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 John Mahoney, president of The Mahoney Company, Santa Clara, Calif., had an unorthodox kick-off to our sales and marketing workshop for 70 of our top customers recently in Webster, N.Y. Among the secrets to his success, he said: “I haven’t had a discussion about print with a client in a year.”
The attendees were members — and in a few cases, prospective members — of our Xerox Graphic Arts Premier Partners, a global affinity network of about 600 leading Xerox customers who sell digital printing and other graphic communications services.
They listened attentively as Mahoney explained how he’d come to avoid using the “P” word. His company was founded in 1986, as a Copyymat, he said, and eventually built-up a print-on-demand business that kept three Xerox DocuTech Production Publishing systems running 24x7. Then, around 2001, the business began to fade. His Silicon Valley customers printed fewer product manuals, in favor of electronic versions. “Digital printing was a commodity,” Mahoney said. “Twenty-two-year-old marketing assistants were squeezing me on price. I was getting tired of it.”
Long-story-short, the company re-branded — using the marketing planning tools in the Xerox ProfitAccelerator™ Digital Business Resources — and today, it runs one-to-one marketing communications programs for Intel Corporation and its partners, among others. Now his sales approach is about selling return on investment. He advised attendees interested in selling these programs to find a one-to-one marketing champion with a budget and show that person how you can help them be better in their job. “Then ‘execute,’” he said. “Close,” he explained, “isn’t the right word. If you want a repeating program, then simply do what you say you’re going to do.” Deliver the return on investment, Mahoney concluded, and they’ll be your customer for life.
 John’s was one of a half-dozen enlightening presentations at the two-day event (Feb. 28 and March 1) at the Gil Hatch Center for Customer Innovation. It was the first time the North American Premier Partners have met outside of the annual congress — part of our effort to respond to member feedback asking for more networking opportunities.
The other presenters included:
• Doris Brown, vice president, Marketing, Pantone, on trends in color palettes;
• Joseph Rickard, president, Intellective Solutions, offered newly researched tips on selling to the agency and design services market;
• Premier Partner Rick Tatanus, account executive, Tucker Printers/Consolidated Graphics, joined Beth Ann Kilberg-Walsh, manager of our PSG Marketing Communications described some of our one-to-one marketing programs; and
• Christian Redder, marketing manager of the Xerox Supplies Business Group, about printing on magnets, synthetics, back-lit stocks and a host of other substrates that form the basis of profitable applications.
The presentations were great, but I like to think that the most valuable part of the workshop was chatting over dinner, drinks, breakfast, lunch and workouts in the hotel exercise room among colleagues, who happen to be some of the world’s leading digital print providers.
Or perhaps they should be called ROI providers. John Mahoney, any thoughts on that?
Bob Wagner
Vice President, Creative Services Business and Premier Partners Program
Xerox Corporation
robert.wagner@xerox.com
I'm amazed at the how much effort and money corporate America spends on CRM, call centers and customer satisfaction systems and how little they spend on managing the customer experience through their mail channel. Would companies send sales people that spoke broken English to customers? Or worse would they train people to ramble on in unintelligible jargon, and never get to the point? Would they allow sales people to call on customers in "old ratty" clothes? Of course not.
So why are our mailboxes full of underwhelming customer experiences? I unload 80% of my daily mail over my recycling bin. The experiences that make it to my kitchen counter–health benefit (or lack thereof) statements, bank and brokerage statements, credit card solicitations, insurance policies and too many bills are "weak and underdressed sales people" at best. I particularly love the correspondence that looks like it was typed on a '60's typewriter or in ALL CAPS. How about all of those interesting inserts? Does anybody ever read them?
Our CMO, Mike MacDonald is out in Las Vegas this week at the THE Conference on Marketing with the likes of loyalty guru Fred Reichheld who says "All good business is based on relationships, good relationships build into long term relationships between customers employees and partners, and that is the essential ingredient of having a long term profitable growing firm."
