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S3 Ep29: Unveiling Print's Power – A Dialogue with Mike Saty
18 Plays14 hours ago
In this episode of Dial It In, Trygve and Dave discuss the importance of print marketing, despite the prominence of digital media. They welcome guest Mike Saty, Chief Sales Officer at Signature Graphics, who outlines the broad range of services their company offers, including commercial printing, direct mail, and design services through their associated companies. Saty emphasizes the continuing relevance of print media, explaining its adaptability and impact, especially in integrated marketing campaigns. He provides insights into the logistical and strategic considerations of print advertising and shares innovative examples, such as integrating digital elements through QR codes and programmatic mail. The conversation also touches on the challenges of supply chain disruptions and rising costs, and how Signature Graphics navigates these issues to offer comprehensive solutions for clients. Throughout, Saty stresses the importance of meeting client needs through a consultative approach and outlines his strategies for managing diverse sales objectives across different markets.
Connect with Mike:
Signature-Graphics.com
LinkedIn
…
Dial It In Podcast is where we gather our favorite people together to share their advice on how to drive revenue, through storytelling and without the boring sales jargon. Our primary focus is marketing and sales for manufacturing and B2B service businesses, but we’ll cover topics across the entire spectrum of business. This isn’t a deep, naval-gazing show… we like to have lively chats that are fun, and full of useful insights. Brought to you by BizzyWeb.
Links:
Website: dialitinpodcast.com
BizzyWeb site: bizzyweb.com
Connect with Dave Meyer
Connect with Trygve Olsen
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Anecdotes
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome to dial it in a podcast where we talk to fascinating people about marketing sales process improvements and tricks that they use to grow their businesses. Join me, Dave Meyer and Trigby Olson of busy web as we bring you interviews on how the best in their fields dialing it in for their organizations.
00:00:26
Speaker
Let's ring up another episode.
00:00:30
Speaker
I just got back from vacation at 1.30 in the morning. And you know what? I was thinking it, and it's lying in bed at two o'clock in the morning, thinking, oh God, I got to do a podcast in the morning. I got to get some sleep. I got to get some sleep. Why, why aren't I sleeping?
00:00:46
Speaker
Then, you know what I did, Dave? What did you do, Trigby? I put on a podcast to listen to. Put me right to sleep. Yeah. Yeah. Nice and relaxing. Beautiful.
Guest Introduction: Mike Sadie, Chief Sales Officer at Signature Graphics
00:00:56
Speaker
I'm super excited to have our guest on today. He's a client of ours as well as a friend and we've done so much work. He basically moved in. He was, he when he rented a room for him and the companies that he works with, but he's a great guy. And we're going to talk all about print marketing today. Ooh, I love print.
00:01:14
Speaker
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00:01:35
Speaker
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00:01:50
Speaker
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Innovative Print Marketing and Company Developments
00:01:54
Speaker
Super. Well, our guest today is Mike Sadie. He is the chief sales officer at Signature Graphics, where he oversees sales strategies and drives business growth for the company's cutting edge printing and graphic solutions.
00:02:07
Speaker
With extensive experience in the print and marketing industry, Mike has a deep understanding of how to leverage innovative technologies to develop impactful branding and messaging for businesses of all sizes.
00:02:19
Speaker
Under his leadership, Signature has consistently pushed the boundaries of design, quality, and customer service, ensuring clients stand out in competitive markets. Welcome to the show, Mike.
00:02:31
Speaker
Thank you for having me, Trigby. This is fun. and like I've been looking forward to this. And we are, is a reschedule because Nicole, our producer was not sensitive to my schedule and booked you originally on my birthday.
00:02:48
Speaker
And so she came back and said, oh, it's okay. I scheduled Mike for a different day and we are recording this on my wife's birthday. So as soon as we're done here, i have to run out and buy some flowers.
00:03:01
Speaker
I'll tell you something. The delay was actually useful because a lot has happened in the last two months. There's a lot to talk about. And the the other thing too, this happens to be my seventh anniversary today with Signature Graphics. Oh, happy anniversary.
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah, thanks. So it's unbelievable. My wife's birthday and your anniversary. This episode's got to have a great start. Mike,
Signature Graphics' Offerings and Misconceptions about Print
00:03:25
Speaker
tell us about Signature. What is Signature Graphics? So Signature Graphics, we are...
