Welcome back to this six-part email series on how to grow your existing print buyer accounts. Up to this point, you’ve had the opportunity to reflect on this idea by asking yourself a series of questions regarding:
- How to better understand the needs of your print buyers
- Ways to stay on the minds of your buyers
- How to build credibility and trust
- And, how to leverage existing print buyer relationships to make new sales
Today, we’ll explore how to set your print buyers up for a successful future with you.
A Future Filled with Change
Take a few minutes and consider the following questions:
- In five years, what will be different about your printing firm?
- What will you have to do in order to remain relevant to your buyers?
- How will your business need to change to better adapt to your print buyers’ needs?
Exploring questions like these are vital to the success of both you and your buyers. It will help you examine if your business will remain relevant staying the way it is or if you’ll need to consider adjusting or expanding your solutions.
Although expanding your print business might sound scary, think of all the positives it could mean for your business, including:
- A growing customer base
- Increased diversity in what you offer
- Minimizing your business risk
- Increased flexibility to changing market needs
- And, of course, increased revenue!
Ideas to Consider When Expanding Your Print Business
When your customers succeed, you succeed.
Here are a couple of ideas to consider for expanding your existing services to meet the evolving needs of your print buyers.
Add Complimentary Products and Services
Stale product and service offerings can leave your buyers feeling like you’re out of touch with today’s needs and lacking relevancy.
Remind your clients you’re at the top of your game by:
- Modeling the effectiveness of direct mail and all the benefits it can have for their business
- Setting them up with solutions that will make online ordering for them easy (and prove your expertise). For example, could your clients benefit from their own private online ordering portal?
- Becoming a forward thinker. Since you’re already helping your clients get their message out through offline, traditional means, how can you integrate what you’re printing for them online as well? Could you offer a marketing subscription service of some kind? Provide a campaign landing page for them or even a website?
Adding solutions that fit nicely with what you’re already doing will quickly make you more valuable to your print buyers.
Broaden Your Reach
If the size of your local audience is dwindling, now is the perfect time to consider widening your prospect net.
In the past, small businesses were limited to the prospects and customers within their city or surrounding areas. But, today, with the power of online ordering, you can reach clients across town and across the nation.
A great place to start – direct mail! Consider sending out national mailers and combining them with social media and email marketing content. Your audience will start to get to know you and become familiar with your brand, making your printing firm’s name rise to the top of their mind when they have print marketing needs.
It Starts with Your Mindset
Will you be a print shop that is ok just to survive, or will you look ahead and see where you can set yourself up (and your print buyers) to thrive?
Abraham Lincoln once said, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” What will the future of your print company be? Well, that’s up to you to decide.
Join us again next week when we’ll tackle our last question,
“How can we exemplify our Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?”
