BC Print and Web is Moving!

As our company grows we remain cognizant of our carbon footprint and we want to make every effort as a socially and environmentally conscious company to secure an environmentally sound presence. Digital and web based solutions continue to be the driving force for our clientele, and we feel inspired to decrease our environmental impact, while increasing our services and capabilities. In an effort to better serve you within a centralized location and with a reduced carbon footprint, BC Print and Web is relocating. As of June 17th, 2013 our new address will be 1791 58th Ave Unit D Denver, Co 80216.

How to Use Marketing to Dominate Your Industry

Marketing is a battle of minds. What we mean is that marketing happens in your customer’s heads. If you can influence how people perceive your company and your brand in order to sell more effectively, you've succeeded as a marketer. But it’s not just your company that exists in people’s minds. The whole industry your business operates in (or is breaking into) has a set of expectations, impressions and assumptions that you can’t directly control. With these barriers in mind, what’s the best way to get into your customer’s minds and dominate your industry? Be the Leader of Your Niche The easiest way to define how your company appears in the market is by being the first one in a given industry. If you’re the first person playing the game, you can easily decide what the game is, and why you’re the best person to address the customer’s needs. But most of us don’t have that luxury. Instead, we’re competing established brands and big companies who have bigger marketing budgets to spend than we do. In other words, since you can’t embrace “brute force” marketing to outspend your competitors (and they’ve already established a place in the customer’s minds), you've got to be smarter with your marketing. And that means you have to define what makes your company unique. Compare and Contrast Having established models to compare yourself to can be a blessing in disguise. Instead of using marketing to compete directly with your competitors on their terms, figure out a way to define yourself against them. In other words, if you’re selling a new brand of detergent that’s in direct competition with the market leader, don’t advertise yourself in the market leader’s terms. If the detergent market leader says, “We make clothes bright and colorful,” it’s not a good strategy to say “We make clothes even brighter and more colorful than brand X,” because brand X already has that idea captive in your market’s mind. Instead, say something completely different. Pick a unique strength: “We’re the detergent for busy parents who just need to get laundry done,” or “We’re the fastest clean in town.” Even better if you can directly contrast yourself with your competitor: “We’re like X detergent, but fast.” One-up your benefits with theirs: “Our customers understand it’s not about just being bright and colorful; it’s about that wonderful detergent smell.” The market that values smell over appearance will identify with your product and might make the switch. This strategy works for anyone in a competitive market—whether you’re trying to clean clothes, sell cars or get people to come to your movie theater. Don’t forget that at the end of the day, marketing is a battle of the minds. It’s more effective to carve out a space in your customer’s mind than to compete for a space your competitors already own.

How To Make Your Marketing Messages Stick With Your Audience

Imagine you’re brainstorming the copy for your next direct mail piece or marketing campaign. Your team comes up with what seems like a great idea for your campaign, then you send out the mail piece and it flops completely. It doesn’t connect with customers and the response rate is abysmal. Obviously, if this happened to you, you’d be discouraged. But even more, you’d probably just be confused. Why did the message you so carefully crafted flop with your audience? It was so persuasive! You spent so much time on it! What gives? The truth is that making your messages stick with your audience doesn’t have to be some mysterious hit-or-miss art. There are techniques and ways to make sure that your message lands with your target market. We’ll share three with you. Keep it Simple The biggest problem with most marketing messages is that they’re written by the experts. And unfortunately, that means that they get written at an expert-level, instead of writing in a way that the audience can understand. Keeping your messages simple is hugely important. Since you’re the expert in your field, you understand why your product’s minute features make it excel over the competition–but your customers probably don’t care. They want to know the important basics, not the gritty details. Make sure your message doesn’t go over their heads. Stay Concrete The best way to get someone to understand your message is by making it concrete. Instead of talking in statistics and abstraction, give an example. For instance, you can sell your mirror cleaner by getting technical: “Use our foam aerosol, non-ammoniated cleaning spray for a wholesome clean surface!” Or you can tell it concretely: “Imagine seeing your face more clearly than you ever have before–and without any annoying streaks.” Getting concrete is more compelling—especially to a non-expert. Be Surprising The best marketing messages avoid clichés and puffery. Today’s customers have heard the generic marketing messages so often that they don’t even register with them anymore. If you want your campaign to make an impact, you need to do something unexpected. For instance, if you’re trying to convince your audience to avoid driving when they’re over-tired, this message might do the trick: Driving while sleep-impaired is ten times worse than driving drunk. That statistic works because it surprises us—and most importantly, is actually true, according to MythBusters. Next time you design a marketing campaign, make sure your messages are simple, concrete and surprising.

