.

The company also had its fifth consecutive inclusion in Training magazine’s annual “Training Top 125,” which ranks companies’ excellence in employer-sponsored training and development programs. Now in its nineteenth year, the Top 125 ranking is based on myriad benchmarking statistics such as total training budget; percentage of payroll; number of training hours per employee program; hours of training per employee annually; detailed formal programs; learning goals; Kirkpatrick Level 3 and 4 evaluation; and business outcomes measurement.

Ricoh was cited for programs such as its Inside Sales Portfolio Enablement Learning Program, which encouraged sales representatives to view problems—and solutions—holistically, exploring ways different areas of Ricoh’s portfolio can provide a more complete, more effective solution for customers.

The American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) recognized Domtar with a 2018 AF&PA Leadership in Sustainability Award for Water for their Hawesville Water Conservation Project. Domtar’s mill in Hawesville, Kentucky made 17 upgrades, repairs and process changes that conserved vital water resources for their operations and the mill’s surrounding ecosystem. These small, relatively inexpensive projects amounted to collective water savings of nearly 2,200 gallons per minute or 3.2 million gallons per day. The mill’s total water intake decreased 34 percent, contributing to cost savings to pump, treat and heat-process water, boilerfeed water and effluent.

Sappi North America named the "Gold Award" winners of its final "North American Printer of the Year" contest. The award recognizes superior innovation and creativity in print for work produced on Sappi papers. Winners were chosen from more than 1,500 entries. They included: Classic Color (Broadview, Illinois), Books & Printers Own Promotion Geographics Inc. (Atlanta), Activated Print Hemlock Printers (Burnaby, British Columbia), Brochures Nahan Printing (St. Cloud, Minnesota), Catalogs-Web Adams Lithographing Co. (Chattanooga, Tennessee), Catalogs Dreamworks Graphic Communications (Glenview, Illinois), Digital Sandy Alexander Inc. (Clifton, New Jersey), Direct Mail BP Media (Richmond, British Columbia), General Brilliant Graphics (Exton, Pennsylvania), Magazine-Sheet Panaprint (Macon, Georgia), Magazines-web

CANVAS P13

IGNITE BRILLIANCE essential steps to ensure a year of profitable conversations AmyK Hutchens is an author, speaker, biz strategist and cool aunt.

With an “International Speaker of the Year Award,” an Amazon best-selling book and a globally popular online communication program, she’s still keeping it real. To learn more about AmyK, visit www.amyk.com/ppc.

When you know how to confidently and competently navigate the toughest conversations in your life, you can tackle your problems, meet and exceed your goals, sell any product, service or idea, and connect with anyone—all while being your best self.

Knowing how to confidently lead a critical conversation is a game-changing SuperPower. And there are seven essential steps you can take, starting today, to have more profitable conversations that shape and create the life you desire.

Imagine all the profitable outcomes you can potentially produce when you lead brilliant, kick-ass conversations.

Yep, that’s what I’m talking about. You’re gonna strike conversational gold.

Step No. 1: Get clear on what you want

Get clear on your specific, desired outcome and how you want to feel.

Step No. 2: Frame the conversation

Craft your opening remarks to set the right tone and tenor. Keep the conversation positive and forward-focused.

Step No. 3: Ask questions

Focus on hearing the other party’s perspective, thoughts, feelings and beliefs. Rather than getting defensive or judgmental, stay curious and seek to sincerely understand their viewpoint.

Step No. 4: Map the flow

What might you discuss first, second, third and last? How might you prioritize

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Profitable Conversations

By AmyK Hutchens

C

ommunication is hard. Trust me, I know. I hear your frustrations. I see your anguished eye rolls and feel your clenched jaws. I get that it can be a huge struggle to figure out exactly what to do and say to get a critical conversation to go smoothly.

Coworkers, bosses, siblings, friends, direct reports, kids, spouses, parents and neighbors all invite us to engage. Some even demand it. And then they challenge us, daily, to respond maturely, wisely, empathically and resiliently.

But sometimes knowing exactly…

• What to say • When to say it • How to say it • How to keep the conversation on track Heck, how to even get it started, and how to confidently hold your own so you can create a profitable outcome is: hard, anxiety-inducing, time-consuming, frustrating, paralyzing and a total soul-suck.

We’re battling our own self-doubt or lack of communication skills. We’re duking it out between our own wants and desires and the wants and desires of others. We might be having an external conversation with someone while simultaneously having an internal conversation with ourselves, or we might just be completely fed up and still tasked with taking the high road.

In the end, disastrous conversations can make us surrender, fly into a fitful rage, stomp away, sound off, not get the outcome we want or perhaps just avoid these conversations and this person or people altogether. But avoiding the tough conversations will not get you the life you want.

or structure the conversation to ensure respect and finish constructively? Plan your final destination and map the conversational journey with the end in mind.

Step No. 5: S elect 2-3 key phrases

What might be a few memorable, positive and repeatable key phrases and messages that will best support your, and their, outcome?

Step No. 6: Make an offer or a request or both

At the end of every profitable conversation, you must make an offer or a request.

Words without action will not get you where you want to go or get you what you want. Use your words to create an energetic and action-focused shift. What might you offer to do or how might you behave in a different way? Or might you request someone else shift? Get clear on the actions needed by either party to get you your desired outcome.

Step No. 7: R ole-play & rehearse

With every profitable conversation, you must prep. Once you put your game plan together, you’ll want to rehearse; you’ll want to think through different scenarios.

First, step into the shoes of the director. Second, play your own part. Finally, play the parts of others. You don’t need to act it out, or you can actually roleplay a few possible scenes.

At the very least, picture the scene on a movie screen and ask: What are my lines? How might they react? What will I say or do if they say X or do Y?

Your power to consciously choose your words and your responses puts you in control. You can steer conversations toward the profitable outcomes you seek: healthier, happier relationships, goals exceeded, deals closed, anxiety reduced, and your best life lived.