Reichheld’s theory is that the question we should be asking our customers is not “How satisfied are you? It’s “Would you recommend us?” We put his theory to the test at Xerox and we found that customers who are “likely to recommend” us are 2 1/2 times more likely to re-purchase.
So what does this mean for our mailboxes?
It means that the companies filling them need to change our reaction to what they send. They need to consider how we interpret information and they need to get personal—because the more personal we feel our relationship is, the more likely we are to recommend them. My friend Paul Lundy can tell you exactly how to do that here.
In my opinion, the firms that figure out how to leverage the customer communication channel to improve and augment their customers experience will experience a return on investment rather than “return to sender.”
Brian Stancampiano
Vice President, Document Outsourcing & Communication Services
Xerox
 PMA 2007 offered attendees access to a diverse layout of digital imagery technologies and products that included cameras, photofinishing, image applications and multimedia viewing solutions. With the event moving from a modest city, Orlando, to the ostentatious Las Vegas, expectations were high. Of the numerous photo products available at the show, advanced retail photofinishing solutions were by far the most talked about and demonstrated products.
Migration from film to digital has provided users with far more flexibility, with printing being one of the opportunities. And, when it comes to printing, the traditional 4x6 print is no longer the buzz for retail. Digital enables more fun and exciting output solutions (e.g. calendars, photo books, collages and other photo merchandise) for Luci, Jennifer, Suzie or Lori. At PMA Kodak and Fujifilm introduced new retail creative print solutions to support this growing interest. Kodak with its kiosk installed base shy of 50% market share, enhanced their kiosk application to support instant collage creations. This new application automates the photo layout process, while enabling users to further enhance the image layout if they choose. Fujifilm entered the retail creative print solutions with Xerox a strong strategic partner. Under this partnership, Fujifilm will sell the Xerox Phaser 7760, and DocuColor 240/250 as part of their retail portfolio. This enables retailers who have deployed Fujifilm’s GetPix Kiosk to either of these devices to the configuration to print calendars, photo books, collages and other photo merchandise on site.
Advanced photo multimedia solutions were another area highly displayed at PMA. They allow users to display their images beyond the PC, on digital frames, portable media players, and home entertainment solutions. Samsung and Sony both demonstrated high definition solutions that enable the viewing of digital still and video in HD. Digital frames have migrated up the demand curve with vendors like Pandigital, Kodak, Smartparts, Cieva and Westinghouse showing the latest in this technology. These digital frames range from 5-10 inches in size, and enable users to upload still photos, video and music and to create a multimedia slide show that is played on the frame. To further advance digital frames into the digital household, a number of these new frames include 802.11 wireless technology. This allows the wireless transfer of imaging from the household PC or a photo internet site for display on the digital frame.
Lastly but not least, PMA would not be the same without digital cameras. This year, the focus continued to be on digital SLR’s. Sony and Olympus, two vendors that are interested in gaining market share, demonstrated an expanded line of DSLR’s expected in the channel sometime this year. Besides DSLR’s, the spotlight was on the latest digital camera entry, General Imaging. Introduced two weeks prior to PMA, GI came to PMA with a full line of General Electric branded digital cameras. General Imaging was given an exclusive license to sell imaging products under the GE brand. It’s important to note that at PMA GI had a very large booth, and at that booth they demonstrated 3 camera lines designed for entry, mid and enthusiast users. In addition to the camera they also demonstrated a small format inkjet photo printer, believed to be based on Lexmark technology.
Ron Glaz
Digital Imaging Solutions and Services
IDC
The hot sticky humid climates of Florida are well known, but not in March. And thus the first day of the Graphics of the Americas started with balmy 90s and one advantage – the Convention Center was full as attendees sought to escape the heat and focus on business opportunities rather than tans and shopping. And as always, the quality of the visitors – meaning interested decision makers – was very clear. GOA is not a large show – nor in the geographic and industry space that it addresses should it be expected to be. Attendees are suppliers of equipment and supplies to the graphic arts industry – and most importantly print providers – from both the Southeast US region and Latin America.
