“After 2008 sales wasn’t easy and sales dropped more than 50%”. Listen to how Print & Media in Finland managed to become a unique and important player in the Finish printing industry. CEO, Owner and Editor Jarkko Hakola from Print & Media in Finland, publish a magazine for the printing industry. Listen to his insights and as usual, please Watch, Like and Share.

0:42    My name is Jarkko, and Iím the publisher of Print & Media magazine.

0:49    It’s our magazine for the graphic arts field in Finland, in Finnish language. And, we do the magazine nine issues per year, and we have the daily news on our website and weekly newsletter.

1:14    Yes. It sounds ñ Many of my friends are asking that, ìIsnít it very hard to be publishing a magazine these days?î But, as a professional magazine for a certain area and for the printing area, I see that the professional magazines are not disappearing and the newspapers have more challenge, because the instant news come to our iPads and iPhones. So, the professional news in Finnish language, you don’t get to that without the proper media.

2:11    Some of our subscribers or readers also looked at some English sites, but still Finnish language is our language, so itís the most easiest to follow the Finnish language media. It’s also very important for our business that we can add some extra with our own language.

2:47    I started in 2006 with the AGI Finland. So, I have known Mr. Peter Ollen from Sweden, almost ten years. And then, in 2011, two of the strongest media in Finland, AGI and Painomaailma, joined their forces and Print & Media was born. Then ñ Well, I felt the whole Print & Media as my heartís project. Iíve put my soul and heart into it, and I felt like it’s my own thing. Then, in 2013 I got to ñ I had a possibility to buy the business, and I did it. And, it has been the best decision of my working career.

3:52    Isnít that just nice?

3:53    Yes. Very motivating.

3:59    Well, advertisers are very, very important. It’s more than 50% of our turnover. But then, the subscribers and the readers, say, they are like one-third of the business. So, they form the decent foundation of the holding. Well, I just actually look at the numbers. So, it has been quite the same the past 10 years, almost.

4:35    We also launched a new service in Finland called Pack News. It’s for the packaging industry. We have the packnews.fi. It’s a collaboration with the Swedish Pack News, and it’s actually now in every Nordic country, in Denmark also and Norway, Sweden, Finland. And, we use the Pack News information in our Print & Media magazine. So, we are now covering the whole graphic arts, from design to the printing and packaging and distribution. Besides the magazine and online news, we organize seminars. I would like to have actually more seminars, like maybe two per year. Now, it has been like one per year. And, we just organized the Sales Morning seminar two weeks ago, and a four hours morning seminar. I think that’s the form I would like to continue.

5:52    Some presentations about the new ways to do the business-to-business sales. What are the new tools within the IT? I would mention like the chat on your website. And then, we had some education on how to measure sales. We had a very good speech from the ex-sales manager from printing house, and he had done very successful measuring the sales. So, it was very important for the CEOs and the sales managers.

6:40    Yes. Yes. And, different kind of topics. Maybe next one can be some technical topic, and maybe web-to-print would be one of the topics.

6:58    Yes. I’ve seen some. I remember that 2006, 2007, a bit 2008 also, thereís ñ I remember that the sales were quite easy, also for the advertising sales point of view. But, after that it dropped like more than 50%. It was a huge drop. And, as you said, the phone catalogs and those have totally disappeared. But then, print is just not magazines and catalogs, itís ñ We print on fabric. Thereís the packaging side which is a very growing market area. You see that the e-commerce is growing, but still if you order product to your home, it’s packed to something. And, the packaging is very important for the brands. For some brands, it’s the only marketing tool. It’s the actually packaged product. So, I see a huge possibilities within printing.

8:20    Some are more open than others our for the new ideas. But, I think the Finnish mentality is that we donít speak out loud our feelings or ideas. So, I think Finnish industry is very keen to have new ideas, but maybe they are silent when they are hearing it. But, it will stick to their head and maybe challenge them to do something.

8:56    I think we have to have more online services, because many of our followers search information from the web, and of course I would like to see them coming to our website or whatever the service online it is. And, the magazine, I want to still make it as good as it is right now and better. Right now, we publish nine issues a year, and let’s see if that is the right amount. Right now, it feels it is.

9:49    Yes. From the technological point of view, I would say that the automation of the whole workflow, that is one of the key to be efficient and get more income, and not just the ñ Well, because the pricing is pushed so low, you have to automate your whole workflow to get the money from the production. But then, the other thing, Finnish are not the best in sales and marketing. So, that’s very critical to worry. Lead the sales better. I think that comes from the leading managers, how they organize the whole sales and also the marketing. So, those are the two keys. And, well of course thereís web-to-print. Finnish printing houses, they have web-to-print systems, but those are not public systems. So, I think there would be a room also for the public system. But, I don’t know what is the ñ Maybe, theyíre afraid something about the pricing thing. But then, in the other hand, in our seminar, in the Sales Morning seminar, we have had Gelato Group from Norway presenting their model, and they come from Norway, more expensive than Finland. So, I think that such excellent ideas could come also from Finland and other Nordic countries.