00:03:31
Speaker
primarily a commercial printer. I'm based out of Portland, Oregon. We got facilities in Portland and Spokane, Washington. But under the signature group, we've got a variety different companies. One of our, one of our companies is called Mailbox Merchants. It's a shared direct mail package that we mail to just about 2 million households through six Western states.
00:03:51
Speaker
We partner with other light companies across the country. It gives us a network of up to a hundred million households we can reach through the mailbox. In addition to that, we've got Cobalt Design, which is our in-house design firm. And they do things like ad circular design, in-store signage.
00:04:10
Speaker
window clings and branding, a lot of things that suit to nuts. And then finally, we've got Archer 3P Logistics, which is our or freight and shipping brokerage. And but so there's a lot of things that we can just handle from beginning to end in designing a piece, printing a piece, shipping it to where it needs to go yeah and putting it into the mailbox.
00:04:33
Speaker
What are like the last five print jobs that you guys think you guys have rolled off the presses? Oh, there's probably five running today, but most of the type of work we do, we do advertising circulars, coupon books in a variety different ah and sizes. We print everything for that gets inserted into mailbox merchants. So a lot of like single sheet ad flyers. We do government publications. We print newspapers. we Anything that is is a mass produced print piece. so That's what we do.
00:05:04
Speaker
So I guess the first question is, cause I primarily work in digital print and is still a thing. love this. Actually, I love this question. yeah You know why? Because here's the thing we actually, through mailbox merchants have a digital an offering as well. Right. We do programmatic digital media.
00:05:24
Speaker
And, but this question about is print still a thing is print is dead. I've had so many clients look in the eye just say that print is dead. And my response to that every time is let's think about this. Print didn't die. What happened was People change the way they consume news.
00:05:41
Speaker
They change the way they receive their bills. And if you think about all the things that traditionally have come through the mailbox or through a newspaper, even a bill you receive from the utility company was an advertising opportunity, right? You'd receive bill stuffers.
00:05:56
Speaker
You'd receive your grocery circulars within newspapers. So it was just the the way consumers are behaving is obviously... different and that makes print availability more difficult. And that's why i think programs like mailbox merchants, which but if you go 15 years ago, our direct competitors were newspapers and primarily what we were all beating each other up over was trying to get grocery advertising circulars.
00:06:23
Speaker
But I think that's why it's important we have programs like that because we still deliver print pieces into the household, or into the mailbox, it gets dealt with and consumers still want it and they still react to it. I'm thinking just conversations.
00:06:37
Speaker
I've had with clients in the past two, three months.
Print and Digital Media Synergy
00:06:40
Speaker
I'll give you ah an example. Does prints don't work? but We've got one client. I'm going to make a distinction here that if it gets confusing, let me know.
00:06:49
Speaker
But okay well you when I talk about like mailbox purchase and shared direct mail, it's a multi-advertiser piece designed to allow customers to share postage costs.
00:06:59
Speaker
Right. And you can compare that to now a customer could do that on their own. They want to hit 50,000 households. They could do it with us. They could pay their own postage and do it that way, or they could go to a mailing list and try to hit a subset of that 50,000 households. But we had, we've got a client for years. That's what they did. They mailed to to CRM list.
00:07:22
Speaker
And we finally made some progress in giving test some shared mail and they did. started late October. So at the beginning of the holiday season, and we get to black Friday in same store sales were up 30% over prior year, according to them. Right. What that tells me is that consumers, if you give them the information, they'll react to it.
00:07:46
Speaker
And I think that's the game that too, with like, you mentioned digital media. Tell me if you want me to take a breath, Triv, I'm just- No, no, keep going. But digital media, I mean, as a printer, we use digital media.
00:07:58
Speaker
You guys place digital media for us. We sell digital media and It would be disingenuous me to sit here and say that there's a binary choice between print and digital media, because that's not the way consumers react to it. Right. They're not making that choice.
00:08:14
Speaker
They're multifaceted. They're taking their messaging from a variety different places. And when it comes to print as an advertising marketing vehicle, I can tell you After as long as I've been doing this, I'm still a true believer.
00:08:30
Speaker
it And I absolutely believe in my heart that if you give me ah budget for print and put it head to head with digital, I'm going to win that. I also believe though, that if you give me a budget for print plus digital, I'm going to win that too. I think the more tactics you can put into the overall strategy, just the better it is for ultimately the advertiser.
