Copywriting For Printers: Why Your Tagline is the Most Important Content You’ll Ever Create
It’s the most hard-hitting copy you’ll ever craft. Guaranteed, hands down. Your tagline can provoke attention, accentuate your abilities, and make you irresistible to prospective customers. Conversely, it can confuse prospects, increase bounce rates on your website, and even cost you money because confused buyers don’t buy. Your tagline is a huge advantage when in competitive situations. So, when you fail at it, you end up losing an opportunity (that you probably won’t get back) to communicate your value. Here’s why your tagline so important, and how you can write a tagline that can ultimately help your print business sell more printing. 1. Make it about your customers’ pain points, and not about you. Your customers and prospects don’t want to only hear about you and your business. It’s true; they don’t. It’s the most common mistake to make, and it happens because we assume that everybody cares about our business the same way that we do. Your prospective customers want to know four things: How your business will help them solve a problem. How your solution will meet a need. How your product or service will save time. How your service will make your prospect money. In other words,
The 80/20 Rule in Reverse
The Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, says that roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. You’re probably more familiar with the business version of that rule which says roughly 80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients. BUT DON’T FORGET THE 80%… The other 80% of your clients that remain are important too. You won’t want to ignore them! Why? Because that 80% of your customers are providing 20% of your sales, and: 20% is still a big number; big enough that you’d miss it if it were gone! Those customers that provide the 20% of your sales may not command the full attention of your marketing budget, but they’re still driving sales your way. What if a high-value customer leaves you? You’d have to scramble to fill the gap, and if you’ve ignored your replacements (or the other 80% of your customers), they may not be too willing to step into that group of 20% for you. Remember, your competitors are focused on the 20% too. That leaves a big, untapped market with the 80% that remain! REVERSING THE 80/20 RULE So, don’t ignore the 80%! Social media marketing is
Get Your Social Media Going [Part 2]
In part one of “Get Your Social Media Going,” we talked about what types of content to post and how to manage it all when getting started with your social media strategy. (Did we mention that social media is a big factor in your SEO efforts?) Today, we’re going to explore some simple steps you can take to grow your social media presence and move beyond the beginner level. Choose Your Weapon When you’re just getting started with social media marketing, it’s easy to take the shotgun approach, or in other words, fire a giant spray of content and hope it connects to someone in your target audience. While there is real merit in spreading information with the intent to reach as many people as possible, it’s important you learn how (and when) to put away your fire hose and instead, reach for your bow and arrow. So, how do you know which approach will work best for you? When you have a laser-targeted audience and are focused on sales, your return on investment (ROI), and click-through rates (CTR), that’s when you’ll want to pull out the rifle approach. If, however, you’re going for maximum reach and/or brand visibility, the
Others First: A Bet Worth Making
The title of this blog post could have just as easily been, “How an NDSU Bison National Championship Football Win turned into a Salvation Army Donation,” but that title is way too long. Another way-too-long option: “How a Friendly Wager Turned into a Win-Win-Win!” Setting the Stage As the 2017 college football season reached the playoff stage, the top two teams at the FCS (Football Championship Subdivision) level were the James Madison Dukes, and Fargo’s own North Dakota State University Bison. Long story short, these two teams (ranked #1 and #2) were the last teams standing and therefore met for the FCS championship game. It turns out that one of our customers, Dick Olyench of Spectrum Printing in Virginia Beach, Virginia, is a pretty big JMU fan. No surprise, because he’s the father of two JMU alums. The Deal Was Made Once Dick realized that his team was going to go helmet-to-helmet with ours, he became a betting man! The deal was made: if NDSU won, Dick would provide a pizza party for the team here at Marketing Ideas For Printers. If JMU won, we would pick up the phone and order pizza for the “Happy Printers” over at Spectrum Printing.
