1. Identify your ideal customers
The starting point of any marketing strategy for a printing company should be your customers. Who are they? More importantly, who do you want them to be?
Any printing company looking to grow will have its dream clients: those who value your creative and technical skills. The ones who never argue about the price because they know you will do an excellent job on time. It is also true that any printing company will have customers who value price above little else.
The fundamental goal of marketing your printing business is to identify what your ideal customer looks like and ensure your operations attract more of those types of people, and fewer customers who consume your time but add little value.
Take a moment to think about your customers. Who do you like to work with? What makes them an ideal customer?
Write down two or three ideal clients and the reasons why you like working with them.
Read: How to improve and grow your digital printing business
2. Identify the customer's wants and needs
Depending on your relationship with your best customers, you may think that the best way to do this next part of marketing your printing business is to talk to them directly. If you think this might be a step too far, put yourself in their shoes and imagine how they might answer the following questions:
Why do they choose you?
For the sake of discussion, we assume that they do not choose you (purely) because of the price. There are plenty of printers who can deliver a project at a decent price, so why stick with yours? While your technical skills may be part of it, we imagine that a complete answer would include elements that have nothing to do with printing, but much more to do with the personal.
Many printers' most rewarding customer relationships are based on partnership and collaboration; the feeling that you always understand exactly what the customer needs; a feeling that they can always count on you and that you will not let them down. That is certainly our experience.
Now turn the round. Think about why the customer came to you in the first place. What didn't they get from other printers? What were the frustrations and pain points that caused them to leave their last relationship and look for something better?
Now you not only know what your ideal customer looks like. You know the key drivers that sent them in your direction. And you can rest assured that it's not just your existing customers who are struggling with the same problems.
3. Make your proposal distinctive
A proposition is the offer that a company makes to its market, because ultimatelysell more services. The challenge in developing a marketing strategy for a printing company is that so many propositions sound exactly the same, usually a fairly generic mix of price, quality and speed of delivery.
But if every printer has the same proposition, you won't stand out. So think about what your key differences are. What do you do that is unique? What can you do better than others?
It may depend on the nature of your product. At Soyang, our key differentiator is our ability to offer a printing solution for any surface and at any scale. Your key differentiator could be the technology you use to deliver a specific product or your ability to personalize it. It could beenvironmentally friendly information about your inks. It may have to do with the level of your industry knowledge or the effort your people put into creating satisfied customers.
Regardless of what you identify as your distinctive offering, it is important that in addition to being distinctive, it also matches the wants and needs of your customers, which are identified in 2.
For example, it may be commendable to base your proposal on itgreen references for your company. But it would only make sense to choose it asofkey proposal if it was something you identified as being of great importance to your customers. Otherwise, it may not be wise to make it your core proposition, even if you want to make it a key part of your offering.
4. Make your proposal memorable
A good suggestionshould be one that not only resonates with your target audience, but also stays in their minds when they actually need your services.
Being memorable actually comes down to two elements:
- Make sure your proposal is simple to formulate
- Word it in a way that sticks
It doesn't matter how good a proposal sounds in theory unless you can explain it quickly and simply enough that it sticks in the minds of those who see or hear about it.
Try to make it oneelevator room'. Imagine walking into the elevator at a trade fair with someone who wants to know what you do. Between closing and reopening the doors you have time to make your proposal quickly and concisely. If you can do that, you know you have a proposal with potential.
Articulating your core proposition in a lasting way is about getting your branding, design and content right (and in a consistent way) across all your marketing materials, from website to brochures, email to social media. This leads us to branding rather than a marketing strategy for your printing business, which we will think about another time.
5. Generate leads
There are two types of lead generation (i.e. ways to find customers). You go out and find customers (this is outbound lead generation); the other ensures that customers can find you (inbound lead generation) – via a Google search or something similar.
Outbound can often feel like the more 'old' marketing strategy, and certainly the traditional routes of direct mail and cold calling can be ineffective, but for a visual industry like print, a direct mail campaign is possiblecould bring in new business, depending on your customer base.
Incomingleading generationis extremely important for most businesses, and especially for printing. A website with strong visual appeal is important to showcase your skills, but without some help a website won't appear at the top of Google search results. This will usually be in the form of organic search engine optimization (SEO) or paid advertising (Google Ads).
Then there is the option to target specific types of customers with content aimed at them. Case studies demonstrate your skills in certain sectors or with specific industriesprintformater. Blog posts allow you to share ideas and opinions. And ultimately, they all need to direct viewers and readers to a contact form or phone number so they can contact you.
We are a visual medium and social media can be a natural way to highlight this. Some platforms are particularly suitable for print marketing. Instagram, for example, has been developed primarily as a visual platform (unlike LinkedIn, for example) and is perhaps the obvious starting point for the assessmentwhich social media platformsto take part.
However, more important than the technical suitability of the platform is choosing the social media where your customers are likely to be. If you're a business-to-business printer and don't have a design for moving beyond this market, LinkedIn may be your natural starting point, even if it's not the obvious medium for your images. If your research shows that your entire customer base lives on Facebook, there is no point in setting up a booth elsewhere.
7. Offline social media
It's easy to focus entirely on digital when researching how to market your printing business, but don't forget about 'offline social media', which in 'old money' is simply going out and having conversations with people.Exhibitions and conferencesyou can create impressive stands that showcase your capabilities in the real world (rather than relying on digital images), but the great thing about such events is that in addition to the contacts you make and the contracts you win, they inevitably also offer many possibilities. content for social media, blogs and newsletters.
Awards events give you the opportunity to compete against your competitors and benefit from the resulting publicity. This can be a particularly effective marketing strategy if your work is high-profile, large-scale or particularly innovative.
The biggest marketing advantage of any printing company
You've no doubt heard the old mantra "show not tell." It's always so much more effective to show people what they can gain by using you than to tell them about it. Print is of course about show, about impact, about the power to impress.
This is an immediate advantage when launching a printing business, although it does not automatically give you an advantage over direct competitors. To do this, follow the other tips in this post.