00:08:52
Speaker
I had this wonderful experience over Christmas that made me think of you. um My in-laws just moved into a senior living slash assisted living facility and they were spending a fortune on the paper.
00:09:07
Speaker
And so my wife and I, we decided, you know what, we're going to get them a newspaper subscription. And I asked, I asked my wife's mother, why do you, she said, i need it for, what do you need for? I need it for the circulars.
00:09:19
Speaker
I need, And was like, why you just walking to the store? And she said, no, if I don't have the circulars, how am I going to and see what's on sale? How am I going to know what I'm hungry for next week?
00:09:32
Speaker
And I think that is not unique to one demographic either. It's the interaction with print is across
Print Marketing's Appeal Across Ages and Industries
00:09:40
Speaker
the board. And like one day i think back to 2008 through 2010, somewhere in there, like when, like programmatic digital was first becoming a thing and there was this immediate I don't know, conclusion, ah drawn that print was for old people and digital was for young people. And then at the time, all the hand-wringing was about, oh my God, how do we reach this pig in the Python called millennials, right? Because they just don't behave like they're supposed to.
00:10:11
Speaker
And then all of a sudden, they started having kids and they turned into their parents and guess- Wait, wait, wait, did you say pig in a Python? I did. Pig in a python. I've never, not a day in my life, I've heard somebody say a pig in a python, but I'm going to say... And our time today was most good, Trigby.
00:10:29
Speaker
Absolutely. Like a pig in a python. Yeah. Yeah, what a good phrase. Sorry, yeah, keep going, yeah. Yeah, but I think what that points to is, it it again, I i always to stay focused on the consumer because at the the end of the day, I think and seeing how they behave and providing them content is the, is probably the most important thing. It's the most important thing for us is, and the more content we provide for consumers, we're also providing more value for our average IVs as well, because we've got more to calling.
00:11:01
Speaker
the content going out there. But the, what we see in the behavior is that some people are, they're value driven and some people aren't, and it really has nothing to do with how much money you earn, how expensive your house is, how old you are. It's just, it's a mindset and that's what we try to serve.
00:11:22
Speaker
That's probably based on the explicit need that you're looking at Right. yeah So are there particular industries that are an absolutely a slam dunk for prints and for connecting like physically?
00:11:38
Speaker
Used to be. and No, it's really, it's changed a lot. And there's ah a couple of that have really impacted it. One is Just the availability of where you can put a print advertising piece. If you're in a large town, that you've got ah you're a large city, you've got options.
00:11:58
Speaker
Like and in Minneapolis, there's options in Seattle that there's options. If you're sitting in a place like Spokane, Washington, your options are limited. You've got, you know, what we do in the mailbox, but you, there's not really an alternative newspaper source for that kind of distribution anymore.
00:12:16
Speaker
The other thing that has impacted it is which is media choices out there. And you can but you can invest in print, you can invest in digital and all these kinds of things. And a lot of it just depends on the belief system of the person sitting across the table from us. Right. I would guess like for sure, home services would be pretty easy because people are looking up and as they come back from their mailbox, was like, oh yeah, my roof is rough or yeah do need to check on
Strategy and Creativity in Print Marketing
00:12:42
Speaker
these things. So things that have immediacy, I would gather are helpful or important for print.
00:12:47
Speaker
maybe some of the smaller things that like i don't know if i could convince someone to engage in a b2b relationship and have us do marketing for them with a mailing like one-off mailing for sure yeah but it's probably those things that have easy next steps and that there's a clearly defined option right Yeah, for sure. So I get back to your original question about what are those categories? i think anything consumer goods and services on the other end of that, retail, QSR, pizza, automotive services, dental, chiropractic.
00:13:25
Speaker
yeah We've got a pretty varied list of clients. One of the things that I've, in my experience, I've been doing this going on 15 years now, is when people say, I want to do print marketing. Can you help with that?
00:13:40
Speaker
And my answer is, no, not yet. Because... I always counsel people to pick your printer first because how a printer will print out the yeah your assets is completely different. How their approach to the process is completely different. What sort of files they want is completely different. You almost have to reverse engineer a campaign to do the creative last as opposed to the creative first.
