Digital Content Marketing Blog

What Do Customers Want When It Comes to Their Printed Collateral and Marketing Material?

This question “What do Print Buyers Want?” to some, may feel like it has an obvious answer, while others could see it as complex, but the reality is that print buyers want outcomes.

So the answer to the question is that “Print Buyers Want to Achieve Their Goals” (goals and outcomes).

But then the question you may ask is what are the goals and outcomes of the print buyer? And that is the question you should be asking so let’s dive into what those are and show how you can better market yourself as a print solution provider.

What Are Goals and Outcomes? Not Just for Print

Again, we don’t want to come off as too rudimentary here, but if we focus broadly on what they are… Goals are the desired Outcomes or results that a person, customers or organization wants to achieve. Goals provide direction, motivation, and clear focus. 

Here are what Goals actually do and provide…

1. Clarity of Purpose – Goals help clarify what you want to achieve, giving you a specific target to work towards.
2. Motivation – Having clear goals keeps you motivated and gives you a reason to keep going.
3. Measurement – Goals provide a benchmark for success, allowing you to measure progress over time.
4. Focus – They help you concentrate your efforts and resources on important tasks, avoiding distractions.
5. Accountability – Setting goals creates a sense of responsibility and encourages commitment to achieving them.

So why is this important? Because your customer may not actually want something printed, they actually want to get something that they believe the print will provide them. Help achieving a goal or outcome. 

Let’s look a little more at the goals and outcomes customers would want print to provide.

What Goals Does Print Help Buyers and Customers Achieve?

This is the key to your success in selling more print and being able to command more profitable prices for your work. Focusing less on the commodity of print you can spend more time talking about their goals and outcomes.

Print as a Goal

Now we do still have to admit that every company who wants print from you, does in fact, want print. But you’ll also find many Agencies or Graphic Designers wanting a certain level of quality in their print which is still more print focused because they care A LOT about color and quality. Even though the Agencies and Designers customers care more about their Goals and Outcomes, the Agency and Designer will focus more on Quality in your relationship.

There is so much nuance to this it’s hard to make blanket absolute statements, but this one is pretty spot on.

Revenue as a Goal

We’re also a firm believer that most businesses and organizations have an end goal of revenue. If you need money to operate then ultimately money is a goal and achieving revenue targets allows you to do that. You can sustain or grow with revenue and in many cases Revenue is a direct goal. So your messaging can center around how direct mail or other printed marketing can help increase revenue for a business or organization.

Much of the goals listed below ultimately result in more revenue, but the goal at hand for a company can be a few levels above the revenue mindset and that’s what we are sharing below.

Customers as a Goal

Getting more customers is critical for a business or organization to sustain itself and to grow so of course they would want to bring in new customers or replace customers who leave. Again, including messaging about acquiring new customers can generate more of a focus on that goal instead of the print itself and sharing how print can do that will put you ahead of the competition.

Members as a Goal

Similar to getting more customers is getting more Members. This is a little bit different because some organizations have members who pay directly, while others get funding elsewhere, but in many cases funding is dependent on the member count. Startups, Churches, Non-Profits, Schools, Government Funded Organizations and other types of companies like this just need to increase their membership which requires a different approach to acquire them. You can speak to how you do that using print marketing solutions.

Attendees as a Goal

Many companies and organizations hold events and they need people to show up. This may require attendees to pay but in many cases there is no payment required, they just want people to come to the event. A different approach and message is required to get people to show up and in some cases depending on the type of event you may need to create extremely innovative strategic approaches to lure in the most apprehensive targets.

Awareness as a Goal

A big goal for marketing is Awareness especially for younger companies and those who’ve never relied heavily on branded identity but are now ready to take their brand to the next level. Obtaining more awareness leads to more of everything. If customers don’t know you exist they’ll never do business with you so it’s critical to drive up awareness and ensuring that your print customers know you can help you with that is very important.

Education as a Goal

And many organizations need to ensure they share more detail about what they do, how they do it, and where they differentiate. While some institutions such as hospitals need to give explicit direction to patients. But all of this is focused on educating a customer. And that is a very specific goal very different from increasing revenue or acquiring new customers & members. Making sure your print buyer knows that you can create printed solutions that educate their customer base will allow you to close more print business by focusing on that message with these groups.

We could go on for even longer about this, but you get the point. There are different goals and outcomes that your print buyer and print customers need to achieve and when you speak directly to those goals and objectives it will get you more business and generate more substantial customer relationships.

If You Are Looking to Focus on Getting More Visibility, Traffic, Leads, Sales or Have Questions, Call Us at 866-357-7422

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There’s no doubt that if you’re a human being alive today it is a near 100% guarantee that you’ve heard of, seen or even tasted a Pumpkin Spice Latte. Some of us are fans, others are indifferent, while a few are outright haters, but when it comes to business and marketing the fact remains that the Pumpkin Spice Latte is a case study on how strong marketing’s influence can actually be.

In this article we are going to take a look at what Pumpkin Spice is, how the Latte came to be and how the PSL or Pumpkin Spice Latte generated such a buzz and how it continues to dominate the fall beverage space every single year. The PSL Effect is strong and PSL Season is here!

Who Created the Pumpkin Spice Latte?

While we know the cool thing to say would be that Starbucks invented the PSL, but the truth is that it’s something that was being done intermittently for decades prior to the Starbuck Pumpkin Spice Latte and there was actually trend of creating different versions of them in the 1980’s and 1990’s. 

