3 Tools That Will Make Your Print Buyers Never Want to Leave

For any print business to succeed, you need customers!

And, in times like we’ve all just experienced in 2020, you need customers for life that will weather whatever political candidates, pandemics, or other challenges may come, and who still stick it out and choose to do business with you.

How can you be sure to make your printing business “sticky” enough to propel your business forward? It starts by laying the right foundation.

The Foundation of Customer Retention

Take a moment to consider a business you’re fiercely loyal to and think about why that is. If you’re like most of the other billions of consumers in the world, you’ll probably land around two things: customer service and ease of use.

If you order your groceries online from your grocery store, for example, your purchase history, payment options, and saved items are all stored there for you. And, switching grocery stores would mean that you’d lose all that valuable information and would have to start over. (That sounds like work, doesn’t it?)

Now, consider that same line of thinking from your print buyers’ point of view. What would a printer (yes, you)  need to provide for it to be too much work and too much of a hassle to ever leave you? What benefits could you offer that are too good for your print buyers to pass up?

That “stickiness” you’re looking to provide could apply to your print buyers through needs such as:

  • An easily accessible order history to find previously ordered item information,
  • A no-fuss way to quickly reorder and update what they’re looking for, and
  • Reduced decision making, not having to know all of the details because you (the printer) already have them stored with each product for reordering.

Ready to dive deeper? Let’s break down these needs a little more and see how you can meet them effortlessly.

1. An Easily Accessible Order History

How incredible would it be for both you and your print buyer to have a library of their print pieces (or order forms) that could be easily reordered? A Reorder Forms Library can help you and your print buyers by removing the friction of decisions. After all…

Simple reorders make for MORE reorders!

With an easy reorder solution, your print buyers don’t have to waste extra time or mental calories to re-enter or answer all the same questions regarding the print job again. And, by providing a personalized ordering experience for your print buyer, you make it easy for them to reorder what they’re looking for.

Take a look at this example:

Let’s pretend your print buyer owns a retail clothing store. They print a variety of clothing tags with you, but they’re all different colors depending on the point-of-sale (POS) department category that they’re assigned. Jenny is typically the employee that reorders these tags. She knows exactly where, how, and how many of these tags to reorder when stock runs low.

But, it’s January, and Jenny works in Fargo, North Dakota, and has been dealing sub zero temperatures, so she decides that it’s time for some warmer weather and takes a vacation down south for a couple of weeks. And that leaves Courtney to step in and get the tags reordered.

Courtney, however, isn’t nearly as familiar with what’s been ordered in the past or with details like what paper is used, how many to order, and so on. But, Courtney does know how to get onto the printer’s website (thanks to Jenny) and how to search for items in their company’s Reorder Forms Library.

So, Courtney pops online to your print website with her clothing tag in hand, signs in, and heads over to the Reorder Forms Library. She enters “Clothing Tags” into the search bar, and wa-la! All of the clothing tags, in all of their different color variations, show up.

Courtney has a purple “Adult Small” tag in her hand, so she can simply find the purple, adult small one on her screen and click “Place an Order.” From there, Courtney checks the photo and simply adds in the quantity she needs. She doesn’t need to know other typical order form questions like size, paper type, etc. because that information is already stored in their account.

In the end, both Courtney and Jenny are happy because reordering is simple, and you, the printer, are happy because it increases your online business and builds loyalty between you and your print buyers.

Benefits of a Reorder Forms Library

Here’s a quick overview of how a Reorder Forms Library can benefit both you and your print buyers:

For you as the printer, it means: For your print buyers, it means:
Reorders require little to no effort, allowing you to focus on other things Quick and easy reordering that doesn’t require a whole lot of mental energy
A connection between your system and your print buyers by order number and more Quick reference with the ability to search by category, form ID number, or name
Fewer errors for both you and the print buyer Eliminated repetitive questions
You become more “sticky” – helping to increase loyalty to you Consistent, standardized ordering followed by all
Less opportunity for error

“It makes it hard to lose a customer because they have all of their order history and forms set up with us,” – Bob Stalinski, Minutemen Press


2. A Quick Way to Update for Personalization

You may be thinking that reorders are all well and good, but what about those print buyers that want to make simple updates, like changing the name on a business card, for example?

This is where a solution that allows your print buyers to “customize” templated items, such as business cards, stationery, and other business forms, will work to your advantage. At Marketing Ideas For Printers, we call this solution uDesignIT!.