Leading a profitable conversation isn’t just about money. Profitability can also include your time used wisely and efficiently because you know how to have the right conversation at the right time in the right way. Profitability can also be measured when you master powerful conversation skills because you’re less frustrated and more sure of yourself. Profitability can absolutely yield dividends when you start to feel less intimidated because you experience less anxiety, your communication skills are bad-ass and all of this makes you stronger.

• When you start experiencing the power of owning your own voice, you’ll be more confident.

•W hen you effectively articulate what you want and need and get what you want and need, you’ll be more influential.

• When you actively listen so you can respond thoughtfully and wisely and better manage yourself and your relationships with others, you’ll be more competent, more connected and more energized. Booyah!

Profitable conversations will let the very best version of you shine, for yourself and with others. Here’s to your year of profitability.

CANVAS BUYER’S GUIDE

DIGITAL INKJET PRESS

When the best gets better

How Fujifilm’s J Press 750S delivers an unsurpassed level of productivity

It’s here. With an unsurpassed level of productivity, the all-new third generation J Press 750S is here. Just how much productivity can it deliver? For starters, the 750S can generate 3,600 B2 sheets per hour, for both static and variable jobs.

Known as the “Jet Press” outside North America, Fujifilm began offering the J Press digital inkjet series (the first press of its kind for this segment) for the commercial printing field worldwide in 2011. Thanks to the 750S, which made its global debut at Japan’s IGAS 2018 International Graphic Arts Show this past July, the innovation continues to be widely adopted in Japan, Europe and North America, with more than 150 installations worldwide.

Fujifilm’s new flagship digital inkjet press has taken core technologies from the 720S and raised the bar with a series of innovations, productivity and environmental enhancements, including being able to reduce the overall footprint by 15 percent and reduce energy consumption by 23 percent.

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The J Press 750S’s series of innovative advancements include: Outstanding image quality comparable to offset printing The 750S features the newest generation ultra-high density/high-precision FUJIFILM Dimatix Samba printheads, along with Fujifilm’s aqueous pigment VIVIDIA ink. The J Press 750S prints output that exceeds the quality of offset printing platforms, delivers exceptional flat tints, ultra-smooth gradients, perfect black tints, pin sharp text, ultra-fine line work and amazingly smooth flesh tones, and has an extensive color gamut reaching upwards of 90 percent of the Pantone® library.

High-speed output and larger sheet size The J Press 750S prints both static and variable jobs at an industry leading 3,600 sheets per hour, which is 33 percent faster than the current J Press 720S, without any compromise to quality. With the larger sheet size of 23 inches x 29.5 inches (585mm x 750mm), the capacity from a four to six letter page imposition is a 50 percent increase in sellable output over the previous generation.

Highly precise inline quality inspection Much like the J Press 720S, the 750S incorporates an inline scanning procedure of each sheet to insure quality throughout each print run. Further enhancing this capability, Fujifilm has introduced an optional full sheet scanning function which ensures that each printed sheet matches a pre-approved image quality standard.

Flexibility for a wide range of stocks The J Press 750S exhibits great flexibility for the widest array of growing print segments. Available standard from the factory as a commercial printing platform, it can be field configured to print up to 24 pt. board stock. A variety of current J Press customers change their own configuration back and forth to gain the maximum flexibility and value from their J Press investments.

Download the CANVAS Buyer’s Guide app Products and resources just a tap away

The latest breed

DIGITAL AND OFFSET PRINTING

How the Océ ProStream™ Series is helping change the production inkjet game

It’s fast, highly productive and has the variable-data versatility of a digital printer.

The Océ ProStream™ Series—the latest high-productivity continuous feed inkjet press—is what today’s commercial print companies are craving.

The production printer, which is ideal for applications printing at 1200 x 1200 dpi running at a speed of 262 feet per minute (80 m/min) at 22 inches (565 mm) web width, produces highquality results from the native 1200 dpi DigiDot print head, ColorGrip and pigment-based polymer ink. And thanks to a high-capacity duty cycle of up to 35 million A4 pages per month, it’s built for productivity.

With the Océ ProStream™, you can benefit from broad substrate support and format versatility up to B2 sheet size, plus support for coated or uncoated media. The Océ ProStream™ Series fits seamlessly into your workflows, allowing easy integration into existing PDF workflows, IPDS and PDF DFE, plus an intuitive, modern user interface.

What does that mean? For starters, you can enter new markets by offering outstanding quality, relevant content and short turnaround times for promotional and graphical applications.

With the Océ ProStream™ Series, you get: Quality, productivity, versatility Merging the best of digital and offset printing, you’ll find offset-quality print along with the high productivity and flexibility of inkjet. Enable your customers wider reach by expanding campaign sizes. Offer your customers high-quality, 1200 dpi output with the cost efficiency and variable value-add of inkjet.

Delivering to the point — every time The Océ ProStream™ prints fully variable content on a wide range of uncoated, treated and matte, silk or gloss coated papers. It produces up to 1,144 letter size or 35 million pages per month in 2-up duplex production speed at a speed of 262 ft/ min. It follows in the footsteps of the other web-fed engines by Océ, known for their reliability, stability and uptime.

Professional, attention-grabbing prints Check out the revolutionary new engine design with the latest generation piezo drop-on-demand print head, proprietary ColorGrip and a new polymer pigment ink set. The results of that combination of innovations are vibrant colors, smooth shadings and ultra-fine details—even in dark tones.

No touch super-sensitive drying Océ has broken new ground with the floatation drying technology unique to the Océ ProStream™. The web is kept free floating for optimal image quality, process control and consistency—on a very wide range of media.

