1. They say that if you build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door, but today's printers, mati-
ers, andrelated graphic communications seruces companies know better: no matter how much better your
mousetrap is, notne will pay much attention to it unless you market it'
Indeed, so vital is the marketing function today that we reached out to the best marketers in our industry-
winners, aII, of our 2013 Market-ing plusrM Awards-to find out how they go about it and how they view today's
marketing environment. Specifically, we asked each expert three very basic questions:
l. What do you believe is the biggest or most important marketing/promotion trend today?
Z. What are you doing or planning to do to take advantage of it-if nothing, why not?
3. What one thing should someone do who is just starting to market his or her business?What one thing
should they not do?
Here's what they told us...
Think Multi-Ghannel
From their home base on
Trinidad & Tobago, execu-
tives at Scrip-J know better
than to chase trends. "Not all
new trends,Iike mobile mar-
keting, catch on in our neck
of the woods," says Business
Development Manager
Jasmine Minty, "so it's best
to stick with what works.
Content marketing and social media are
still big, especially where search engine
optimization is concerned."
Principally serving advertising agencies,
fast-movingi consumer goods manufactur-
ers/distributors, and gtovernment minis-
tries, Scrip-J has I00 employees and sales
of $5 million through services and products
such as offset, digital, and wide-format
printing, portable displays, and promotion-
al products.
Online marketing remains "an integral part
of promoting any business, and the more
we understand how this works, the more we
can benefit from it all," says Minty, who is
convinced that having an online presence
is necessary, "even if it is a basic landing
page with contact information. Fortunately,
with so many social media sites available,
a newbie can then take advantage of these
cost-effective, often free, services to build
awareness."
At the same time, she adds, "Never rely on
one marketing or promotional medium.
A multi-channel campaign always offers
greater results."
Stay onTarget
the biggest trend in market-
ing today, "is not necessarilY
the mos{important," says
Jesse Park, Director of Stra-
iA;; vtart<eting for Action
c;;;r.ic; in iin"coln Park,
ttj.' Ttre most important is
knowing who you are talking
to and being verY targeted
with your messaging and promotion-based
data that is known.
"Too many companies don't do this because
they feel they don't have'enough dala.'How-
ever,This is something that you can build
over tirne and get more complex from cam-
paign to campaign," he continues. "Start with
what you have, and as you get ryore or better
ancillary data, then you continue building on
that. Most companies have enough data to do
some targeted messagingi."
At Action Graphics, Park explains, our whole
company focuses on this "a lot, especially
with our clients that are in fundraising.We
not only make it a priority to discussit with
-
clients-via one-on-one meetings or through
seminars we put on regr:larly-but also to
let them knowwe can help construct these
types of campaigns. Fronistrategry to design
to the data work required for it, we can be
there for whatever they need u.s for"'
Action Graphics'30 employees offer offset,
digital, and large-format printing, as well as
marketing/fundraising strategy, integrated
campaigns, data provision, and non-print
marketing services (videos, email, landing
pages, sms messaging, etc.).It serves indus-
ffies such as non-profits, education institu-
tions, and healthcare.
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