Let’s talk through another example:

Jim owns Infinity Financial, and he’s just hired a new Marketing Director, Mary, and wants to get her business cards ordered. Since Jim already has an account with your printing firm and a business card Reorder Form, all he needs to do is update the name, title, and contact information on his Reorder Form.

Jim heads to his printing company’s website (again, that’s you!), finds his Reorder Form item, and personalizes the business card with the new information for Mary. As he does this, a proof of his changes is generated in real-time for preview, meaning he can order and proof in mere minutes. 

When complete, Jim views an instant PDF proof file to give the A-OK and sends it off for printing as quick as he can say, “easy-peasy!”

So, if you were to follow this process through using the solutions mentioned above:

Infinity Financial created a Reorder Forms Library item of the business card template on their website. Then, using uDesignIT!, Infinity Financial was able to quickly reorder business cards for future employees by updating and personalizing the order in real-time.

Benefits of a Real-Time Personalization Tool

Here’s a quick overview of how a real-time personalization tool can benefit both you and your print buyers:

For you as the printer, it means: For your print buyers, it means:
Saving time by eliminating the back and forth proofing Seeing their new order in real-time
Quick approval by the customer (which helps cover your back) Instant proofing
You become more “sticky” – helping to increase loyalty to you Saving time by skipping any back and forth communication
Consistent corporate standards ensuring accuracy AND speed
The ability to add personalization to their Reorder Forms

3. A Super-Highway from Your Print Website to Your Print Buyers’ Website

The last tool that you won’t want to overlook in your mission for cultivating customer retention is called a Private Label Website.

This solution is all about connection and branding and the “stickiness” that comes with it. By providing a custom, branded, print-buying experience for your corporate customers, you’ll create a steady inflow of print orders through your website.

Let’s revisit Jenny and Courtney from our example above and see how their order experience would improve through the use of their own custom, branded print-buying experience:

In both scenarios listed above, the print buyers have worked and ordered from the print company’s website with its branding. But, let’s pretend that Jenny and Courtney work for BesBuy, and their company had a private label website. The Private Label Website would enable the printing order process to look like and feel like they’re ordering from their own website, complete with their BesBuy logo, background color, etc. 

Click here to see a sample of Jenny and Courtney’s BesBuy Private Label Website.

A custom, branded print-buying experience removes all traces of the printer’s website to streamline things for the print buyer and makes them feel like they have their own printing department right within their company!

Benefits of a Custom, Branded Print-Buying Experience

Here’s a quick overview of how a Private Label Website can benefit both you and your print buyers:

For you as the printer, it means: For your print buyers, it means:
A superhighway between your corporate customers and your print shop Easier order processing
Time-savings, reduced errors, increased sales Instant access to ordering
You get paid upfront by the customer Speed and accuracy
Sealing the relationship and increasing customer retention More economical. (One printer’s print buyer mentioned that they save 30% using a Private Label Website with their printer versus each brand ordering from a big-box printer.

“I went from about twelve orders a month ten years ago to averaging 180-240 orders per month from online storefronts. Plus, 90% of the storefronts I’ve set up for customers have been used longer than eight years.” – Gary Chmielewski, Northern Ohio Printing


The Time is Now

Think of these three heavy-hitter solutions like the three-stranded cord of your customer retention. You may be familiar with the saying, “A cord of three strands is not easily broken.” That’s the kind of idea you should be thinking about when it comes to your customer retention.

Can your website function without one of these three add-ons? Yes.

However, will it leave you vulnerable to weaker customer retention and in your website’s ability to make it easy for your customers to come back and order from you online? Also, yes.

One last thing….

  • Now, for a limited time, website subscribers can get all three add-ons for a reduced start-up fee of only $99.00 (a savings of $300-$800 depending on your selections). Ready to learn more? Get started below.

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  • Not a website subscriber? No problem! Get started with a Base Website today and take advantage of ZERO implementation fees on up to three website add-ons of your choice. Ready to learn more? Get started below.

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Plus, from now until April 30, 2021, you can work on building the type of B2B relationships you’re looking for when you take advantage of our Business Forum direct mail monthly newsletter, free for three months with any new purchase! This ready-to-print solution delivered right to your inbox each month will make connecting with your clients easier than ever before.

With new payment plan options and up-front cash discounts, you can toss the excuses when it comes to growing your printing business.