00:14:10
Speaker
Am i wrong in that? Is there a standardization in the industry that I just haven't seen? no I don't think you're wrong necessarily. i think though the beginning of that process, if someone wants to get into print marketing, print advertising is strategy and tactics, right? What are you trying to accomplish? And then how do we want to accomplish that? And then, and then once you understand that, what are the options to accomplish that? For the most part, when you're putting something on on presses, there's a lot of flexibility in that. i mean You can, the size of the piece, the kind of paper it's printed on, and the number of pages that you're going to print, or you're going to fold it, not fold it. I mean, there's a lot of decisions that that could be made at that point to help accomplish whatever that it was driving that desire for print marketing in the first place.
00:15:03
Speaker
So what are some of the things that most companies would really look at? I know you're primarily, you do major commercial things, but me things like folders, business cards, leaflets, you talked about billing inserts.
00:15:19
Speaker
There's all, there's there's all sorts of different ways that you can, you can utilize print marketing. What are some of the other more creative ones? I think people don't necessarily have an appreciation for what print marketing could be.
00:15:31
Speaker
Yeah. and I mean, that it's hard, it's tactile, right? If you think about that, like how do you want consumers to interact with it? There's a lot of things that, that can be done to try to drive that interaction and to drive integration. i Think as simple as using QR codes to try to use print to drive digital interaction, which studies will so suggest that it will, and it'll do it beautifully. Ultimately though.
00:16:02
Speaker
I think whenever we're putting a print piece out into and the marketplace, what you're trying to do is get a person to take action arent on the other end. And hopefully that action is ringing someone's cash register a lot.
00:16:17
Speaker
So it's just that simple. What are the different ways in which you want elicit a reaction? I think so. i there're And there's things you can do too. and Like the Postal Service has done this for a few years where They offer incentives for different kinds of integrations. And so you might have like a integrated technology incentives that kind of drive that kind of participation with print. And it might be something as simple as putting on somewhere of your piece, Hey, Google, take me to www, wherever you want them to land.com. And they've got things for scented inks. And so there's, but you can.
00:16:56
Speaker
Scented inks? Scented inks, like
00:17:01
Speaker
Like in the olden days where you could open up a magazine and get some dracate. Yeah, exactly. Rub it on the top of the newsstand and rub the magazine and you're like an old Mac on yourself or something.
00:17:13
Speaker
I mean, last year, I shouldn't say this because... I don't want to do it anymore, but we were running pieces that and it smelled like, I forget what they call it, some rose. Beautiful. Yeah. ah Like a scratch and sniff almost kind of.
00:17:27
Speaker
kind of Yeah. Yeah. It's right. You're rubbing. As it heats up, you get that rose scent. Cool. Yeah. As technology keeps the yeah keeps getting better and everybody has mobile devices in their hands. and I think you you just mentioned QR codes. So, you know, there's a ton of ways that you can interact with a with any given campaign now.
00:17:46
Speaker
Yeah. So I'd imagine that at least part of a relationship that you have with a lot of your clients is, okay, how are we going to take this online and or keep the relationship going? You're going to start that conversation, but are there like guidelines or rules on how you do that?
00:18:05
Speaker
Or how do you start that relationship with a client when they're saying, I really want to make a huge campaign out of this. We need, but this is a spend. So we want to make sure that we wring every buck out of it. man i'm trying to think of what our sales process looks like and y'all have done a great job trying to help us define that but the entry points are infinite and i think ah in the beginning you got it just try to meet the client where they're at most people by the time if they're approaching us they have an idea of what they want us to do for them and i think our jobs is to be
00:18:39
Speaker
The more consultative than that, which is cliched, but it's true. but It's understanding what they're trying to accomplish. So we can look at what we have that, that will best align for them.
00:18:51
Speaker
but Because you might have, for a that for example, say you've got automotive services business. And they're using us for saturation shared direct mail, but other things we could do for them would be digital integrations. We could do new movers programs yeah to try to capture the those people's new marketplace before ah competitor can.
00:19:18
Speaker
the If they have a CRM list, we might suggest at ah certain times for certain promotions, here's how you can take advantage of that. say There's a lot of things we can do just based on what the clients wants and needs are, what they're trying to accomplish, what their competitive set looks like.