But it is without question that Starbucks is the reason everyone knows about it, popularizing and making it a cultural phenomenon.

Over 20 years ago (in 2003), a Starbucks employee by the name of Peter Duke’s that led the Starbucks Espresso Beverage team, also led to the creation of their PSL.

It took about 3 months to refine and create the flavor, which was then brought to test markets in Washing D.C. and Vancouver, Canada. Duke’s stated that within a week they knew the flavor was going to be a hit.

What is Pumpkin Spice?

Pumpkin Spice is actually originally referred to as Pumpkin Pie Spice.

In most cases it’s a blend of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves. Sometimes allspice gets added into the mix to diversify the flavor.

It was originally created as a blend in 1933 by Thompson & Taylor Spice Co, but quickly adopted by the McCormick & Company in 1934 who was able to more widely distribute and sell the product.

So sadly for all the Starbucks fans out there, they did not “invent” pumpkin spice. Only the pumpkin spice latte as you know it.

How Starbucks Made the Pumpkin Spice Latte a Cultural Icon

Even back in 2003 Starbucks had a very large footprint so they had the advantage of being able to easily market and distribute the PSL easily. So we do understand that they were big, they had the capital and resources to pull it off. But that alone does not guarantee success.

As we mentioned earlier the biggest part of the success was the market testing they did to ensure that once launched it would at least do okay. So understanding your customer, getting feedback, and alpha / beta testing is important in the road to success.

Here’s a quick fact… Starbucks sells over 20 Million PSL’s each year which results in hundreds of millions of dollars in Pumpkin Spice Lattes alone. That’s crazy!!!

Starbucks sticks to their customer “know how” and after finding a product that resonated with their audience they did what every proper consumer goods company should do and that is fan the flames of promoting the product in ways that connect with the customers and get them to spread the word. We’re talking a barrage of marketing, paid media, earned media and organic promotion by customers declaring it PSL Season and sharing PSLefies online.

With the proliferation of Instagram and TikTok over the decades old beverage there continues to be even more growth in the exposure the drink obtains.

So while Starbucks had and has the resources the real secret lies in their knowledge of the customer and capitalizing on finding winning products by pushing it relentlessly until it finally dies culturally, which won’t likely happen for the Pumpkin Spice Latte any time soon.

The PSL Effect

Interestingly the PSL Effect isn’t solely related to Starbucks, but rather the impact of Starbucks success marketing and selling the Pumpkin Spice Latte. The PSL Effect is the overall influence that the Starbucks PSL has on the general food & beverage market. Starbucks has been so successful in growing the PSL popularity that consumers have come to expect similar pumpkin spice offerings virtually everywhere they go during the fall months.

Additionally Pumpkin Spice has proliferated across all food and beverage categories including ice cream, beer, baked goods, ham, yogurt and even pet food! Not to mention non food products such as candles, crayons and scented mailers.

This is a testament to how strong the Pumpkin Spice Latte Marketing has been for Starbucks.

For example a study in 2023 showed that brands who introduced Pumpkin Spice beverages during the fall months received up to 26% more visibility. And when introduced to markets that typically have not had much PSL related marketing they saw up to a 23% lift across all brands who did that marketing.

This results in a massive boom in revenue for companies and markets that have not ever or have typically marketed Pumpkin Spice food and beverage products.

So regardless of the industry you are in, the PSL Marketing case study serves as a testament to how learning more about your customer and catering to their wants, needs and desires can result in a windfall for your brand.

If You Are Looking to Focus on Getting More Visibility, Traffic, Leads, Sales or Have Questions, Call Us at 866-357-7422

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If you use Google Drive for your business, you understand the importance of maintaining a clean and organized folder structure to manage your documents efficiently. However, you may have found yourself wondering if there’s a way to automate the process of copying entire folders and subfolders within Google Drive. Unfortunately, Google Drive doesn’t offer a native solution for this task. But don’t worry—we have a solution that can streamline this process for you.

How To Copy Google Drive Folders

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the easiest solution for copying Google Drive folders.

The easiest and most effective way of doing this is using a tool called Copy Folder

• Open the URL linked above, you’ll need to grant the tool permissions to access your Google Drive. 
• Once you have granted permissions, you are ready to copy a Google Drive Folder and/or Subfolders. 
• Either paste the URL of the folder you want to copy OR you can search your connected Google Drive for the folder you want to copy

• Once you’ve pasted the folder URL, it will resolve then click Next. 
• From there, you can name your COPY of the folder. It will default to being named Copy Of *Name of Folder* but you can rename it to be whatever you want. Then click Next

• Then you can choose your Copying Options. If you’d like the new folder you’re creating to have the same sharing permissions (people who can access the folder and it’s contents) then you want to be sure to Check the box that says Copy Permissions. Then you select where the folder will live on your drive whether that’s in the same place as the original, the Root of your Google Drive or a custom location. If you want it to live in a custom location, copy and paste the URL of the drive folder you want it to live in the Paste Folder URL section. 

• The final page will show all of the copy settings from the selections you made. If it looks good click on Copy Folder and the copying will begin.

**Note: Depending on the size of the folder you are copying, it may take some time for the copying to complete so be patient. Once it is complete, there will be a Copy Sheet in the new folder that shows what was copied. 

With this tool, you can effortlessly duplicate your Google Drive folders, making it easier to manage and organize your business documents.

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If You Are Looking to Focus on Getting More Visibility, Traffic, Leads, Sales or Have Questions, Call Us at 866-357-7422

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