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An analyst in Keypoint Intelligence’s Office Group, Mark Davis joined us last year and is responsible for producing Lab Test Reports for bliQ, InfoCenter deliverables, and blogs for the company’s public site. In his short time at Keypoint Intelligence, Mark has drawn interests from inside and outside the company through his research in the relationship between the print industry and education. Additionally, Mark looks at marketing issues for manufacturers.
Sam Keller: A recent buyer personas and social media marketing analysis report was published. I think this is a unique topic around print. What got you interested in buyer personas and who can benefit from this research?
Mark Davis: As with most things, the opportunity came as a result of something else. I have a background in marketing, and a previous role consisted of the need to re-brand and re-invent the image of the company I was working for. Creating “buyer personas” came from the need to better understand the different types of consumers who would be interested in the product to re-invent the image of the brand in the best way possible.
It’s a similar rubric with buyer personas in the print industry. Once you understand the types of people engaging with products, their likes, dislikes, and preferences, you can tailor a marketing strategy to appeal to their values and sensibilities.
SK: What is the biggest piece of advice can offer for OEMs marketing to a younger audience?
MD: Get onboard with influencer marketing. The adage of “show, don’t tell” is key to gaining the trust of younger audiences—any audiences for that matter. The popularity of digital platforms such as Instagram and TikTok has proven that people are influenced by seeing the “added value” that owning a product or service would bring to their daily lives. It’s very easy for brands to tell consumers why their products are so great. It’s harder (but far more successful) if a brand can show this to the consumer by means of influencing its buying power.
I’ll be discussing these very challenges with Canon EMEA in a podcast in the coming weeks.
SK: In addition to marketing communications and buyer personas, you are also looking at print in the field of education. Are there specific topics within the field that you are trying to gain insight into?
MD: Education is an interesting vertical to analyze because it’s multi-faceted and has changed so much since the pandemic. The key area I want to gain more insight into is the role print plays in higher and further education. We are able to monitor the trends in the K-12 segment reasonably well as, generally speaking, they are adopted universally as a result of government mandates. Higher and further education is different. Many universities and colleges adopt different strategies in their print management tactics, page volumes differ depending on department and job type, and procurement of devices and supplies also differs. I want to try to better understand the rationale behind decisions taken by higher and further education establishments and better track the types of trends affecting this area of the vertical.
SK: You said you are currently looking at universities/post-secondary education. Are print volumes and usage of print within universities different from other levels of education?
MD: That remains to be seen at the moment. The data’s still being gathered and analyzed. The current trend is that general university print volumes are decreasing, particularly among non-creative subjects. If documents, articles, reviews, and assignments can be viewed digitally, this seems to be the preferred method of interacting with these types of media. On the other hand, other creative subjects require physical copies of work to be handed in for assessment. In some cases, the need for external print support is also there. It will be interesting to see where the print volume trends are in higher and further education and how they compare to the persistent print trends in K-12 education.
SK: Additionally, what changes people can expect in printed versus digital material in education overall as a result of digital transformation?
MD: The major changes are the shift in habits that have primarily happened because of the pandemic. These habits were changing anyway, but the pandemic accelerated this.
Where teachers may have printed worksheets for students in the past, digital copies are now being used in the classroom and at home. In a higher/further education setting, research and reading materials are being accessed online due to library and online repository facilities becoming more advanced. There will always be some students who prefer to work on paper and may print out specific documents to benefit their way of working but, generally, printing habits from before the pandemic are being streamlined in a move to digital alternatives. Of course, this does come with complications, such as the ability for students to access digital materials if IT systems fail or for students in low-income families who may not have access to a device all the time on which to complete homework.
Check out Mark’s blogs here.
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