Surprise! The Secret to Good Customer Service

Imagine having to put together a list of your company’s values. What are a few things that differentiate your company and services? In fact, get out a piece of paper. Write down five different areas in which your company strives for excellence. Got them? Great! Take a look at your list. Is customer service one of your top five? If it is, you’re not alone. A study by Bain & Company found that 80% of companies believe they deliver a “superior experience” for their customers. Unfortunately, the same study revealed only 8% of those companies’ customers would say the same thing about the companies. Why the disconnect? What Makes Customer Service Excellent? Here’s why many companies overestimate how great their customer service is: they aren’t talking about the same thing customers are talking about when they say “customer service.” Many companies pay lip service to the idea of excellent customer service. But their customer service consists of things like making sure a package arrives at the promised time. They answer their phones promptly to help customers. Their prices are fair and their phone operators are pleasant. If you walk into their building, the front desk staff smiles at you. But that’s not what today’s customers consider good customer service. That’s the bare minimum. That’s expected. Aim to Surprise Your Customers Want to have great customer service? Surprise your customer. Get them to say, “wow.” When something negative happens that isn’t your company’s fault, be generous and fix it. When someone posts a complaint on Twitter about your brand, refund his or her purchase—even if they didn’t try to bring it to your attention. Good customer service isn’t about the basics—it’s going above and beyond and making your customer surprised. It’s making the customer feel right even when they aren’t—and when you don’t really need to. Good customer service isn’t just a smile. You should aim to surprise the most irate customer with your generosity. And pretty soon, the irate customers dwindle, and you’re left with satisfied customers—customers who trust you, and don’t feel like they need to complain. Customers who tell their friends about the cool thing you did to help them even though you didn’t need to. Good customer service is about surprising your customers every day. If you’re aiming for excellence, aim to surprise.

Social Media Marketing for Dummies (And Anyone Else Wanting to Get Started)

So you’ve decided to get involved in social media marketing! Congratulations. There’s no time like the present to jump on board. Many companies just like yourself are getting linked, booked and pinned and you’re about to join the great, buzzing conversation. But social media is a wild beast that is difficult to predict and quantify. Before jumping headfirst, ask yourself a few pivotal questions: Where’s Your Audience? Social media is like all media–it exists to connect people and ideas. And since you’re in the business of trying to connect to customers, it’s worth taking a moment to ask if your customers are on social media at all. Does your target demographic engage online–and if so, which social media platforms resonate with them? Are they tuned into social media companies? Are they already talking about you? If your audience isn’t active on social media, it’s not a good idea to invest time, money and energy in trying to reach them there. What’s the ROI? The thing marketers (and marketers’ bosses) complain most about when it comes to social media is measuring the return on investment. How can you tell if your social media strategy is effective? How do you know if it’s worth the effort? Likes, tweets and pins demonstrate engagement, but they don’t necessarily mean anything if you’re trying to produce revenue. While there are many intangible products of a vibrant social presence, take time to research ways to measure your social media’s impact on your bottom line, not just track the vanity data. Who’s Going to Do It? Many like the idea of social media because it’s free. Who doesn’t like free marketing? But it’s not that simple. Someone has to manage your social media accounts, and usually that person will want to be paid. If you pass it onto an existing employee, they’ll have to spend their time on it–instead of another valuable project. Plus, you might not have a social-media-skilled employee, so you might even have to hire someone new. What we’re trying to say is this: consider the costs and the benefits thoroughly before committing to social media marketing, because you’re better off not doing social media than doing it poorly. Social media is a powerful tool for connecting your company with those who love what it’s doing. And if you have a good game plan you can influence your loyal followers to do business with you.