00:19:35
Speaker
There's a lot of like programs or services that you can tap into. So if you're trying to, especially easy, if you're trying to just target a zip code, for example, right? So probably easiest would be that, but are there partners or is that part of what you guys do with your customers to say, okay, here's how we can get ahold of the people that you're telling us you want to reach?
00:19:55
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. right And our primary building block as far as trying to enrich consumer is we're going to be male first. I mean, and it's just because we believe that's where the results are, right? That's going to be the first step. Now, if we want to pour gas on the results, here's the other things we could do. So we, I think we, we think in terms of what's primary, what the secondary, tertiary, and how are all these things going to be working together? And then We got to take all that and match it up with the client budget because you know, truth be told, here's what, it here's what an awesome media plan looks like in my mind.
00:20:35
Speaker
It's it's print marketing, digital marketing. Put in social media, email, Google ads, it's buses, television, radio, everything, billboards, everything you can think of.
00:20:50
Speaker
Right. Who's got the magic money for it. Right. McDonald's, but we're not all bad. So, I mean, that, I think that's the magic of working with clients is trying to navigate the that because you, they're competing with companies like
Competitive Marketing and Sales Management Strategies
00:21:04
Speaker
that too. Right. All these, the these national campaigns are They're finding their way to Roseburg, Oregon and, and the local merchant in Roseburg has to find a way to cut through all that as well. And they try to help them with that.
00:21:19
Speaker
And I think we're pretty successful at it too. Yeah. Merch is the backbone of what. For sure. It's all about just finding new avenues to show up in front of them. Right.
00:21:30
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And being consistent with it and too. I want to switch gears a little and i want to talk about you personally, because I think you, you are the chief sales officer for and umbrella that really handles four different companies with four, almost five or six different disparate ideal customer profiles.
00:21:50
Speaker
Yeah. How do you do that? Yeah. I'll tell you when I first came on board Signature Graphics, we've been with been with One of our partners, they were in Philastis at the time I left and they became Veracast and now RRD and I had been with them for 20 years. And I came out with Signature Graphics to run the shared drugs, mail mailbox merchants program.
00:22:13
Speaker
And did that for ah couple of years. And had, and as I got to know that the company, the processes and every, everything else we do, there's obviously so much synergy.
00:22:25
Speaker
We, we could print a piece and we can send it to a newspaper and we can send it straight to the post office or we can distribute it through mailbox merchants. And then also being able to manage network relationships to, to be able to leverage some of this stuff. And eventually it just made sense for me to take a more generalized sales role and try to build those synergies as far as how I do it one day at a time. And it, I'll tell you too.
00:22:54
Speaker
I mentioned this, it's been seven years and it's hard to it's hard to imagine that because look what's happened in the in the last five years. And it's just, it's constant chaos. is It's one of the cool things about our company, I think is that we're, I think we're large enough to have some weight, but we're small enough to be nimble. And ah there are so many things that we've done over the past four or five years that are just Hey, we need a solution and we need it now. And it's not going through committees.
00:23:24
Speaker
It, no one's pulling pulling out a policy manual. It's just does, or does it not. And so it, Trigby, I think to answer your question, it's just day to day is what are the facts on the ground and Can, can we deal with the chaos a little bit and keep it pointed in the direction of where we're trying to go overall at the same time. The most accurate description of being a sales leader that I've ever heard is an old school Garth Brooks line about how I'm describing how rodeo works, which is you keep your mind in the middle while your butt is just spinning around and around and around and around.
00:24:01
Speaker
There you go. And then at three in the morning, you lay awake, staring at the ceiling. That's all good. Yes. Yeah. Well, I would think it has to have it gives you a bit of a competitive advantage, though, if somebody says, oh, I really want to do that, but I don't really have anybody to ship that. Or I don't really don't if I do if I do a mailer project, I don't have anybody who can actually mail it or I don't really understand how to do that. You just be like, yeah no, I got you.
00:24:25
Speaker
i got you. Yeah, as and and for sure. And that's the message we try to get across too. And it's because not only do we print and ship all over the place and not only are we coordinating freight all over the place as far away as Puerto Rico, keep that in mind. But we also are receiving a ton of print too, that we distribute through mailbox merchants. Yeah, I did.