Easy to integrate efficiency into your workflows Océ PRISMAproduction® and Océ SRA® MP controller technology have become the efficiency benchmarks in heavy-volume variable content printing. The ProStream also can be directly integrated into your PDF workflows with the new Océ PRISMAcontrol digital front end. And the many connectable adjacent systems help you manage anything from content creation to tracking and tracing.

CANVAS P17

CANVAS BUYER’S GUIDE

DIGITAL PRINTING

Steeped in wealth

Inkjet innovations drive Ricoh’s expanded digital print capabilities, lower costs

Demand for customization, declining print volumes and shorter turnaround time requests have been driving widespread adoption of digital printing solutions. But until recently, print quality, productivity and cost of operation have been gating factors in limiting the migration from offset to digital.

With general availability in spring 2018, and the first recent public exhibition at Hunkeler Innovationdays, the RICOH Pro VC70000 is built to accelerate that trend. The new continuousfeed production inkjet platform empowers commercial printers to produce quality applications, such as high-end catalogs and magazines, at significantly lower costs without sacrificing production value. Additionally, Ricoh-developed inks enable up to 40 percent savings in paper costs by expanding media support to offset-coated papers, untreated papers, and more.

paper-cost savings, without sacrificing speed or image quality on uncoated, offset-coated, inkjet treated or inkjet-coated papers.

•A n innovative dryer unit that maximizes drying capacity to support faster print speeds and higher ink limits. The dryer unit also includes a set of heated, small-diameter rollers that help eliminate cockling (wrinkles that occur on lighter weight papers).

At Ricoh’s 2018 INTERACT User Community Event, the Pro VC70000 was unveiled alongside new inkjet ink technologies specifically designed for it. The broader print community got a closer look at PRINT 18, where a technology demonstration showed visitors to the Ricoh booth the future of production inkjet. These new ink technologies rival the output of offset inks with their media flexibility, including compatibility with gloss-coated stocks.

This ink technology is designed to make the entire production system more versatile and economical—and less complicated. In addition to a significant boost in color gamut, these latest Ricoh inks take quality enhancements further, enabling operators to print faster on a wider variety of media, including standard offset coated and uncoated papers, all with no need for priming and improved make-ready times that complement the Pro VC70000’s capability for flexible, high-quality fast turns.

Whether your shop is looking to increase throughput, expand substrate flexibility or just drive down operating costs, the RICOH Pro VC70000 proves an attractive option.

Winner of the “RED HOT TECHNOLOGIES Vanguard Award” at PRINT 18, the RICOH Pro VC70000 joins the RICOH Pro VC60000, RICOH Pro VC40000 and InfoPrint 5000 in the company’s inkjet portfolio. It touts a wealth of features that help advance inkjet printing, including a new engine platform that increases drying capacity. The Pro VC70000 offers: • High print speeds, an incredible asset for both high-volume and tight-turn orders, both common asks in the modern print shop. Speeds reach up to 492 ft/min, producing nearly 130,000 A4/letter impressions per hour.

• Sharp, eye-catching visuals that help brands stand out without breaking the bank, thanks to the industry’s most popular and advanced piezo drop-on-demand printheads and the 1,200 x 1,200 dpi resolution they deliver, as well as new ink technologies’ expanded For more information, visit color gamut. continuous-feed-inkjet.

• Significantly expanded substrate versatility for greater creativity and

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https://takealookatricoh.com/

Download the CANVAS Buyer’s Guide app Products and resources just a tap away

Diamond Print Glitter — Show your shine

Everyone has a love/hate relationship with glitter. We’re all drawn to its sparkle, but when it gets all over our hands and clothes, the honeymoon is over. The thought of actually printing a glitter paper with expensive commercial printing machinery makes every press operator cringe.

Enter Diamond Print Glitter, the world’s first and only full line of 100 percent non-shedding printable glitter papers and films. Yes, that’s right—printable. Diamond Print Glitter can be used for a wide range of printing and converting projects and is compatible with virtually every print platform, including offset, flexographic, wide format, commercial dry toner, HP Indigo, and even home-based inkjet printers.

Diamond Print Glitter will mesmerize consumers with both a striking visual appearance and textural surface on packaging, bags, envelopes, tags, labels, signage, displays, and much more. It may even put a smile on your press operator’s face.

Our proprietary production process eliminates glitter flake shedding, making it completely safe to run through your press. Diamond Print Glitter products fold without cracking, die and laser cut without chipping or burning, and are even compatible with embossing, foil stamping, 3D varnishes and auto bottom cartons.

Enjoy all the shine of traditional glitter with none of the drawbacks or limitations. Control where and how much your print shines simply and cost effectively with opaque white and varying ink densities. Unlike Spot UV glitter that requires extensive machine down time and costly cleanups, Diamond Print Glitter doesn’t diminish print quality, but enhances visual and tactile interest by incorporating the glitter shine into the printed piece rather than obscuring the artwork.

With a complete lineup of products ranging from pressure sensitive Indigo treated label stock to 32pt board weight glitter

NON-SHEDDING PRINTABLE GLITTER PAPERS AND FILMS

sheets for packaging, Convertible Solutions has the Diamond Print Glitter product you need for virtually any project.

If your requirements are even more specific, we’ll customize your glitter stock with extremely low minimum quantity requirements.

Check out Diamond Print Glitter and all that Convertible Solutions has to offer at www.ConvertibleSolutions.com

CANVAS P19

CHANGE MANAGEMENT

By Jay Dizzine

Ricoh USA, Inc., 70 Valley Stream Parkway, Malvern, PA 19355, 1 ©2018 Ricoh USA, Inc. All rights reserved. Ricoh® and the Ricoh l of Ricoh Company, Ltd. All other trademarks are the property of

Practicing the art of finishing

F

Jay Dizzine is Director, Product Marketing, Commercial & Industrial Printing Business Group, for Ricoh USA Inc.

rom cards to banners, keychains to vehicle wraps, personalized office equipment to heart-shaped scrapbooks, the possibilities for print to play a central role in a Valentine’s Day celebration are nearly endless. The question is, did you capitalize?

