Connection is essential in life and business.
- Want to start a fire? Your spark must connect with your fuel.
- Need to jumpstart your car? Turn on a light? You have to create a complete circuit connection to make it work.
- Want your print business to grow? A must-have connection with your print buyers is needed to develop a relationship.
If you’re jumping into this email series just now, we’ve been exploring ways you can reignite your print business. So far, we’ve scoured the importance of learning where you are so you can make informed decisions on where you’re going and the powerful impact delegating can have on your print business.
This week, we’ll unpack the importance of fanning the flame of connection through print. This should be easy, right? After all, you’re a print expert.
However, even print businesses sometimes fail to see the importance of connection and pay a high price for it.
The good news is you can reignite connection, and it’s easier than you might think. Keep reading to find out how!
5 Ways to Reignite Connection with Your Print Buyers
When you want to reignite the affections of potential print buyers, the secret is connection. Without it, you’re simply another faceless brand among the many thousands that will flash before a consumers’ eyes each day.
How do you build connections that last? Here are some tips to get you started.
1. Make the First Move
Is it your job or your clients’ job to maintain the business relationship and regularly keep in touch?
Recognize that your print buyers are busy and make it your job to stay on their radar. Initiate contact and keep in touch regularly through direct mail, social media, or an email marketing newsletter to keep your name front and center and your information at their fingertips. In doing so, you’ll keep your customer pipeline full and your business healthy.
2. Meet them Where They Are
For your marketing and connection efforts to be effective, you need to meet your print buyers everywhere they are.
Not only is it unlikely that all of your print buyers are on all of your marketing channels, but it’s essential to recognize that 90% of customers expect consistent interactions across channels.
Yes, it may be more work to implement marketing strategies and content across multiple channels, but it will be worth it. Consider this:
- Companies with omnichannel strategies retain 89% of customers. (Source)
- Customer satisfaction is 23x higher in companies that run multi-channel strategies. (Source)
- Customers on the receiving end of omnichannel marketing campaigns spend 10% more than those who aren’t. (Source)
So, yes, think social media marketing, but also think email marketing and direct mail marketing. And, before you start to feel overwhelmed, don’t forget what you learned last week about delegating the stuff you don’t enjoy.
3. Keep the Conversation Going
The biggest mistake print companies can make is thinking of their interactions with their print buyers as one-and-done interactions.
As a print owner, it’s your job to keep the conversation going with your print buyers through regular communication. Connect through things like a monthly direct mail newsletter or a consistent email marketing newsletter.
View every relationship with your print buyer as a flywheel. A flywheel is circular, infinite, and the more momentum it gets, the faster it goes. It’s an excellent example of what a good customer connection and relationship would look like.
4. Have a Plan
French aviator and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once said, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
How about you? Are you “wishing” to make better connections with your print buyers, or do you have an actual plan in place – a plan that includes your own marketing on your production schedule?
You know direct mail works.
You’ve seen it work for countless other businesses that you’ve helped personally with their direct mail campaigns. So, why are you so convinced it doesn’t work for you or that it’s not worth the effort? Remember,
- 90% of direct mail gets opened, while your emails have open rates of only 20-30%
- 82% of millennials say that they find print more trustworthy than digital
- 44% of customers will visit a company’s website after receiving direct mail marketing
You could add hundreds of statistics to that list of why direct mail works. So, if you know it works, what’s the deal?
T.I.M.E.
Save Time + Increase Website Traffic = Direct Mail For Printers
Since 1988, Marketing Ideas For Printers has created monthly direct mail packages for printers.
The mission is simple: to help you sell more printing with a convenient, ready-to-print direct mail piece ready for you to download and reignite connection with every month.
And now, we’ve added twelve ad options within the Printer’s Press direct mail newsletter to help you drive traffic to your website.
Want to advertise your online designer this month? Simple. Click on that ad in the artwork layers panel in the InDesign file. Or maybe you want them to sign up for your email newsletter? Ok. Click. Or follow you on social media or download your PDF Preflight Printer or… You get the point.
Create connections, increase your website traffic, and sell more printing with Direct Mail For Printers.