00:24:51
Speaker
The more of that we can keep in house. There's so many advantages to everybody. And I think one of the things with print media over the past few years is there's ah there's been a lot of cost pressures on print media. So it's a even though it's effective, even though that even though there's an ah ROI,
00:25:12
Speaker
There's a huge push for managed costs, which is reasonable. you had rising postage costs, then paper can get expensive. Transporting stuff can get expensive. When we're receiving ah shipment from so in Milwaukee and we've got a press in the facility in Portland, Oregon, and it's going to ride on a forklift.
00:25:31
Speaker
across the plant and get inserted into mailbox versions, there's a huge opportunity for savings right there, right? Because we're not putting on trucks. and Those are the types of opportunities and the benefit we look for clients.
00:25:46
Speaker
When we're ah recording this, it's the spring of 2025. And I think a lot of companies are...
00:25:55
Speaker
Wondering what's going to happen next with the USA trade war and the tariffs, which and if history teaches us anything, it's not the tariffs that are the issue. It's the supply chain.
00:26:08
Speaker
So how is that affecting how
Navigating Supply Chain and Future Innovations in Print
00:26:10
Speaker
is that affecting you? Do you get paper from Mexico? No, we do source paper from Canada. We source paper in the States. And And then on how it all plays out on Tuesday, we're, there could be some disruption and we'll have to we'll have to address it. But yeah yeah I think related to that, those are the kinds of uncontrollables that we've just, we've got to figure out and make it work within our clients workflows. And it's, it, it, and that's where our ability to look at all the levers that are involved in the process, including things like shipping.
00:26:46
Speaker
It's a, it's not just putting ink on paper and then shipping it somewhere. It's putting ink on paper. the right way. It's creating a quality product and then it's making sure that it is packaged correctly so that it survives the journey.
00:27:04
Speaker
Believe me, I see a lot of, we receive a lot of shipments that we got to go back and restack just because that detail wasn't paid attention to for whatever reason. And you get that copy all over the bottom of a truck, which leads to reprints and things like that, right? For missed, missed in-home days, missed promotional days. Could you line the bottoms of the trucks with silly putty?
00:27:24
Speaker
and That's old school. Yeah. and That's not, yeah. But I think those are the types of things that or we need to be talking to clients about to, and okay, if this happens and where are the other levers that, you know, we can help you pull to try to keep this in check.
00:27:41
Speaker
And all the more reason to find a trusted partner like Signature Graphics, because if you're just working with somebody, or if you were just trying to do this on your own, there's no way you would know all of those things and be able to plan around it.
00:27:53
Speaker
Yeah. And yeah. and And I think the other thing too, is there's a tariff, obviously costs go up, but it, it, it, the tariffs that have been announced are not unique to paper.
00:28:06
Speaker
Everything's going to go up. I think, especially if you get it to a period where there is pressure on the consumer because of rising costs, I think what we do becomes even that much more important because they need to know where where to get the best deal, where to find that ah competition.
00:28:23
Speaker
Just in the marketplace, it gets ratcheted up even that much more. And like, Hey, I remember talking to a client like right as the shutdown, the pandemic started, and we were talking about how All this was, these issues was impacting consumers and the brand loyalty.
00:28:43
Speaker
We were expecting that there wouldn't be as much loyalty out there. And the way he footed it was, there's going to be a giant jump ball for market share. And I think that's what happens when you get into some economic difficulty.
00:28:56
Speaker
that I'll tell you on Tuesday, it may or may not come. And Tuesday is, is of course for folks that listening to this after it April 2nd is the timeline when the tariffs go into effect, right?
00:29:12
Speaker
So that's what we're thinking. um All that aside and knowing you're an expert in this field, you're counseling hundreds of clients across several different business lines.
00:29:25
Speaker
What do you think is going to happen in the next five-ish years in the realm of print? Anything coming down the pipe that we might be surprised about or that people should start thinking about? Is hemp going to take over the world? yeah Anything completely different?
00:29:41
Speaker
I think what you're going to see in it, these are the questions we're asking ourselves is how can you be more innovative so it with print? I think five years from now, print is still going to be impactful i for all the reasons it is today. But I think what What we will want to try to figure out is how do we create more integration with a print piece into ah to the digital executions i that are going on? How do you create a more tactile experience with K-Siri or a Google or things like that?
00:30:13
Speaker
And then ah the other, the other thing that like things we're looking at are how can you enhance your targeting platforms with print? Is there an opportunity to enhance the, add things like foot traffic reporting along with it?