Advanced production capabilities, such as diverse finishing options and five-color printing, allow for a level of uniqueness that can help the thoughtful gift-giver on Valentine’s, or any holiday, for that matter. Even seemingly “simple” added touches such as bright toner on dark substrates can help produce arresting, effective seasonal applications.

Let’s take a look at some holiday-appropriate applications you can likely produce with the equipment already in your shop: • Greeting card: There is perhaps no more iconic aspect of Valentine’s Day than the Valentine’s Day card. Of course, the trick here is overcoming market saturation. Really look to bring your A-game to stand out: five-color printing, nonstandard substrates, whatever it takes. Also, consider partnering with a local retailer to get your products in front of shoppers who may not think to come to an MSP for their card.

• Romantic coupon book: Put your perf/scorer to work making a book of romantic coupons, with “offers” between partners ranging from home-cooked meals to shoulder massages. Alternatively, blank coupons with attractive, creative, thematic designs can allow both your designers’ and your end-customers’ creativity to flow.

In one way, seasonal applications are exactly like every other offering at your shop: The demand has to be there.

• Scrapbook: Creating scrapbooks to commemorate a couple’s time together may require ordering special paper, but you can justify the added expense if you know you have a market for particularly high-quality, high-margin uses. If you’ve got the finishing equipment for it, consider advertising scrapbooks with seasonally appropriate shapes, such as a heart or a bouquet of roses.

• Booklet of date ideas: A set of general ideas can be of great help, but if you can bring some local knowledge to bear for a more specific, regionalized touch, you could have a hit on your hands. Beyond the consumer market, this could be a project worth collaborating on with your local chamber of commerce.

• Notepad: With a few added design elements, the notepads you regularly offer can be transformed into a stack of love

P20 CANVAS FEBRUARY 2019

notes. For added Valentine’s flavor, consider offering these in heart- and bouquet-shaped options, as well.

• Decals and stickers: While we’re on the topic of cutting applications into Valentine’s-friendly shapes, let’s talk diecut decals and sticker options. Hearts, roses, teddy bears, Cupid’s bow—there are many options, and your design team can help put their own spin on all of them.

• Wraps and clings: Valentine’s Day can bring out people’s big, showy romantic side, and sometimes that includes putting their declaration of love on a vehicle wrap, window cling or even patio furniture (who are we to judge?). Each of these applications, like the romantic notion behind them, needs to be able to withstand the elements. Choosing the right ink and substrate can go a long way in contributing to longevity. Lamination can further help prevent image degradation from abrasion, chemicals and UV exposure, so this display of devotion—and, ideally, the customer’s fond memory of your shop’s excellent craftsmanship and resulting word-ofmouth—will stand the test of time.

In one way, seasonal applications are exactly like every other offering at your shop: The demand has to be there. But gauging demand ahead of time for seasonal applications can pose particular challenges. Often, your holiday customers won’t be your regular customer base. You need a plan for reaching new and nontraditional customers, but you don’t necessarily have to heavily invest right out of the gate to do so.

When first beginning to offer Valentine’s applications, consider developing a few you are confident you can turn around quickly and easily without impacting other work.

No one expects you to convert your production floor to 100 percent Valentine’s throughput for the month of February. You can be conservative at first, tailoring seasonal offerings to take advantage of less-in-demand equipment to avoid conflicts with bread-and-butter orders.

That said, aggressively promoting seasonal applications in the run-up to The Big Day, especially in general-audience outlets that reach people who may be turning to an MSP for the first time, can go a long way, even for just a few limited-time offerings.

Just remember, Valentine’s Day is about relationships—new customer relationships. If you put in the work, communicate with customers about their needs, and have a clear sense of what you can bring to the table, I expect you’ll be happy together for a long, long time.

TRIBECA

/ SOHO / THE VILLA GE / MIDTO WN

Neon Pink & CMYK

Go beyond CMYK. Imagine the possibilities.

The RICOH Pro C7200X Series Graphic Arts Edition Designed for the commercial print and graphic arts market, these systems can set your business apart with oversized media options up to 13" × 49.6", outstanding image quality, and support for specialty stocks and substrates up to 360 gsm. With a 5th color station for clear, white, neon yellow, neon pink and invisible red toner you can deliver an impressive range of high-end capabilities that traditional 4-color digital systems simply cannot match.

Invisible Red

TakeaLookatRicohProduction.com/Imagine Watch videos on 5th color files, be inspired by real-world applications and learn about the technology and capabilities that set these award-winning digital presses apart.

Outstanding Mid-Volume Color Device Buyers Lab (BLI) 2019 PRO Awards Digital Press 2018 RED HOT Technology Awards

Ricoh USA, Inc., 70 Valley Stream Parkway, Malvern, PA 19355, 1-800-63-RICOH. ©2019 Ricoh USA, Inc. All rights reserved. Ricoh® and the Ricoh logo are registered trademarks of Ricoh Company, Ltd. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

STRATEGIC INSIGHTS

Q&A: Thayer Long, APT President and Ken Garner, VP of Business Development and Industry Relations

The way forward

T

o drive the industry forward, a rebrand was needed. And just like that, NPES – The Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies transformed into the Association for Print Technologies (APT). The name change, which happened at the beginning of last year, birthed a new positioning that continues to expand industry collaborations and strategies with its signature event, PRINT®, which it has hosted since 1968.

“ I believe we will see a growing number of entrepreneurs who are not going to be anchored by the legacy of the past.”

– Thayer Long, President, APT

It was deeper than that. As APT President Thayer Long says, the rebrand not only signaled a significant turning point for the Association, but for the printing and imaging industry at large. Over the past year, APT has worked hard to broaden its scope and direction, creating greater unity among the commercial printing and imaging value chain.