GOA offered a unique opportunity to talk to and hold the interest of several high-profile distributors who are also signed up with Xerox DMO – NovaPrint from Argentina, newly-signed Fotobras from Brazil, and Casa Hellmund from Venezuela. These partners focus on the graphic arts segment by reselling Xerox digital print equipment, specifically focusing on the commercial print segment where they already do business selling equipment and supplies for offset technology.
We started at 11 on Friday but the throngs started to arrive about 12:30 and into the afternoon. As always, of the eight hours of floor time, in reality customers were there from 12:30 to 4:30. But again, the quality was there. Also by having the controlled numbers, it made it easy to attend to most everyone on the stand without having to talk to large roving groups. The show continued with good visitation on Saturday, but while it seemed less busy, the day was longer and visitors were more spread out. But there was always alot going on at the Xerox booth!
The standouts in the booth were the Profit Accelerator booth, showcasing the added value of four new Spanish and Portuguese translations, making a total of seven tools now available to our DMO Latin customers. Showing the strong integration of offset and digital, we demonstrated FreeFlow solutions for Web Services, Variable Data, Personalization with XMPIE, and overall workflow management. We also offered a focus on solutions with Digital Books, Marketing Communications 1:1, Proofing and Transactional print. Wide Format solutions were demonstrated with the print-on-demand point-of-sale solutions and other applications.
Xerox staff from almost every region in Latin America and the Southeast USA were there to provide professional support to customers and answer their questions and guide them to making better business decisions on Digital Print Solutions.
A good two days – Sunday – well a little better since we did not have to compete with the SUPERBOWL, but thankfully GOA will be Thursday, Friday and Saturday next year.
Randy Swope
Graphic Communications Marketing and Production Solutions Strategy
Xerox Production Systems Group, Developing Markets Operations
A quick glance at my PMA report reveals that no less than 127 major new products were showcased at PMA 2007 (not including the multitude of announcements from the smaller companies).
So how come the stars of the show, the products that got everyone excited, weren't even real? In an industry where future plans can be just as important as what's released now, several savvy manufacturers have taken to displaying early mockups of their future big money earners.
Sony surprised everyone by literally unveiling a large glass case containing two new DSLR bodies and an assortment of lenses. What looked at first glance like the real deal turned out to be very early prototypes with no names or features, other than "Pro" and "Advanced" for the two camera bodies. They were principally revealed to prove that Sony are in the DSLR space for the long haul, and to reassure Alpha users that something better is on the way, of utmost importance in a cut-throat market.
Likewise, Olympus were proudly showing off an advanced prototype (they'd already shown a rudimentary version at Photokina) of their new pro DSLR, the P-1. Except I shouldn't really refer to it as the P-1, because that's just a code-name that will probably change when the final product is released "towards the end of 2007".
The fact that two companies are intending to release new advanced DSLR cameras is exciting news. The fact that these products arguably proved to be the most interesting of the whole show is something of a sad indictment and perhaps the inevitable result of the ludicrous six-month product cycle that the industry seems to be stuck in. Surrounded by minor upgrades of existing products, how could the Sony and Olympus vapourware products fail to stand out?
Mark Goldstein
Editor, PhotographyBLOG
http://www.photographyblog.com
With the rapid level of change in photography one question that is now coming up is have we reached the end of the road for photographic printing?
We are seeing real changes in the way we handle photographic images with the switch to digital working. The major suppliers of photographic films and papers are seeing demand dropping more rapidly than predicted a few years ago. In fact the way consumers are now handling digital photographic images is very different to the manner in which they handled analog photographic images. The number of prints produced of photos taken is now very small and in general only a small percentages of images taken digitally are ever printed.
There are now many users of digital color presses that are building successful photographic business using such presses. The trend to photo books is a major change for the photographic market as it allows users to create themed books of photographs in many cases with annotations and then print as many copies as they want.
What is interesting is that while we have seen developments in digital printing opening up new markets in photography such as photo books, in most cases digital printing has not really impacted in the in-store markets where the mini labs and photo kiosks are established. This however is changing.
