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Print Solutions July 2006
Cover story
The Science of Marketing
By LaShell Stratton
Science has its fundamental laws and
theories: Newton's Laws of Motion,
Einstein's General Theory of Relativity and Darwin's Theory of Evolution to name a few. Marketing, the science of communicating and
managing a message, has its own set of universal laws that produce the same
results time and again.
On the following pages, you'll find five “experiments” conducted by distributors and manufacturers that not only illustrate basic
principles of marketing but also produced positive outcomes
—new customers and increased sales. The areas of concentration were branding,
online marketing, trade shows, 1-to-1 marketing and direct mail. Also included
is advice from marketing and business strategy consultants who routinely guide
companies through marketing experiments. These consultants share their theories
on which procedures produce strong results and which do not.
Experiment No. 1:
| In Brief |
A distributorship invests money
in creating an attractive web site
with e-commerce capabilities in
the hopes of presenting a positive image on the web. |
The Landmark Image Inc. solidifies its presence on the internet.
Objective:
This small distributorship in Vacaville, Calif., wanted to make an organized,
sophisticated web presentation that would attract prospects and allow customers
to buy products over the internet.
Hypothesis:
By offering a well-designed web site with Java and Flash applets, the
distributorship puts its best foot forward in attracting prospects.
“We hope that we put out a professional image,” says Ray Goodson, CEO of The Landmark Image Inc. “We hope this will help people decide to do business with us. Now with the
internet, that
's all people see: your web page or a listing in the yellow pages. That's how you represent yourself.”
Procedure:
1) Hire a web developer. Landmark Image's web site development is handled by Capitola Works, Folsom, Calif. “We have a web designer do it for us,” Goodson says. “But my wife and I give him our ideas.” The company has changed the web site's look quite a few times in the past decade. But Goodson says the most recent
incarnation has been around for about a year and half.
“Now we've broken ourselves down into three divisions— print, technology and marketing,” Goodson says. This breakdown is reflected in the tabs on the web site with the
same headings.
2) The web site should have basic elements…and just a little extra. Goodson says all business web sites should have basic
things like what products and services a company offers. But Landmark Image
wanted to show its customers and prospects more than just a list of products.
“We wanted to be like a library where visitors could download PDF files that
contain reference materials about products and programs that the company
offers,” Goodson says. “They can find out about it without having to call us.”
3) Keep the site fresh. “We have a ‘What's New' section and ‘Specials of the Week' so that we're constantly updating the site,” Goodson says. “When they visit us, they see that the site is never stagnant.”
4) Have e-commerce capability. Goodson says Landmark Image is able to do this
with the help of e-Quantum.
“E-commerce is important,” he says. “It's important to be able to do transactional business through your web site. With
customers used to being able to order online, they are asking for those types
of service capabilities.”
| “We hope that we put out a professional image. We hope that this will help people
decide to do business with us. Now with the internet, that
's all people see: your web page or a listing in the yellow pages. That's how you represent yourself.” |
Ray Goodson, CEO The Landmark Image Inc. Vacaville, Calif. |
Results:
Goodson says sales have gone up because Landmark Image's e-commerce capability helps lock in customers. “When they have that easy access, it's harder for them to switch to other vendors,” Goodson says. He also believes that the sophisticated site gives Landmark Image “an edge over a lot of our competitors who may have more homegrown sites.”
Conclusion: Goodson estimates the company has spent about $20,000 in the past 10 years
building and updating the web site.
“But it's worth it,” he says when you weigh the cost of site versus how effective it is as a
marketing and e-commerce tool.
Proforma Uses its Web Site as a Prospecting Tool, With Strong Results
Michael Paulus, chief marketing officer at Proforma, says the Cleveland franchise
organization has a two-tiered marketing strategy for the internet.
“We communicate the message of both Proforma as a whole and Proforma's franchise owners,” he says.
Paulus says the web sites serve several basic functions including making sure
the company
's presence is “out in the marketing place” and allowing prospects to see the company's product offerings and services. “They go to the web site and reference it to try to decide whether they want to
do business with us,” Paulus says.
The home site, www.proforma.com, also serves as a prospecting tool of sorts for
franchise owners, sending prospect inquiries to the appropriate companies.
Whenever a product or service inquiry is submitted to the web site by a visitor,
“we log them immediately and it feeds out to the franchise owners based on
function and geography,” Paulus says. This online tool helped one Proforma franchise owner land a
3-year, $10 million contract for printing and print management solutions after
an inquiry was sent through the Proforma system.
“This is one thing that we're doing on an ongoing basis and that's trying to increase their chances to make a sale,” Paulus says.
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