Pulling together a team of industry thought leaders and professionals, APT is building a foundation of excellence on which to expand the industry's stature. Much of this can be seen in the myriad programs and services it offers, including research and market data, industry advocacy and standards, events, communications, and much more.

Here, Long and Ken Garner, VP of Business Development and Industry Relations, share their thoughts on what to expect in the year to come.

Give us your take on the future of the printing industry.

Long: I am very optimistic. I believe we will see a growing number of entrepreneurs who are not going to be anchored by the legacy of the past. I predict we will see an influx of creativity and invention by print service providers in how to increase and innovate the value of print in its many forms.

Garner: Continued consolidation with a wider gap growing between those that are successful (profitable) and those that struggle. Competitive advantage will be enjoyed by those who innovate and serve strategically selected markets with bestin-class customer experiences. Building strong organizational cultures that support ongoing business transformations that keep profit leaders ahead of the competition.

What do you see as the most pressing issues for both OEMs and print organizations today?

Long: Running the business as it exists today and making the necessary changes to ensure the business survives and thrives in the future.

Garner: Solid forward-thinking leadership. Critical thinking skills that drive effective strategy. Experience and competency in the execution of processes and new initiatives. Gaining and protecting market leadership.

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Tell us about your organization’s value and why membership matters.

Long: What’s driving the strategy here at the Association is that the world is faster and more complex. We need to have a way to bring the printing industry value chain partners together to collaborate in an open-sourced environment. Collaboration provides endless opportunities. We believe a rising tide floats all boats.

I think the ultimate opportunity we have as a collective is to take charge of our message that print is a valuable tool in an omnichannel communications world. But we cannot do it on the backs of another tool's shortcoming, i.e., digital fatigue. It means we actually have to innovate and increase the value of print.

Garner: Our value proposition is anchored by our annual PRINT event, which delivers exposure to new cuttingedge technologies, best-in-class insight and direction on topics that make the difference between business success and failure, and opportunities to network with industry peers and colleagues.

Supplementing the value driven by our annual PRINT event, APTech delivers relevant and topical research, global outreach, leadership in the development of industry standards, meaningful market data and government advocacy on issues that matter to our industry. We are the only industry association that truly aligns the supplier and practitioner communities. Membership matters because APTech delivers value that drives business success.

What advice do you have for 2019 and beyond for our community?

Long: Heed the warnings of product and service over-diversification.

Companies that diversify too widely can lessen their focus, increase their bureaucratic inertia, and actually reduce their ability to respond quickly and creatively to market changes.

Overextension can also lead to loss of expertise and increased cost. In 2015, GE was touted by Forbes magazine as a successfully diversified company.

Look at where GE is now. I have never seen a business be unsuccessful focusing on a few things, and doing them very, very well.

OCTOBER 3-5 | Thursday – Saturday McCormick Place North | Chicago, IL USA

PRINTevent.com

Your Business. Your Connections. Your Knowledge.

GROW with PRINT in 2019 CHICAGO... THE Place to be!

Association for PRINT Technologies

PERSPECTIVE

P24 CANVAS FEBRUARY 2019

Cover Story: By Alyssa Ruane

Millennials have purportedly “killed” a slew of industries. Applebee’s, diamonds and napkins are among the fallen, according to a recent Business Insider article. These are just a few of the types of markets taking a hit from the preferences of millennials.

And while print has been pronounced “dead” for a decade or so, millennials will be the ones to resuscitate it. In fact, print is one of the few industries that has not taken a huge hit from Generation Y’s buying preferences, though looking at the decline in print media might suggest otherwise.

“In the last four to five years, print has shown it’s not going away,” says John Braceland, CEO of Graphic Arts Alliance.

“It may be diminishing or changing, but it’s not going away.”

CANVAS P25

The Youth Movement It’s a message that must be championed as the print and graphic communications industries face impending workforce woes. These companies’ current employees are nearing retirement age, and if leaders don’t do anything to start bringing in the millennials, their print companies will die. Millennials—aged between 23 and 38 in 2019—make up at least onethird of the overall workforce in the United States. That number is slated to increase to 75 percent by the year 2030, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“In the next 10 to 15 years,” Braceland says, “retirement will hit its peak, and that will make the issue more critical.”

Braceland’s sentiments are echoed

by John Berthelsen, VP of development for the Print and Graphics Scholarship Foundation (PGSF). He says that for anyone who considers themselves more of a manufacturing job, a trained skill, or jobs that require at least a two-year degree, there’s a huge workforce gap.

"We’ve been faced with this for at least a decade," Berthelsen says.

"Unfortunately, the need is now more acute because the baby boom generation is beginning to exit the workforce. Companies and CEOs are very concerned about how they’re going to replace these individuals. In the old days, you could run an ad or steal from competitors, but those days are gone.”

So, how does a printing company avoid becoming a fatality like many other industries in the age of the millennial? Get the millennials on board.

Attracting young talent

Print’s reputation, unfortunately, precedes it. Industry thought leaders agree that the biggest problem facing the industry is its perception. The media has told the public for the past decade that print is dying, so why would a bright-eyed millennial, new to the workforce, want to start a career in a dying industry?

You can’t blame this younger generation for its apprehensiveness.

You can, however, blame print companies for not changing the public’s perception of the industry. Even though printers know that the industry is not phasing out—rather, it’s changing—others outside of the industry do not.

While organizations such as the PGSF are working to attract young people to consider graphic communications as a career choice and are educating the students and their parents about the available opportunities, the reality is that companies still need to pull their weight. PGSF has been providing scholarships to students for more than 60 years, but if individual companies don’t take recruitment into their own hands, they simply won’t survive.

Berthelsen says that thinking someone else is going to solve the problem and not having progressive thinking are the traits that will be the final nail in the coffin for graphic communications and print companies.

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“We’re facing, in this economy, a challenge of how you bring people into your company.