For a company like HP to launch a kiosk based photo printing solution is one thing as they do not have a long-term reputation in the photographic market, but Fujifilm is one of the largest players in the mini lab and photo processing business. For Fujifilm now to put its reputation on the line with the quality of a Xerox toner based laser printer says a lot for the quality that can be achieved by small low cost color laser printers. This tends to confirm that the days of photo printing using silver based photographic papers and films are indeed numbered.
I expanded on this topic in my article today on WhatTheyThink.com.
Andy Tribute
Attribute Associates
Ok, I have to confess. I still refer to a digital camera image (a data file) as a photograph. But what is it really? Clearly the industry has already redefined what a photograph is and the rest of us just haven’t caught-up, or we just haven’t figure out a better name. So what do we say when we take a nice “picture” on our digital camera? Wow, I have a nice data file of you? I have a nice digital image of you? Or, you make a great tif or jpeg? Oh well, we’ll figure this out later...or maybe not.
The bottom line is that the photo industry has already transformed itself. I was blown away the first day at PMA with the number of people who want to print photo books and similar products. Clearly the technology has already enabled another whole category, and we saw evidence of this everywhere on the show floor—from necklaces and ornaments to personalized postcards, key rings, T-shirts, purses, mugs, mousepads, birthday cakes and more. Formally know as “ancillary photo products,” these novelty items are anything but secondary. But just like the term “photograph,” we haven’t found a new name to reflect this booming business trend. What was a “photo,” is now an image, and what was ancillary is really now “main stream.”
It really is interesting to see all the options for photo-(there’s that name again, uggh) taking consumers. The most exciting part for me, was talking to all the young entrepreneurs who wanted information about printing technology, finishing and the all-important workflow to produce photo (here we go again…) products for our kids, and the next generation of photo-consumers. What are all these really young entrepreneurs going to do next ? Stay tuned…
Oh, another thing is scrapbooking. There is actually a “scrapbook pavilion” at PMA – Who would have guessed ? And it is HUGE! So much for the term “ancillary products”, I rest my case…
And please, someone come up with a better name…
Tony Leone
Workflow Customer and Field Engagement Team
Xerox Production Systems Group
Not me - I have looked at several online options for creating them, but have never gotten around to actually producing one. Prior to getting a digital camera, I used to throw all of my prints into a shoebox, thinking I would eventually make an album or scrapbook. That was six shoeboxes ago. Now I just save my photos on CDs and throw the CD in a box.
But apparently my fellow consumers aren't so lazy. A recent PMA Marketing Research report found that 21.4 percent of households that made no prints from their digital cameras in 2006 purchased some other photo-related product or service such as a photo book, personalized calendar, or other item.
The association further noted that this figure practically doubled from 2005 when only 12.3 percent of the members of this group made photo-related purchases. According to PMA: " In terms of absolute numbers, the size of this group went from about 7 million households in 2005 to almost 15 million households in 2006."
When it comes to personalized calendars, however, the O'Brien family is definitely doing its part. Every year my sister and sisters-in-law join forces to assemble a calendar featuring my sixteen nephews and nieces. Which brings me to my next question. Do men buy photo books? Because we know they don't buy very many greeting cards - the Greeting Card Assn. (GCA) (http://www.greetingcard.org) reports that women buy 80 percent of them.
I'd also like to know if photo book vendors have to cope with seasonal demand: super busy in November and December but super slow in January?
Katherine O'Brien
Editor
American Printer Magazine
http://www.americanprinter.com
My wife gave me a to-do list!
I come from a household of photo-activists. Starting with my dad, who probably takes 100 rolls of film a year, and was the first on his block to buy a “mega-pixel” camera. When the grand-kids came about, this really gave my dad more material to work with. I would say that my kids' lives have to be the most photo-documented in existence!
My wife was reluctant to give in so quickly to the digital domain, but soon converted also, when she finally convinced herself that she was not giving up anything. In fact, she embraced the flexibility that digital offered--she took up the art and practice of scrap booking and card making. With 3 young children, we had plenty of material for her to work with, and thus began the creation of photo cards, memory books and other photo gifts.
