The days of traditional copier dealers are numbered. What are you going to do about it?
Applied Imaging, headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is on a mission to reposition itself as more than just a copier dealer. Much of that repositioning revolves around managed IT and identifying other streams of recurring revenue.
“Even though clicks are still going up for us, at some point they’re going to level out and go down,” acknowledged John Lowery, president.
The solution was identifying other sources for recurring revenue and for Applied Imaging that’s managed IT.
“We thought it was a good way to replace missing clicks on the print side of the business and still be a viable company,” said Lowery. “If you’re not thinking about where you’re going in the future, you’re going to be in trouble. You have to reinvent yourself.”
It took about a year for Lowery and his team to discover everything they didn’t know about the managed IT business. From there, he acquired two companies and created a separate division, NetSmart Plus. Next, he had to train his salespeople how to sell managed services. That was a challenge.
“Everybody knows how to teach the back end of the business, nobody teaches you the front end,” observed Lowery. “You need a sales engine.”
Changing Customer Perceptions
Tied to sales was identifying the customer for managed IT and understanding their expectations for managed IT.
“Do they really want to buy managed network services from a copier company?” questioned Lowery.
Applied Imaging has 11,000 customers and excellent relationships with most of them, but the challenge was convincing a CIO that Applied could provide expert network support and service. To get over that hump required changing customers’ perceptions about the dealership and its product offerings.
Did someone mention branding?
That someone is Applied Imaging Marketing Strategist Sheila Keller.
“Building the brand and the strategy is important to tell our story,” she said. “It’s because of our legacy as a copier company. From a marketing perspective, our largest goal is making sure customers understand that we have all these offerings and different umbrellas within these offerings.”
That means educating customers about how the dealership manages everything from document creation to destruction and everything in between. That included revamping Applied Imaging’s website so visitors can see how the different pieces play within the sales process. If a customer is only interested in copiers, that’s okay, but that won’t stop sales reps from informing customers about everything else Applied Imaging offers.
And when sales reps do that, it’s not unusual for them to hear customers say, “I didn’t know Applied Imaging did that.”
“Then they’ll go into a 30-second elevator speech on how we’re in the IT business and talk about security or enterprise content management,” said Lowery. The dealership has been engaging in what Keller described as lifestyle type nurture campaigns. If a customer purchased anything in the document lifecycle, they are routed into a campaign that showcases other offerings that can turn the copier into an on-ramp for electronic content management. Or maybe the Netsmart Plus service becomes a conduit for Applied Imaging managing their network and subsequently their copiers and other printing devices if they don’t already.
“It’s a continual conversation because they might not know we have these other services,” said Keller. “From a marketing perspective, we’re doing a lot of the analytics behind the why they aren’t going with us for everything.”
“John and the team have been intentional about what our customers need and how we can better service them,” added Alex Moran, marketing director. “That’s where we bring in these new resources like IT, document management, and shredding.”
If customers have those needs, the dealership can assist them at what Moran described as “our elite level.”
“All of us working for Applied know that to be true,” she said. “But how do you communicate we deliver great service for copiers and printers, and we also provide great IT expertise and service? They’re like, ‘Prove it.’ Not only do we have to make them aware that we do this, we need to help them understand that we empathize with their pain points.”
Applied Imaging has been offering managed IT for nearly seven years now, which gives it some cred in the IT segment.
Promoting the Culture
Rebranding itself as more than a copier dealer also involves promoting its culture.
“We don’t hide behind a brand,” said Moran. “We put our people out front, and that’s how we utilize social. A consumer is smart. They can tell if we’re being fake or truthful. A lot of people have commented about our content and how they feel connected to it. It’s because it’s real. Sheila and I are lucky to be on a marketing team for a company that has a good culture. That is something that you can’t directly attach an ROI to, which a lot of times people are like, if there’s not an ROI, I don’t want to do it. Our culture is a huge part of why people engage with us and stay with us.”
Applied Imaging uses a variety of platforms to get its message across, including Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook (Check out the Applied Imaging team lip-syncing to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” on its Facebook page). The dealership has ads on LinkedIn and runs radio advertising in its different markets, as well as cross-selling campaigns targeting different industries.
The industry targeted ads work well, according to Keller, because they address a specific problem within that industry and how ECM or shredding, for example, can fix it.
Honing the Message
Perhaps the best way to understand how Applied Imaging has reinvented itself is by asking the team how they describe what their company does to people outside the industry.
“One thing that Sheila and I have both used a lot to explain who Applied Imaging is, is that we’re an office solution company for your company’s information,” said Moran. “It’s your information when you’re printing, it’s your information when you need it to be secure, all the way to the destruction of that information.”
“We used to be in the copier business, but now we service everything from the server room to your cell phone and everything in between,” concluded Lowery.
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