We’re a victim of the perception of the industry and the perception of the economy.”

– Thayer Long, President, Association for Print Technologies

“Companies realize that this is an important issue," he says. "It’s not going to go away. It’s probably going to get worse before it gets better. They can’t just sit on their hands. They’ve got to be proactive and do something.”

Thayer Long, president of the Association for Print Technologies (APT), says that it’s imperative at the very fundamental level for any company to understand that their most important asset is the people.

“I think companies that ‘get it’ are not having a problem. These are the companies that take investment in their workforce very seriously," Long says. "The ones that don’t ‘get it’ treat their workforce as a commodity; they’re not investing in development, not doing everything they can do to attain [qualified employees].”

Progressive companies are realizing that the younger generation has a lot to say and a lot of input. And while it’s easy to blame the millennials or baby boomers for the current issues with the workforce, Long says the industry does a terrible disservice in making these

“ People are working very locally. They are working with local high schools, educators and teachers to try and promote the printing industry.”

– John Braceland, CEO, Graphic Arts Alliance

general statements about millennials, baby boomers, Gen Xers, and Gen Z. Long argues that companies should focus less on generalizing the age of workers coming into your company— millennials are killing X industry; millennials are entitled, lazy, etc.—and instead look at the way your company attains new employees. “We’re facing, in this economy, a challenge of how you bring people into your company. We’re a victim of the perception of the industry and the perception of the economy.”

To bypass these hurdles, companies must be on the ground in their communities, changing the perception of the industry and the opportunities it offers.

“We, as a broad group with other industries, need to be doing a better job to make people understand that manufacturing is not a dirty job," Long says. "It’s not a dirty word. It’s actually quite sophisticated, quite advanced."

Braceland says that a lot of it comes down to printers working locally within their geographic areas. The companies that "get it" are the ones doing just what he suggests.

CANVAS P27

The Youth Movement “People are working very locally," Braceland says. "They are working with local high schools, educators and teachers to try and promote the printing industry.”

Companies are working to shift the industry’s perception and recruit new, young talent, but if it’s not presented to students, they’re going to pick up whatever perception is out there in the media.

"It’s really important that individual printing companies take this very seriously and get actively involved in promoting print in their local area and are out there trying to get young people interested in this industry and letting them know the opportunities,“ Braceland says. “We can’t attract people to the industry unless people know about the industry.”

Show up to career fairs. Heck, sponsor the career fair! Offer internships and apprenticeships. Any way you can show students that print and graphic communications offer many career opportunities is a step in the right direction.

“We produce a show called PRINT in Chicago every year, and we did a career fair in 2018 and had an amazing showing," Long says. "Showcasing the coolness of the industry is a great way for us to help educate students and show that print is a very lucrative career.”

“Companies and CEOs are very concerned about how they’re going to replace these individuals. In the old days, you could run an ad or steal from competitors, but those days are gone.”

– John Berthelsen, VP of Development, Print and Graphics Scholarship Foundation

P28 CANVAS FEBRUARY 2019

Promoting opportunity

Print is not exactly sexy, but there are opportunities out there for people to make a very good living, especially for people who didn’t go to college.

The key is showing young people how their lives can be enriched by a career in print or graphic communications.

They are simply unaware of the various opportunities out there.

“It’s one of the things about the graphic communications industry that people kind of forget," Berthelsen says.

"You hear the word ‘printing,’ and you think of some dirty, old, musty position.”

But Berthelsen says to remember that printing is all around you. You walk into a store, and you have to have signage. "People don’t even think about it—it’s kind of invisible to them. When you’re talking about signage and various media that people use to communicate with, that provides an opportunity to have an impact on the world.”

Long agrees, “There are a lot of exciting opportunities in the print and graphic communications industry.

We’ve narrowly defined print. It’s only going to continue to grow.”

But as Long says, younger generations more comfortable with the digital era may be intimidated by the permanence of print. He uses the example of online application development, which allows the creator to fix bugs and refine processes in real-time. But once something is printed, it’s printed.

“People are just not more familiar with print,” Long says. “I think there are things we can do to make print less intimidating and show how print in today’s world is still a critical instrument in how you go to market. Marketers need to understand how print can and should be used as part of a marketing

strategy—direct mail, brochures, packaging—there are so many different applications now at our disposal.”

The other part of getting Gen Y to consider print as a career option is to cultivate a company work environment that values new ideas. In a world where tech giants take the award for “coolest place to work,” with ping pong tables and on-site bars, it is imperative to show younger workers that print can be cool, too.

While you may not have the funds to implement catered lunches every Friday, you do have the power to shift the mindset of your employees. This goes back to Long’s original point about investing in your workforce rather than commoditizing it.

“People are very interested in not only what they’re doing, but who they’re doing it with,” Long says. “Print leaders need to develop a healthy culture and create a very enjoyable work environment.”

Braceland says the industry is continuing to consolidate. The mid-size and larger print companies need to have an environment that wants to, one, have good people work there, and two, stimulate the work environment and bring people in.

“Fifteen to 20 years ago, there were fewer companies trying to create that work environment, and the companies that are surviving are the companies that have a good culture or good work environment,” Braceland says.

In the end, you have to compete.

“Don’t go crying to anyone that you can’t find people if your labor rates haven’t gone up in 10 years,” Long says. “The marketplace is very efficient in finding the winners and the losers, and eventually the marketplace will decide.”

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BUSINESS

P30 CANVAS FEBRUARY 2019

Feature Story: By Michael J. Pallerino

I

n June 2017, disaster recovery and business continuity software provider Zerto initiated an account-based marketing (ABM)

pilot program with its marketing and sales teams. A critical part of Zerto’s

The

ABM strategy was to better coordinate its company’s marketing activities with its sales goals.