Now we roll the clock forward about 10 years, and interestingly enough, there is a growing market for all types of these photo products and many different ways to get them. The Internet, the software and the printing technology are all evolving in ways to make the types of “end-products” my wife was making by hand, easier, faster, cheaper and higher quality.
It was about 3 years ago, when I printed a few sample photo books and brought them home. It was clear from the response, that these types of products will forever be part of our household--I'm looking forward to seeing what new applications this increased demand brings to the show floor at PMA. And so is my wife...
As I left for the airport, she said, “Keep your eyes open for anything new that I might be interested in…” Gee, I don’t remember her being so interested in what I’ve been doing in the past.
See you at the show !
Tony Leone
Workflow Customer and Field Engagement Team
Xerox Production Systems Group
Many printers made proofs on IRIS printers, but few people made history with them. Graham Nash did.
Nash, best known as a founding member of the rock group Crosby Stills & Nash, has been a serious photographer since childhood. In 1989, Tokyo's Parco Gallery invited him to exhibit 35 photos in groups of 34 x 46-inch prints.
At the time, IRIS printers were used strictly for proofing. Working with a team of photographers and artists, Nash experimented with the printer and ultimately used it to create 1,750 large-scale photos for the exhibit. Several years later, Nash joined with Mac Holbert to launch Nash Editions (Manhattan Beach, CA) a fine art digital printmaking studio. In 1989 Nash Editions bought an IRIS 3047 and used it until December 31, 2004. (See www.nasheditions.com.)
In 2005, Nash Editions donated its IRIS printer to the National Museum of American History's photographic collection.
"The IRIS printer will stand as a symbol of change within the world of professional digital photography," said the museum's director, Brent D. Glass. "Nash Editions' contributions, as well as an earlier acquisition from photographer John Paul Caponigro, are excellent examples of where art, science and technology meet to produce wonderful objects and influence a whole medium."
Nash and Holbert will receive a special lifetime achievement award at PMA on March 7.
Katherine O'Brien
Editor
American Printer Magazine
www.americanprinter.com
These are exciting times in the Production Systems Group at Xerox! It’s my first time attending the show after a hiatus for 6 years, and I’m energized to be a part of Xerox’s push into the photo imaging market. Xerox is not actually new to this market, we’re just broadening our presence, and combining efforts with professional photography leaders like Shutterfly, MyPhotoFun and Fujifilm, makes it an exciting place to be.
Since many of the commercial print customers I work with are embracing photo-based applications and business opportunities, I am looking forward to seeing what new businesses and technologies are emerging at the show. As people demand higher quality for their photos and creative ways to print, store and manage their keepsakes, there will be an interesting variety of specialty products on display in Vegas.
Of course, you will see evidence of this in Xerox’s booth. We will be showing some exciting capabilities at the show, so stop by and let us know what you think. I’ll be back to tell you what I thought of the show right here—feel free to join me.
Exciting times indeed!
Tony Leone
Workflow Customer and Field Engagement Team
Xerox Production Systems Group
To take a quick break (okay, it's kind of long) from PMA posts, I thought I’d talk about Brian’s reference to the importance of "The Long Tail" to digital print. Digital print has become an essential tool in the overall platform management of many titles in many major book segments. The impact on total cost, speed of production, and title distribution makes it one of the key technologies helping the book publishing business model adapt to the needs of the market and its member supply chain partners.
“The Long Tail” in book publishing refers to the extended life of a book title. In digital printing, extended book title life equals more opportunities to print. It started with the Web-based publishers who have made it possible for anyone to get published—these books have a “long (never ending) tail” because the entire inventory is virtual. Companies like Lightning Source produce millions of units a month, supporting traditional publishers who have figured out how to use this model to extend the life of their titles. Retailers like Amazon and Barnes and Noble are now taking this to the next step, servicing direct demand with digital print capabilities. Large publishers are using the capabilities of digital printers like Donnelley, printing fewer units more often to keep the supply pipeline full and the warehouse lean.