Google’s Duplicate Content Penalty: The Not-So-Scary Truth
Remember playing “Telephone” as a kid? You’d whisper something to the person next to you, then each person in the circle would pass along what they heard until finally, the last person announced some random statement that only had the smallest fragments of what was said initially. There seems to be a similar “Telephone” whisper going around our printer circle regarding Google’s duplicate content penalties. The word “penalty “can be scary. But, in this case, it’s important to understand that it’s not scary, it’s misunderstood. Patrick Stox, an SEO Specialist for IBM and an organizer for the Raleigh SEO Meetup explains Google’s “penalty” like this: People mistake duplicate content for a penalty because of how Google handles it. Really, the duplicates are just being filtered in the search results. So, what can you do to help beat the filter? Here are the highlights you should be aware of. Avoid Duplication (A.K.A. Customize) When you subscribe to services like our websites or social media marketing, you need to be aware that you will receive the same starter content as every other subscriber. We’ve crafted an enormously powerful and efficient springboard for you to make an impact towards selling more printing. But here’s the thing, content springboards
Succeeding or Struggling? Five Bold Predictions for Print in 2018
What does the year 2018 hold for the community of printers? Here are five of our bold predictions for what will separate successful printers from struggling printers in 2018. 1) Less Competition in Your Mailbox Let’s face it; there’s not as much mail being sent these days. In the U.S. mail volume dropped from a recent high of 212.2 billion mail pieces in 2007 down to 154.2 billion mail pieces in 2016. Same thing in Canada: The volume of transactional mail in Canada dropped from a high of 5.5 billion mail pieces in 2006 down to 3.4 billion in 2016. Successful printers will realize there’s less competition in the mailbox and see this as an opportunity to make an appearance in that empty mailbox and rise above the noise. They’ll allocate resources towards the execution of a regular monthly direct mail marketing campaign. Struggling printers will view the decline in mailpieces as a trend, and decide to participate in that trend rather than take advantage of the opportunity it offers. 2) Popularity of Shopping Online Expands The comfort of shopping without leaving your desk usually trumps the need to gas up the car and make a trip to the mall. Bumping into someone
If I Could Be Like Mike: Remembering Mike Stevens
This weekend we learned that Mike Stevens, the founder of Express Press and Marketing Ideas for Printers, is now at peace after a long battle with a reappearance of leukemia. Mike’s legacy is one that has touched thousands, including many of you reading this now. If I Could Be Like Mike We all have people in our lives we aspire to be like: family, friends, leaders in our industry, and for many in the printing industry, that person was Mike. Remember the catchy jingle, “If I Could Be Like Mike,” from the 1991 Gatorade advertising campaign? The campaign featured Michael Jordan and made every novice basketball player believe they could be the next Michael Jordan. While not many of us dream of pursuing professional athleticism, we all desire to make an impact on those around us. Mike Stevens was no exception. His days were spent intentionally engaging with others, looking for ways to pour into the lives of those around him, and making all of us better off for knowing him. Mike was able to: “…see the bigger picture” “…use his gift of seeing strengths and raw talents in people” “…inspire with unwavering enthusiasm and motivation” “…share the joy he found in
Meet the Team: Joanna Erber
What do you get when you combine “caring” and “intentional?” You get our amazing team member, Joanna! Joanna has been a part of our team at Marketing Ideas For Printers as the Financial Services Director but recently became our Integrator. That means on top of the financial services she’s focused on project management, communications, and executing our business plan. Being considered for the Integrator role is my proudest moment at MI4P. I honestly didn’t even consider myself for this role when we started discussing it. But, the more I dug into what it would entail, I kept thinking, “this is me!” I absolutely love the strategic planning – setting goals, figuring out the steps needed to reach those goals and implementing them – and forecasting. Making Projects a Reality Joanna has such a knack for being the liaison between our company vision and reality. We say, “here’s where we want to go,” and she helps plan the way to get us there. As much as we enjoy and benefit from Joanna, it’s fun to hear that she’s gained some things from MI4P as well: I have gained so much since starting here three years ago! I have gained friendships and I feel I
Meet the Team: Aaron Simmons
“Success is found in those moments where you are being the best possible version of you – followed by having more and more of those moments.” ~Aaron Simmons We’re blessed to have Aaron as part of the Marketing Ideas For Printers’ team. His philosophical, reserved, and conscientious nature means he’s in the perfect position to ask some of those hard questions when it comes to developing software. As a Use Case Writer, Aaron is in charge of determining what software does, why it does it, and how it does it. When you combine the information Aaron gleans with his ability as a developer, well, you understand why we said we’re blessed to have him. Then and Now Aaron began his career at Marketing Ideas For Printers in the customer service department, but quickly learned he had a knack for writing code and creating routines and processes that just worked. I had very basic web development skills, but had an opportunity to learn through fulfilling periodic requests from customers for customized code. So, little by little, I’ve learned quite a bit of coding over the years! When I was building uDesignIT! templates for customers, I developed a methodology that allowed me
3 Tips to Make the Content Connection
A frequent question that comes up regarding our content is, “How do I take the content you’ve provided and personalize it to make it better?” That question comes up regarding everything we offer – from social media marketing content, to direct mail, to email marketing, and the content and homepage sliders we offer on the websites. The simple answer is: Just do anything to make it yours! But, make sure what you do has the highest impact. Here are three tips to make the content connection to your audience. Broadcast the WIIFM Station “What’s in it for me?” This line of thinking is popular for most of us, and even more so when referring to your potential print-buyers. When customizing and creating your content, remember, customers care about themselves, and NOT about you. This means they’re not concerned about the specifications of your new press, but instead, how those specifications on your fancy new press will make their lives better. Tip #1: Make sure your content easily answers the what’s-in-it-for-me question for your print-buyers. Position yourself so your customer gets to be the hero. Remember, if you help your customers win, you’ll win, too! “What’s Fun About Playing with a Building?” Do you remember the 1988
The MI4P Process
This two-minute video will show you how we take you through Our Proven Process. No surprises; no bumps in the road!
It's worked for hundreds of printers just like you; it will work for you, too! Download the MI4P Proven Process PDF below, and follow along.
PDF: The MI4P ProcessSay Hello
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