3 Social Media Improvements for Marketing Success

The great thing about social media is that it’s always evolving, and most of the time it’s for the betterment of your marketing strategy. These changes (some simple, some BIG) will help you reach out to customers in the social media world more effectively. We’ve got the simple changes, the upgrades and the just plain complicated (in simplified form, just for you). See what’s new in the world of social media that can help you today. The Complicated—Facebook Home Let’s start with the complicated. You’re probably thinking, “Facebook, Huh?” It’s okay, we’re wondering the same thing. Is it a phone? Nope. Is it an operating system? Try again. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook Home is an application that turns android phones into a Facebook phone. So what exactly does that mean? It means people with the application will see Facebook news front and center without ever having to open an application. Facebook’s Chat will always be on so people can communicate with users that way. Plus, notifications from other social media sites will take a backseat to Facebook. For you, it means your current social media presence should be evaluated. If you don’t have much emphasis on Facebook currently, it may be worth looking into increased emphasis. The Simple—Facebook Direct Comments It’s time to get personal—or at least more personal than you’ve been on Facebook. A simple and much needed upgrade to your Facebook profile now allows users to make a direct reply to a fan who has made a comment on your wall, photo or status. In the past one of your fans could post a question or statement that needs a reply, but tons of people commented after it before you could respond. Now you can simply click ‘reply’ to that particular comment and the person will be notified. Facebook then puts your reply next to the original statement or question. The change means better customer service and an easier way to connect with fans. Kudos to Facebook for implementing a change to make marketers lives easier. The Upgrade—LinkedIn Mentions At last, what Twitter and Facebook have already done we can now do with LinkedIn. The professional networking social media site has included direct mentions in its updates. If you have an article you know one of your clients would love or want them to see your post, simply type your connection’s name and select their profile. They’ll then be notified that you have content or a message just for them. Use it to make sure you’re targeting the right people with your content, and ensuring that they see it. Again, the upgrade gives you the opportunity seek out specific people and make them feel special

Aim to Own a Single Idea in Your Customer’s Mind

Being in the business world is difficult, because you have literally endless options of what you might focus on. You could choose to spend more on your marketing, launch a new campaign or even introduce a new product or feature to your existing line. The possibilities can be exhilarating, and you usually end up with more good ideas than you can possibly implement effectively. But we’re usually reluctant to abandon good ideas, even when the result would be having one GREAT one. Freelancers and business owners alike suffer from this problem. We either overload our products with too many features or dilute our personal brands by having too many specialties. The truth is that our customers and clients will be happier and more satisfied if we offer LESS, not MORE. Read on to find out how to narrow your ideas down until you find that one, key marketing message. The Paradox of Choice In Sheena Iyengar’s famous 1995 jam study, he found that while many consumers believe that they prefer more choices to fewer, when it actually comes to making purchasing decisions, having only a few choices sells better. Iyengar set up two scenarios in his study. In the first, a supermarket table was packed with 24 flavors of jam to sample and purchase. In the second scenario, the same table had only 6 jam types to choose from. While customers spent much more time at the table with more choices, only 3% made a purchase. At the table with fewer options, 30% of customers ended up purchasing jam. In other words, while people think they like more options, they’re often overwhelmed by too many similar choices. It’s too hard to compare, so people end up paralyzed and make no decision instead. This counter-intuitive finding holds true in many situations–it happens to young people picking their careers and to customers picking jam. Owning A Word In your industry, consumers likely have hundreds of companies and services to choose from. How can you overcome the consumer’s multitude of choices and stand out among your many competitors? Al Ries and Jack Trout have a few ideas. In their classic book The 21 Immutable Laws of Marketing, they suggest that the most effective companies and products own a word or phrase in their customers’ minds. What comes into your mind when you hear “search engine?” A majority of you probably thought “Google.” Google very nearly owns the idea of search engines. What word or idea do you want to own in your customers’ minds? What phrase makes you distinct from your nameless competitors? Focus on that idea relentlessly to create a powerful awareness in your market. Niche it Down – You Can Always Branch Out Later Derek Halpern of the website Social Triggers writes often about how to distinguish yourself in a competitive market. For example, there are millions of blogs, and thousands of good ones on any given subject. Therefore, says Halpern, the only way to compete and get attention is by choosing an incredibly specific topic. For example, if you were looking to get some pictures of your newborn baby, which of these two freelancers would you trust (and pay) more? Photographer #1 says: “I take pictures of anything! Cats, dogs, landscapes, families, sports teams, architecture and young children.” Or Freelance Photographer #2: “I am an established photographer who specializes in portraits of children between 3 and 24 months of age.” The lesson? Being specific pays. Once you own an idea in your customer’s mind and have a strong market presence, you can always use that trust and expertise to branch out into related areas of the market.