But it was not that long ago that book publishers would buy 6-12 months of paper at a time, like they were in the hedge fund business. As cash flow became a more important metric, they worked with printers and paper suppliers to prepare for just in time instead of just in case. Paper suppliers augmented their distribution capabilities to enable this model in a number of segments. With “The Long Tail” concept, we are beginning to see the same thing happen with books.
There are still people in the market that think the unit cost equation is made up of just paper, print and bind costs. These same people look at digital print and say, “it can’t help me,” thinking it’s a tool that enables just niche opportunities. Well, the size of that “niche opportunity” will be close to 140,000,000 units in just North America by 2009. Trade book publishers, education publishers, university press publishers, professional publishers, and in plant printers are moving a significant amount of volume from offset to digital—improving on the quality, reducing the cost and increasing the through put. Each time this happens, it multiplies the number of current book titles better managed using digital print.
My point in all of this is that publishers and printers who are embracing the tools and models enabled by digital print technologies are improving their performance, profitability, and, most importantly, service to their customers. If you are not yet one that embraces digital print, you should not be talking about why digital print does not work for you but rather what you need to do in order to make digital print part of your business solutions. Come to the Book Business Expo and you will find the people who will help you find the answers. Or, if you're not heading to the Expo, ask your questions right here!
John Conley
Vice President of Publishing
Xerox Production Systems Group
I recently had the opportunity to interview J. Kirby Best, the CEO of leading on-demand book publisher Lightning Source. He made a very interesting comment when asked what he thought the next big opportunity for color on-demand books would be, identifying photo books, and saying, "we feel they are going to explode twice as fast as the black & white book market did. Color books are very difficult for a publisher to produce in short runs cost effectively... this is a new product area that allows consumers a new way of showcasing and sharing their photos. Instead of having your photographs printed at Wal-Mart or Walgreens, or producing them at home on a photo printer, you can incorporate them into a beautiful hardcover book, commemorating soccer teams, birthdays, anniversaries, family reunions, all sorts of important life events. And you can have a beautiful, sewn hardcover book for about $30."
This makes Xerox' recent placement of iGen3's at Shutterfly, a self-described Internet-based social expression and personal publishing service, very interesting and highly likely to generate good volumes in terms of both impressions and future placements of iGens. Digital scrapbooking is an iteration of this, a new printing solution from Shutterfly that enables digital scrapbookers to easily upload layouts into high quality Photo Books and print them with full bleed or die cut window covers. I am ready to give it a try with some of the beautiful pictures I have of my 16-month-old grandaughter!
Cary Sherburne
Senior Editor
WhatTheyThink.com
cary@sherburneassociates.com
Is a picture worth a 1,000 new opportunities? How about 1,000's of new customers?
The coming week is going to be an exciting one for Xerox -- we're showing how to get those new opportunities and customers. We will be attending both the Book Business and DIMA/ PMA shows and have some really cool things to talk about and show off. I hope I'll see you there!
At Book Business down in the Big Apple, John Conley has pulled together an esteemed panel to discuss the “Long Tail Theory” and its immediate relevance to the future of book publishing as we know it. Long Tail Theory is a really cool concept developed by Chris Anderson that is being applied to all sorts of industries – but really, really relevant to digital book printing.
Then I'm off to Las Vegas for PMA. What happens in Vegas isn’t going to stay in Vegas! It’s going to be posted here. Attending PMA in a big way is a new thing for Xerox and we’re really excited to put the spotlight on photo applications. We got started last week when we announced a new agreement with Fujifilm that got a lot of people’s attention.
So if you are going to Vegas or staying home, stay tuned for “guest bloggers” giving updates straight from the PMA show floor -- and feel free to comment on what they're saying. And of course, I’ll be back to talk more about some of the cool applications that we’re highlighting in our booth.
Brian Segnit
Manager, Photo and Book Printing
Xerox Production Systems Group
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