So You Bought Another Machine … Now What?
By: T.J. Tedesco
For: The Binding Edge
Published: Fall, 2001

Your debt is high, the economy is shaky, your people are overworked and so are you. Nonetheless, you couldn’t help yourself. You bought another machine. If it was a large purchase, especially a bet-the-company type of decision, you may have had a few sleepless nights thinking, “What have I done!”

Reactions like this are common among entrepreneurs who’ve just laid out a lot of cash. Once you’ve signed a PO, it’s very easy to forget all the analytical reasons why you bought the machine in the first place. This phenomenon is called buyer’s remorse. Regardless, you now have to make it work. Turn your attention toward developing a plan that will safeguard your investment and ensure your future success.

Plan to conduct a simultaneous battle on two business fronts: Production and Sales. On the production side, you’ve got to get your machine running at a profitable production speed quickly and on budget. Since you operate a manufacturing services company, presumably making machines sing is a core competency. Yes, getting production up to speed must happen, but this column isn’t about production: It’s about sales. Let’s turn our attention to part two of the plan: Booking the right type of work to ensure a healthy return on your hefty equipment investment.

Marketing New Equipment
Regardless of whether successful marketers have heard of the acronym AIDAR, they instinctively follow its principles. The following are the crucial AIDAR steps:

1. Create marketplace AWARENESS
2. Generate suspect INTEREST
3. Get prospects to the point of making a DECISION
4. Have them take ACTION
5. Nurture them so they REORDER regularly.

Before customers feel comfortable in an outsourcing relationship, they need to be brought along the AIDAR curve. As long as you have a reasonable selling proposition, implementing the right marketing vehicles will greatly enhance your chance of success.

Feeling like you’re overextended is no excuse not to market. The following recommendations are proven, low-budget ways of marketing new equipment. They’re not free, but it’s foolhardy to risk a six- or seven-figure equipment purchase by not budgeting a little money to kick off a proper marketing effort.

Create Awareness/Generate Interest
Press Releases. Regardless of whether your purchase gives you new capabilities, increased capacity or both, you’ve got to first get the word out. What’s the use of having a better mousetrap if no one knows about it? Use the power of the media to help you create market awareness. Find out what publications your customers read and send out professionally written press releases with pictures to all appropriate ones. Make it easy for trade editors to use your information by placing all text and images on your website and clearly referencing the URL on the release itself. If necessary, tailor your press releases to the editorial style of each publication and get them in editors’ hands six to eight weeks in advance of when you’d like to see them in print.

Let Customers Know. As long as your company has a reasonably good industry reputation, turn your attention toward existing customers. Presumably, these are the people that already know your company. They should be more willing to try your new offering than any other potential buying group. Existing customers are your lowest hanging fruit. Get in the car and visit them – or at the very least, pick up the phone and call. Ask your salespeople, willing customer service reps and trusted managers to visit certain accounts, arm them with solid information about the machine and get them face-to-face with key business influencers.

Hopefully, you polled some potential customers of the new machine before making the big purchase. (How else would you know if there’s really a market need out there?) Better yet, hopefully you have some buying commitments. However, there’s often a discrepancy between what people say and what they actually do. Nonetheless, the machine is on order and you’ve got to get the word out. You need to create a buzz in the marketplace. It’s time to talk up the machine to your customers.

Market To Hot Prospects. We all know companies that should do business with us but for some reason don’t. They may have a preferred vendor, but unfortunately we’re not it. Regardless of whether they cling to a distant memory of a job gone badly or have an uncle who owns one of your competitors, they don’t do business with you. Hopefully, this new machine may be just what it takes to get them to overcome their reluctance and kick-start a relationship. Let them know that you’re making an investment for them.

Develop a customer nurture program for these people. Get your database current and map out a year’s worth of marketing “touches” to appropriate people at these important companies. Get momentum and consistency working for you by contacting the “key business influencers” in your territory every six to eight weeks. Send a mix of letters, helpful tips, promotional materials and useful industry items.

Direct Marketing. Unless you know all the companies in your market that could use the capabilities of your new machine – very few of us do – contact a list provider and acquire a database of potential prospects. Before purchasing the list, make sure you have the right quantity of names. If too many prospects fit your initial criteria, weed out the less important ones by tightening restrictions (i.e., industry code, company size, primary/secondary business, geographic area, equipment, number of employees, etc.) If you have too few, loosen the criteria. A good list provider will be glad to guide you through this process. Buy the list with unlimited one-year use and send out introductory letters, promotional fliers, postcards and capabilities pieces. Save money by using a mix of direct mail and broadcast faxing.

Get To Decision Point/Take Action
Internal Sales Structure. No matter how many leads your marketing efforts generate, you need a solid internal sales structure that enables you to pounce on the opportunities that come your way. Consider designating an inside person or small team to manage all inquiries. Empower them to make decisions and give them a good pat on the back for a job well done. There usually is a reasonable demand for well thought out services offered by reliable trade binderies, finishers and loose-leaf companies. Unique capabilities are prized. However, none of this counts unless you have the ability to follow up on the leads that your promotional activities generate.

Don’t forget to track where your leads are coming from. If your broadcast faxing program is working, expand your fax number database and market with a vengeance. If your website is generating leads that consistently turn into sales, then beef up your online presence. Consider installing a separate phone line just for inquiries for new products and services. It sure makes tracking a whole lot easier. Once you’ve got a flow of people contacting your company about your new machine, it’s up to you to implement a sales/customer service structure that seizes the day.

Don’t give up. Many machines are bought because certain customers whine and pledge a promising book of business. Sometimes they follow through, sometimes they don’t. Regardless, you’re the one carrying the debt on your balance sheet, not them. It’s up to you to make your investment payoff.

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Think about your core competencies. If you run machinery better than you market, save time and money by outsourcing your marketing requirements. Your customers outsource work to you because you’re the one with the post press expertise, not them. Maybe you should do the same. After all, isn’t your primary responsibility making your machines run? Let someone else get the telephones ringing for you.

T.J. Tedesco is a “hands-on” marketing, sales, coaching and training consultant to the post press industry. He is the author of Binding, Finishing & Mailing: The Final Word, and Win Top-of-Mind Positioning, both published by GATFPress and available at Amazon.com. T.J. can be reached at (301) 294-9900 or tj@growsales.com.