Pick a business partner not a print manager

The days of marketing managers juggling a myriad of relationships to deliver a single piece of marketing collateral are numbered. With campaigns becoming increasingly more targeted, more sophisticated, and more relevant to recipients, the focus of professional marketeers is more about return on investment and less about the nuts and bolts of sourcing, production and delivery.

The change in emphasis has resulted in a broadening of the role of what was once accurately described as that of a print management company. A new business relationship model is emerging to meet the requirements of marketeers and to provide them with essential know-how to be able to master this new era of multi-channel marketing.

One thing is certain, the next decade is going to be extremely challenging and highly competitive. The complexities and convergence of multi-channel marketing will be daunting. Professional marketeers will undoubtedly need new skills and new insight to be able to fully get to grips with this rapidly advancing multi-channel marketing business and the overwhelming choice of media that have, and will, become available to them. This industry change is now seeing marketeers happy to turn to procurement as they seek a one-stop shop solution which encompasses the entire range of skills required to deliver their creative marketing campaigns.

While some marketing budgets are expected to grow in 2010 after two years of cuts, marketeers will still, however, be under pressure to deliver results. Consequently, they will need to continue to seek cost-effective and flexible options where the return on investment can be measured.

And so a merger of minds between procurement and marketing is in everyone’s best interests.

This new holistic approach is likely to cover every stage of the process including ideas generation, creative design, campaign planning and management, campaign execution through multiple channels, fulfilment and distribution.

Unlike in the past, marketeers are now happy to call on the expertise of procurement for a wide range of services that include media buying, media planning, media selection, media delivery and so on.

Manchester-based APS Group is at the forefront of this evolving business relationship model with new client services director John Holmes having been recruited to further underpin these partnerships with both the company’s existing and potential clients.

He says: “Part of my role will be to ensure that our clients benefit fully from the spectrum of marketing services that we offer; working with them in the development and enhancement of software and maximising their market penetration by using our fully-integrated, multi-channel offering, whether that be design, print or digital media, all being controlled by our workflow systems.

“In the short time I’ve been here, what has become apparent to me is the depth of expertise that we have available to us. The team which has been assembled here has an immense breadth of talent and skill which can be difficult to communicate to clients that may only be purchasing the traditional print management service from us.

“Ensuring that our clients have a broader understanding of the full range of services we offer is key to the development of the business,” he explains.

APS Group partners a wide-range of high-profile customers including The Co-operative Group, AstraZeneca UK, Superdrug, AEGON UK, Royal London and many other clients in the retail, financial services and public sector markets. With a projected turnover of £60m and employing more than 500 people across a number of different sites throughout the UK, the company has prospered and grown from adopting an entrepreneurial approach to business. As a result, APS is committed to never losing a customer through complacency.

Never afraid to challenge the status quo, innovation and advanced-thinking have played a major role in the successful partnerships it has built with its wide-ranging customer base. APS has been able to expand its portfolio of services by being able to anticipate the future business needs of its customers and implementing appropriate strategies.

The ‘one size fits all’ approach to procurement and print management has long been history and APS has been instrumental in taking its clients’ marketing requirements far beyond producing thousands of copies of the exact same brochure in favour of more targeted communications both in traditional and digital format.

For some time APS has been promoting more one-to-one type of communication solutions which are smarter, more intelligent and provide better return on investment. The question for marketeers being: what are the most appropriate communication channels for a campaign?

That’s where the expertise of companies like APS comes to the fore. Customised literature, not to be confused with personalised material which has been around for years, is one online solution that’s easy to comprehend and relatively easy to produce and is ideal for targeting small groups or just one person.

APS’ service – ‘Simplycustomise’ – centres on templates that can be as creative as a designer’s imagination and then individualised through the use of bespoke text, picture, maps, logos and colourways, for example, to enable the product to appeal directly to different markets.

All the customisation can be carried out on a PC by someone without any design experience in the comfort of their own office; it is proofed online and then sent to a digital printer.

APS has made significant investment in this new service and has decided to use its innovatory features to its own advantage to develop business opportunities. The business team hopes to wow prospective customers with its marketing potential.

Just 24 hours after speaking on the phone to a would-be customer, a highly original, smartly bound customised document will land on their desk summarising the main points of the conversation, outlining services appropriate to their business and proposing a suitable solution.

AstraZeneca UK, one of APS’ long-standing customers has been using a form of ‘Simplycustomise’ for some time as a way of better managing what was a complex process for its UK field-force team to arrange promotional and network events. Branded ‘Simplymeeting’ the service provides a number of benefits and is just one added-value service that APS has implemented for AZ in a relationship that goes back more than 10 years.

Allan Wilton, head of procurement, says: “APS has made a real difference to AstraZeneca UK. It has become an extension of our business, consistently helping us to develop our processes and proposing solutions that save us time and money."

“While we continue to benchmark prices, APS consistently delivers and, over the years, we have been able to divert existing costs to allow us to invest in new initiatives including some with APS which make our business more competitive.

“There is a perception in the marketplace that there is plenty of money in the Pharma sector. Unfortunately, not all of our suppliers have been as driven as APS in challenging how we do things, how to add value and being committed to reducing our costs.”

The relationship with AZ is symptomatic of the type of approach APS takes with all its clients and as multi-channel marketing starts to really take off marketeers will be looking to companies with real knowledge and understanding of the sector – and perhaps more importantly to those able to offer integrated and innovatory solutions.

John concludes: “Our relationship with AZ UK demonstrates our commitment to delivering bespoke solutions which are right for our clients each and every time.
“Marketeers who are simply looking for a printer are failing to take advantage of the depth of experience available in some companies today. Organisations like ours have moved away from straight-forward print management and we see ourselves as an extension of our clients’ marketing function.

“I’d urge all marketeers to pick a business partner and not just a print manager.”