If you’re just joining us in this six-part series on how to breathe new life into your print business, so far we’ve covered how to recognize if your business is stuck and the importance of fortifying what you have that works.
Today, you’ll learn how and why to stop chasing after your prospects and customers and instead use marketing that attracts your buyers to you.
Stop Chasing People Down
Here’s an interesting thought for you: If someone is chasing you, is it your natural reaction to turn around and start running to them with open arms?
Probably not.
If you’re like most people, being chased means you’re going to kick it in high gear and high-tail it out of there!
So, if you follow that thought through a little further, consider this: If people naturally run away from being chased, why do so many businesses take the approach of chasing after prospects and customers?
- The pesky telemarketers
- The guy you met at that conference last year who hasn’t stopped talking about himself and his product ever since.
- That website you avoid because you know the minute you visit it some salesperson will be on the prowl with their Billy Mays-like speech at the ready: “But, wait! There’s more!
There Has Got to Be a Better Way
What if instead of chasing down prospects you could set them up to want to build a relationship with your brand and pursue you?
Aren’t those the types of customers you’d want anyway?
Dan Kennedy, author of Magnetic Marketing, nails this point beautifully when he says,
“When you stop chasing, you no longer have to resort to gimmicks to set yourself apart from the pack of hungry competitors running alongside you – like slashing your prices, or grouponing specials- they are magnetically attracted to you.
Attraction brings to you clients who are more committed and likely to remain with you over the long term. Another benefit is that customers who come to you through attraction are naturally inclined to remain with you and do business with you over and again.”
Attracting clients rather than chasing them is not as difficult as it might seem, and it’s ultimately more natural and more effective. Here are a few ways to attract your audience and leave the chasing to the other guys.
Dangle the Carrot
To attract print buyers without chasing them down, you have to show you’re worth pursuing.
That means using nothing more than the value you bring as the “bait” to reel them in. There’s a confidence required for this approach because instead of running after clients and trying to sell to them in desperation, you’re laying it all out there. You’re saying this is the kind of printer we are, this is the kind of value you can expect, here’s why we’re different and why you should print with us.
Prove yourself to be helpful and show them that you know what you’re talking about. To do this, use tools such as case studies, white papers, and blog posts. Better yet, send your own direct mail so they can see the quality of your printing right in their hands.
The idea here is to provide prospects with anything that showcases your knowledge and expertise and proves to them beyond a shadow of a doubt that you’re the best printer for them.
Content is Your Entry Point
Here’s a secret: a lot of printers have websites. Very few printers, however, offer valuable, relevant content for their print buyers.
Once you have nailed down offering content, the next step in attracting people to your print business is to take that content anywhere your audience is likely to be.
- Promote your latest white paper via your social media channels.
- Build an email drip campaign around your latest or best blog pieces.
- Use your white paper as gated content.
- Create digital ads that focus on your content being the initial value given, leaving prospects feeling the need to reciprocate with sales.
This is why having consistent content is so valuable to your print business. It’s the entry point to get the attention of your audience and how you begin to build a trust relationship, so they’ll be comfortable buying from you.
Humanize Your Brand
One of the most significant advantages you have is the size of your print business.
As big business gets bigger, customers tend to get lost in the sales numbers feeling unknown and uncared for.
You, on the other hand, have the ability and the opportunity to take an approach with your marketing that says, “We’re big enough to serve you and small enough to care.”
To attract clients and prospects to you, focus on the personal relationships you can create with them before, during, and after they make a sale with you. By focusing on establishing that trust and building those relationships, your customers will begin to feel like cared-for customers and more than just a sale.
Recommend Complementary Products
Recommending other complementary products or services is sort of like providing value through content as we mentioned earlier.
You are offering ways to be helpful by providing that gentle nudge or reminder to add business cards to their letterhead or create a flyer to pair with their new banner.
Whatever you suggest, remember that the objective is to be helpful. The product of that helpfulness equals more sales. It’s not more sales disguised as being more helpful. See the difference?
You’ll know you’re in the right place when you can look at the services you provide against the backdrop of your target market’s needs and say, “We’re not able to help them with [blank]. We need to either create a way ourselves to fill that need or we need to partner with someone else that can help.”
Your mindset should be: see a need, fill a need. When your prospects and customers recognize that’s your mindset, you’ll start becoming the one who is chased.
Give Them a Reason to Stay Engaged with You
Once they’ve fallen in love with your brand, you have to give them a reason to stick around.
This means you need to continue making deposits into their “value bank” through helpful, educational, engaging content and your service and product delivery.
One of the biggest mistakes printers can make here is to have a static website – as in, nothing ever changes. Once you’ve visited the site, there is absolutely no reason to re-visit the site because all of the content will be the same. If they have no reason to come back, why would they?
To keep them engaged, regularly supply new content like tips and tricks pages, blog posts, white papers, affiliate links, and more. If you don’t have time to keep up with all that, go with a website vendor (like us!) that’s focused on providing that for you, so you don’t have to worry about it.
It’s time to stop chasing. It’s time to get your magnets out and start attracting your print buyers to you.