‘Canon 2020 Vision programme’ for Canon UK by The Marketing Practice

Summary
The Marketing Practice (TMP) has worked with Canon UK over the past year to engage with corporate reprographics department decision-makers (CRDs – also known as print rooms). The aim was to gain face-to-face meetings with senior CRD decision makers and educate this sometimes traditional print market about the need to change their business models to engage new digital techniques and become more service-oriented.

Using a single source – a study into the future of the print industry by Professor Frank Romano that points to the year 2020 as the ‘crunch point’ for the global print industry – TMP created a range of direct and online content for the CRD audience. The 2020 campaign has been extremely efficient in its creation and reuse of content, extracting different elements from the Romano Report and channelling through a variety of media.

The effect has been to move Canon towards becoming an authority in the print industry evolution; educating decision-makers about the benefits of moving to a different business model using more integrated, advanced and productive print resources.

Client
Canon is a world leader in imaging and information technology solutions for the home and office
environment. The focus for Canon UK is around two market segments – business and consumer. TMP worked with the Business Imaging Group on this programme, which provides solutions for both the office and professional print environment, including multi-functional printers, IT consultation and photocopying.

Strategy
The overriding strategy was to demonstrate to the CRD that times were changing in the print industry.

The campaign aimed to show there was a need to change their business model and technology to meet the challenges of more flexible printing, a very different global model of print, environmental objectives and pressure from within businesses to seek ways to cut costs and reduce print volume.

Canon would be positioned as the advisor on how to make this situation a reality, thanks to its heritage in the space. TMP recommended an integrated approach to the campaign that highlighted the need for CRDs to put in place new technology, new business practices, new services (and engage in very different skills training) to be in shape for the future. The Romano Report into changes in corporate reprographics (commissioned by Canon, but a completely independent piece of research) became the fundamental starting point for all the touch points in the campaign. Because it was both informative and authoritative, it enabled TMP to position Canon as a genuine thought-leader at the same time as promoting Canon’s solutions as well as the business modelling session and educational programmes (designed to help CRDs to ‘reskill’ their employees for a more service-oriented, online and digital print environment) that Canon were offering as part of its CRD strategy.

Objectives

  • To target 1,450 commercial and public sector central reprographics departments (CRD) with compelling content as part of a nurture programme.
  • Demonstrate the ‘need to change’
  • Deliver 10 face-to-face meetings with sales

Target audience

  • Print managers (for Central Reprographic Departments – CRDs)
  • Facilities managers

This audience is typified by a traditional and in general a siloed attitude, resulting from the print room’s status as sole supplier to its ‘client’ (the business in which it operates). This business model was under threat from cheaper ways of producing printed material, new requirements to print more intelligently, print a wider range of materials and the pressure to bring in digital technologies and phase out  traditional litho print. The challenge was to highlight the need to change and the benefits of Canon’s technology, training and solutions at the same time.

Media, timescales and budgets
Using an existing research paper around the future of the print room, already commissioned by Canon by eminent Professional Print Expert, Frank Romano, this campaign took existing content and created a suiteof tools to help the print managers best digest the information and arm the sales team with material tohelp them engage in sales conversations.

Mechanics for the campaign included

  • A CD-Drive guide with an audio summary of the research report and interview with Canon’s CRD specialist. Chosen to counteract the fact that both Print Room managers and Facilities managers are often more hands on type roles and not desk based. The drive guides were meant to be used when travelling to and from their place of work to maximise this ‘dead time’.
  • Two page ‘Need to Know’ overview of the research sent as a PDF – A brief summary of the overall report, easily scanned and digestible vs. the full weighty research report which Canon believed was not always fully read by the audience.
  • 20:20 vision roadshow invitation – a series of 121s with sales who would take prospects through the research paper in full and discuss how these learnings can be applied into their own organisations.
  • Landing page hosting the downloadable audio and written summary and opportunity to book ontothe 20:20 Vision tour.
  • Personalised text and html emails.
  • 10 days of follow-up calling.
  • A sales ‘blotter’ to provide a framework for the roadshow meetings. This A3 visual overview provided key talking points from the research and a model of the ‘ideal’ print scenario. This format proved very effective for sales meetings to help shape and guide the conversations.

Due to the success of the launch campaign, TMP worked with Canon to identify other audiences that the campaign would have relevance to. Over the next six months, the campaign was deployed to relevant IT contacts within large target organisations to raise awareness of the Print Room and also add value to new Canon customers as part of a larger Customer Communication Programme. The re-deployment of the campaign led to an additional five Roadshow meetings being booked for Canon and excellent feedbackfrom existing customers which helped to build solid new relationships.

Timescales and budgets
The 2020 campaign ran for eight months. The budget for the campaign was £40,000

Results

  • In comparison to previous campaigns to the same audience, the email open rate improved by 54 per cent and click through rate by 1,500 per cent.
  • On the first two days of calling four 20:20 vision roadshow appointment requests were made.
  • In total, the campaign generated 24 face-to-face meetings with sales.
  • The content has since been used across each of the industry sectors to send to IT. directors and also any specific CRDs that sit within industries not initially targeted. A further five leads were generated through this approach.

Client testimonial
“The 2020 Vision campaign is a great example of how our lead nurturing strategy uses content intelligently to deliver relevant, timely and valuable communications. This is a very difficult market to penetrate and complex argument to press home, but the campaign approach made it measurable and completely aligned to our sales goals.” Clare Want, marketing director, Canon Business Imaging Group

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