00:30:27
Speaker
I think we can leverage technology too, even though we're working in a physical world and the. I think that's what you'll see is more and more of that. And I know, i mean, there's already some mailers out there that are marrying those two things together from a pro programmatic standpoint and they're doing is really cool.
00:30:44
Speaker
Sure. And if certain technologies like a meta has their glasses now and Apple has Vision Crow and all that stuff, there might be opportunities for augmented reality where you could take that piece of physical media and point it at your phone. And then all of a sudden you're in an experience.
00:31:03
Speaker
Yeah. We may have just invented something. See, there we go. I'm taking credit for it right now. Yeah, I think those are the things that are being able to redirect to a video experience from a prior piece. there's There's a lot of capabilities that are there now. I think that...
00:31:22
Speaker
The trick is to take that stuff and make it, make sure that there's a value in an ROI to it as well. There's a, there's a lot of things that we can do and it doesn't necessarily mean we should.
00:31:33
Speaker
yeah So and that's what we're have to balance is can it, can we make it economical? Does it, is it gonna get the incline on ROI? That remains the same.
00:31:45
Speaker
And in your career, what's the weirdest thing that you've ever been asked to do from a marketing
Creative Marketing Challenges and Tactics
00:31:50
Speaker
standpoint? Oh man. And here I'll share mine first. And Dave can tell you that this is actually true. Somebody called us and asked if we would build them an e-commerce site. I said, sure, no problem. We do that all the time.
00:32:03
Speaker
What's your product line? And they said, he said, I have 10,000 t-shirts printed up with Justin Bieber's face on it. That says, i love Jesus.
00:32:13
Speaker
I said, i don't know that you can do that. And he said, no, it's fine. Cause heard him say it.
00:32:21
Speaker
Yeah, but you can't sell another person's likeness without their permission. It's like, Jesus is dead. i don't need Jesus's permission.
00:32:31
Speaker
So. Okay. And then I think I said, I honestly think I said, you should call this guy Shabazz. And he's really more into the Jesus t-shirt printing business than we are.
00:32:44
Speaker
And Shabazz now works for me. So that that's, i think, one of the weirdest ones that I've ever gotten. Dave, you probably have weird one too. So oh there yeah we're buying time so Mike can think of something weird.
00:32:55
Speaker
Or Mike, I can give an example later if you've got a good one. I do. I can't top that. who Yeah, I think it's sometimes with the smaller businesses, there are stranger things that happen.
00:33:08
Speaker
So at one point, I'm actually going to put Trigvi back in the spotlight for a moment because we had someone come in right after we got our office and Trigvi was with us that brought in basically a microwaving system for your lower back.
00:33:26
Speaker
and Oh yeah, I forgot about that. She wanted to demo that and put him in the chair. And then we literally microwaved his butt for running profit. There's all kinds of things. or another client, our would-be client, had thought up a camp latrine.
00:33:43
Speaker
Oh, the poop shoe. Yep, you could tie it between two bumpers or between two trees and use that as your latrine. had a hole in the middle in the right spot. It was a poop swing. Yeah.
00:33:54
Speaker
Yeah. So we've got all kinds of weird things, but, uh, it's especially as you're thinking about like print and stuff, there's gotta be some really interesting applications where you're like, really? How did that leap happen?
00:34:09
Speaker
Yeah, I, there, there are, and I think I mentioned a couple, some of the things that are happening with kind of varying direct mail with the programmatic digital. But it's one of the things I like about print too, is that it's, it's what you're getting here and it's, it's proven it's been around.
00:34:30
Speaker
We know how it works that while we're on this quest for, find ways in to innovate and, always trying to figure out ways to make even more effective. I don't know. I, it's a boring answer, but I don't, I'm not thinking something that is, wow, that was so unbelievable. Now, let's see here. I'll tell one thing we did do, not with this company, but and I still think this is a cool idea and I'd like to see someone, and someone do it is we had really with 800 got junk.
00:34:59
Speaker
Yeah. yeah So yeah my own company, they were a client of ours and we were going to their franchisee convention. So what we did was we had a cardboard piece die cut and of one of their trucks. Their truck was their primary advertising vehicle.
