Page 32 - Marketing Times v1

“Most printing companies think they are in the printing business, when really they are in the marketing execution business. If their clients could create results better, faster, or more effectively without print and postage, they would certainly do so. Clients don’t print because they want to; they do so because it creates results for them.”
—Dave Moore President VP Demand Creation Services
Original Logo – 1969
TRAVERSE CITY, MICHIGAN
Leading the Way
VP’s services create demand
BY DARON KLOOSTER
THE BUILDING IS LARGE AND UNASSUMING, TUCKED INTO A NEIGHBORHOOD OF COMPANIES
IN THE AERO PARK INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. Within its walls, from the front
desk to the ful llment center, are the people
– nearly 100 in fact – who comprise Village Press, Inc., a rather anonymous but creative company located on the northern edge of Cherry Capital Airport. “I rst walked through Village Press in 1997 after meeting Bob Goff
at a Western Michigan Printing & Paper Science meeting. Prior to that, I had worked for a very large multi-national printing company that had grown almost entirely through acquisition,” states Dave Moore, president. “So, I had seen many, many printing companies working both on acquisition teams and integration teams, but I had never experienced a facility and team with the marketing horsepower of Village Press.”
Back then, in 1997, Village Press had a stable of seven company-owned publications. Five of these publications were, and still are, subscriber-driven. “The subscription business model is far more dif cult to achieve and maintain than a strictly advertising-based publishing business. First, you have to nd the subscribers, attract them, and generate payment – all through direct mail – and if fteen percent of your readers do not
renew in any given year, you have to attract the replacement subscribers before you
can continue to grow,” explains Moore. Maintaining and growing a subscription-driven business model for a magazine requires
an extraordinary commitment and expertise
in direct marketing, data management, editorial product development, and e-marketing;
and website, e-commerce, and transaction management, all with a supporting call center.
Also, at that time, Village Press attracted
its rst “custom” publication: ABS Magazine, the of cial publication of Wichita-based American Bonanza Society. “I saw the strong market potential of custom publishing for associations. Village Press already had the team and the experts in place, including a high- caliber advertising sales team,” Moore says. This relationship put Village Press’s custom publishing on a national stage.
P
indoctrination into foodservice was at the request of the Dendrinos brothers, Chef Pierre’s founders. In addition to graphic design, photography, creative development, and printing services, Chef Pierre needed ful llment of collateral material for its sales team and restaurant operators. And, there was a very speci c additional capability of redemption processing: When a restaurant or truck stop
erhaps the strongest market, however, was a very speci c expertise in
foodservice marketing. Village Press’s
32 Traverse City Marketing Times • Fall 2014
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