Founded in 2010 by brothers Ziv and Oded Kedem, Zerto’s conception was driven by the vision that disaster recovery technology should not simply be an insurance policy, but something that could provide a competitive advantage. In 2011, the introduction of Zerto Virtual Replication

Why it works, how to do it and ways you can make it work for you

ABM

fundamentally changed the disaster recovery market, setting it on a path of disrupting IT markets and pushing the bounds of what was traditionally

Effect thought of as disaster recovery ever since its founding.

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The ABM Effect

So when it came to taking risks, Zerto was up to the task. But as Fara Hain, the company's VP of corporate marketing, freely admits, the ABM program's initial rollout intentionally flew under the radar. Hain wanted to see what Zerto could accomplish with its agile team of sales and marketing professionals without announcing a full-blown expensive ABM program. She started with nine account reps, who each chose five target accounts to work with. Together they mapped each account— building out org charts and making calls to try to get someone to tell them about the company priorities for the year (2017).

Next, Hain hired three Account Development Reps (ADRs) to make those calls and work on account plans with the sales teams. She purchased two tools to help the ADRs in the company's efforts—Engagio and Linkedin Sales Navigator. The tools enabled the teams to follow up on accounts who engaged with its marketing activities and to find the right contacts within accounts. It also employed an inexpensive tool called Listenloop to advertise to specific target accounts online.

"In the first year, we were able to open up 40 percent of the accounts, meaning we booked one or more meetings in about 20 of the companies we were targeting," Hain recalls. "The pilot proved to the wider sales team, and to my CMO, that we could accomplish a lot by broadening the ABM program to every sales rep."

After the pilot's successful, and admitted under-the-wire rollout, Zerto opened the program to each account rep in the United States and UK. Each rep chose 25 target accounts for marketing to focus on. In 2018, the ABM program it ran for those accounts opened up more than $50 million dollars in pipeline.

"You have to start by piloting ABM with a handful of companies that you want to target," Hain says. "Piloting the program helped us to prove the value. After the pilot, sales reps who did not get included in the first round were hearing about the program and asking to be included.

They were seeing real pipeline being generated from the program."

As programs like Zerto's can attest, account-based marketing can significantly help improve a company's bottom line. In essence, ABM is really

According to the “Raising the Game with ABM: 2018 ABM Benchmark Study” by ITSMA and Demandbase, 77 percent of B2B marketers believe ABM has driven greater success for their target accounts.

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about going back to the basics of sales.

It’s similar to what a named account sales rep might have done 20 years ago. The process requires account mapping, understanding the priorities of the account and focusing attention on how to reach the right targets in each relevant account.

Today, technology makes the ABM process easier. Started as a key accountfocused approach by some pioneering B2B marketers in the early 2000s, ABM continues to help companies win new accounts and grow existing clients of all types and sizes. According to the "Raising the Game with ABM: 2018 ABM Benchmark Study" by ITSMA and Demandbase, 77 percent of B2B marketers believe ABM has driven greater success for their target accounts.

The report shows that marketers say their ABM programs now account for 28 percent of their overall marketing budgets. Astonishingly, 45 percent with less than three years of ABM experience in their organizations report at least double the ROI from ABM, as compared to other tactics, the study found. And those with three or more years of ABM under their belts report ABM’s performance is 80 percent higher.

The numbers show that ABM is more than just a passing fancy. For example, things like intent data can help marketers understand priorities of an account, while hyper-targeting on and offline helps reach the right people in each account. "Because ABM is built on the fundamental process of any good sales engagement, it’s not going to be a passing fad," Hain says. "It’s much more integrated into the traditional roles of sales and marketing than, say, inbound marketing ever was."

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The ABM Effect To help you gain a stronger footing in 2019, Hain offers the following three ABM strategies:

No. 1

etargeting and R Hyper-targeting advertising

It’s easy today—every online advertising tool uses advanced retargeting by tracking cookies and IP addresses and “fuzzy matching” of the data they collect on their platforms. This means you can really get your ads in front of specific people. Make sure you're using your online ad dollars wisely to target people who have come to your website from your target accounts, and to target your key accounts on LinkedIn and other ad platforms.

No. 2

Direct mail

Direct mail has made a comeback in recent years. You must be creative.

Once you've determined you have the right target people in an account, sending a gift is visible and yields results.

Zerto sent Apple watch bands. After booking a meeting, they received the Apple watch and other teaser gifts to get those key meetings booked.

No. 3

“By focusing on the framework of collaboration, ABM begins to drive changes in corporate strategy and culture, for the mutual benefit of the company and its clients.”

– Bev Burgess, Senior VP, ITSMA.

uild out a separate B outbound-focused call team for ABM

Inbound teams are built differently and may not have the skills needed to book meetings for leads that are mostly cold.

The ADR team that Zerto built needed separate tools and focused training to hit their goals. Breaking the two teams (inbound and outbound) was one of the best decisions it made. It allowed the ADRs to focus on getting to the right people in an account, rather than chasing leads that raised their hands (who may or may not be the right targets). Once the marketing machine kicked in, the ADRs got plenty of inbound leads, but they did not rely on those leads alone.

“ABM is a re-orientation of the company from the outside-in. In other words, it's about orchestrating the entire firm for the benefit of the client. "This has to cut across functions, departments and internal silos," says Bev Burgess, senior VP at ITSMA. "By focusing on the framework of collaboration, ABM begins to drive changes in corporate strategy and culture, for the mutual benefit of the company and its clients.”

ways B2B marketers are looking to raise their ABM game As marketers stream in 2019, they are looking to emphasize their ABM program strategy and sophistication. Here are eight specific initiatives that will help raise their games: 1. I ncrease impact within each of the three types of ABM

4. Get the metrics right 5. Invest in teams

2. Move to a blended strategy with more than one type of ABM

6. Master storytelling

3. B alance coverage of new and existing accounts

8. O rchestrate across the organization

7. Leverage technology

Source: “Raising the Game with ABM: 2018 ABM Benchmark Study” by ITSMA and Demandbase

P34 CANVAS FEBRUARY 2019

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BRANDING

P36 CANVAS FEBRUARY 2019

Feature Story: By Sarah Feature Mannone Story

In this overly connected world, the way to start a real conversation is to slow things down, tell a story, and create a lasting brand impression.