00:35:15
Speaker
Right. Everywhere the drills and that and it still is. So we had a die cut so we pull it out, fold it and make a little truck out of it. Oh, fine. Yeah. And the headline on the piece said how to put a garbage, how to put a garbage truck in a mailbox.
00:35:29
Speaker
And I wanted to see them actually distribute that and couldn't get anyone to bite. Too expensive, but oh those are kind of, that was cool. The whole lumpy mail thing is just fascinating. Just, just yesterday I got a mailing from someone that was, um, trying to work with us. And one of the things that they offered was like a calming environment. Lumpy mail is one of those interesting things that, that people send is literally an envelope.
00:35:55
Speaker
It's still thin enough that you can mail it, but there's something weird in it. Right? So they sent me a couple of wet wipes. And it would it had calming lotion on the inside. It's like, here, relax. Have a mini spa moment.
00:36:10
Speaker
Thanks to, I was like, okay, you're mailing me wet wipes. So it was super itchy. But it definitely stood out. it's Fascinating. Because the last time we went for barbecue, you had the slight aura of lavender.
00:36:23
Speaker
See? So brilliant. Yeah, I think that's a really good example of, The limits kind of your imagination with that kind of stuff. But I think even in execution like that started with, there was something very specific they wanted to convey. Right. I don't think it worked from the ground out to where it's like, Hey, I got all this lotion. I want to mail.
00:36:46
Speaker
So are you ah there there was a reason why they ended up in that spot. I'm in an envelope. It's a new thing. It's called squishy mail. Ooh, we're coming up with all sorts of good ideas today.
00:37:02
Speaker
I think that's one of those things though, as a salesperson, if that somebody comes to you with an idea like that, not okay. You don't have to necessarily agree with it if that's what they want to do and that's how they want to execute it Yeah. Okay.
00:37:18
Speaker
And oftentimes our production staff asks me like, why did you agree to this? That's what they want. That's it Sometimes you get paid. Yeah. Sometimes you pay for the expertise. Sometimes you pay for the thing to be called.
00:37:32
Speaker
It's yeah. Pay for both. I think even, even in those situations and because you get requests on their face, they don't necessarily make sense or it's not like given what I know, that's not how it approaches, but I think it's always important to understand it.
Final Thoughts and Contact Information
00:37:49
Speaker
Where is the request coming from? like Why? What's your, what's your thought process here? And it, There's so many times when start peeling back all that and you understand what the motivation is, then it, then I think you can have a lot more collaborative conversations from that standpoint. And because it's starting from a place of, I know what I'm trying to accomplish.
00:38:13
Speaker
This is how I want to accomplish it. And sometimes there's better ways to do that. So sure and we can drill down into it and try to get into a more collaborative spot. It's better. Sometimes it takes a few crazy ideas to get to a really good one.
00:38:26
Speaker
Yeah, sure. but Like squishy mail. Coming to your next week. Yeah. The problem here, it'll make the mailbox smell great, but also... And soon as done here, I'll run into the office. Everyone stop what you're doing. Squish your mail. s big This seemed like running into the office with a bottle of lotion and and and an envelope. The way... Everything's fine now, you guys. Yeah.
00:38:53
Speaker
Trig me helped again. i had a brainstorm. Here we go. Oh, goodness. Mike, that we've not even come close to to binding off the edge of everything that print mailing can do ah for an organization. If somebody wants to find you, wants to learn more about the signature suite of companies, where would you where can they find you?
00:39:16
Speaker
but You can find me on LinkedIn or they can email me at
00:39:28
Speaker
Perfect. ah Dave, any classy and inspirational thoughts as we wrap up? Well, we always try. And i think one of the coolest parts about what Signature Graphics does and what Mike does is it's literally outside the box of what a lot of companies consider.
00:39:48
Speaker
And so, especially for those businesses that are trying to get right in front of a customer at the right time and be undeniable,
00:40:00
Speaker
Having print in your arsenal is one of those things that you absolutely need to consider. Digital's great and digital works and the digital connects, but sometimes you need to break out of the fog.
00:40:12
Speaker
And so you need to talk to Signature Graphics. Absolutely. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Dave. And thank you to me, I guess. This has been another episode of Dial It In, produced by Andy Watowski and Nicole Fairclough.
00:40:25
Speaker
And with apologies to Tony Kornheiser, we will also try to do better the next time. Thanks, guys.