The secret sauce for catching the eye of top prospects CANVAS P37

The Lumpy

I

f you hang around the Trekk offices long enough, you’re bound to hear us throwing around a curious word as we craft our clients’ strategies: lumpy.

lumpy | ‘l mpē | noun 1 a dimensional mail piece designed to reach a decision maker within a target organization in order to open a door and start a conversation: We’re really trying to earn this prospect’s attention, so we’re sending them a lumpy.

When we first suggest to clients that they might want to consider a lumpy, we usually get quizzical, intrigued looks.

Today, I’m here to tell you about the history of the lumpy, why we’ve been using them for so long, and why they’re more relevant today than ever before.

The origin of the Lumpy

We came up with the idea for our first lumpy campaign in the ’90s. At the time, our clients’ top prospects were all drowning in a deluge of direct mail. We needed a way to elevate our direct mail campaigns, a way to stand out amid all that print clutter.

What we conceptualized was a big, creative initial deliverable—something that would make the recipient sit up and take notice—followed by a multitouchpoint campaign that built upon that first mail piece. And to really stand out, the first piece would need to be a physical object, something the recipient could unwrap with the excitement of a special delivery or a gift.

How Lumpies work

While lumpies are great at grabbing attention, the main objective of most lumpy campaigns is to drive action by getting the prospect to take a meeting, without coming off as overly salesy in the first communication. For this reason, many lumpy campaigns that we design feature some sort of missing element, with the idea that taking a meeting will complete the picture. For example, we’ve sent: • A puzzle missing a critical piece • A Scrabble game with strategically chosen missing letters • A DVD collection missing an important title

P38 CANVAS FEBRUARY 2019

What’s key is to choose an item that tells your brand’s story. This is your chance to say something unique about your brand in a way that wows.

A particular memorable lumpy that Trekk designed was for a nationwide flooring co-op. This was at a time when Lowe's and Home Depot had been steadily gaining marketshare in flooring. We sent Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots to 100 key prospects who owned independent flooring stores. The message: “We can help you knock out the big box stores.”

The lumpy included a date and time to expect a call from our client, and when they followed up via phone, they found the majority of the prospects were so surprised and delighted that they were happy to take the call just to find out more.

The Lumpy Campaign

It’s not enough to design a thoughtprovoking initial deliverable; an effective lumpy is simply the first touchpoint in a strategic, cohesive campaign. We send our lumpies via UPS or FedEx so that we know exactly when they arrive and can follow up with the next touchpoint seamlessly.

One thing I stress to marketers who are embarking on lumpy campaigns is that sales should be involved from the get-go. Whether your campaign includes three touchpoints or 20, at some point, your creative messaging will ideally result in a sales conversation, and your sales team needs to be able to tell the same story and deliver a seamless customer experience. We often develop sales scripts as part of our lumpy campaigns to ensure that sales and marketing are aligned.

Another question to consider is whether you want to design a tiered roadmap for your campaign. For example, if you’re sending a premium item to the top decision maker at a company, it’s not a bad idea to send additional collateral to a second tier of influencers within that organization to create some additional buzz.

Whether your campaign includes three touchpoints or 20, at some point, your creative messaging will ideally result in a sales conversation.

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The Lumpy

Lumpy campaigns are meant to be nimble.

Send your first three to five and see what kind of response you get.

Why the Lumpy is still relevant today

If anything, the lumpy is more relevant—and effective—than ever before.

We may not be seeing the rates of direct mail that we used to (although there’s still quite a bit of it hitting our desks), but we are inundated with digital communication—emails, push notifications, social media mentions, and all the other reasons our phones like to ping at us.

And so much of it is spam that decision makers have been forced to adapt, in many cases ignoring messages from outside their own organizations or networks. List buying (aka spamming) is dead and gone. And if you think you’re getting past the gatekeeper with a cold call, forget about it.

In this overly connected world, the way to start a real conversation is to slow things down, tell a story, and create a lasting brand impression. For this, the lumpy is the perfect tool.

How to execute your own Lumpy campaign

If I’ve piqued your interest and you’re ready to try your own lumpy campaign, this is the method we follow every time.

1. Pinpoint your top 10-50 ideal clients. Because lumpies are aimed at key decision makers, they are designed to be deployed in small batches—we’re talking a true shortlist of top prospects. Make it worth your investment by choosing individuals who have authority within their

organizations and the potential to become high-value customers.

2. C raft your story. Do you want to tell these prospects how innovative you are, how much expertise you have in your industry, how perfect your product portfolio is for their needs, or something else? Know what you want to say before you decide what to send.

3. F ind a lumpy that tells that story.

Now’s the time to get creative.

Choose a physical object that represents your story and create your messaging around it.

4. Design your campaign roadmap.

Some prospects may take a meeting based on the lumpy alone.

For those who aren’t yet ready to talk, map out your follow-up touchpoints, which may be done via direct mail, email, phone calls, landing pages, or a combination.

5. Test a few lumpies at a time.

Lumpy campaigns are meant to be nimble. Send your first three to five and see what kind of response you get. Figure out what’s working, what’s not, and adapt as you go.

Trekk has been dreaming up creative lumpy campaigns since the ’90s. If you want to talk through your lumpy ideas, send me a message on social or contact us at https://www.trekk.com.

Sarah Mannone is executive VP of Trekk, a tech-driven creative agency obsessed with exploration. She thrives on infusing new ideas and technologies into multi-channel marketing programs. Connect with her at trekk.com or @sarahmannone on Twitter.

P40 CANVAS FEBRUARY 2019

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