How to Market a Printing Business – 10 Excellent Ideas, Tips, and Strategies
September 18, 2018
Need to generate more leads and jobs for your printing service? Here are 10 print business marketing ideas, strategies, and tips that will keep you busy and profitable.
The digital wave has been a bit of shock for print businesses. Businesses that once boomed have made cutbacks – or even closed shop.
There is no going back to the days when printing was the medium for business communication and advertising, but there are still many products that require print. Interestingly (and ironically), most of the best ways to market a print business are digital.
Here are 10 of the most effective ways to market your printing business. Follow these, and you’ll find print isn’t dead – it just needs the right marketing.
Printing Service Marketing Idea #1: Develop a Strong Website
Like all businesses today, a printing service needs a well-designed website that presents them as professional and experienced.
Since printing is a design service, your website becomes a defacto part of your portfolio. Your site should have a clean, modern design.
Also, your actual portfolio of work needs to be easy to view, whether it’s on page images or PDFs. Be sure to organize by category so prospects can get a look at your work.
Here is an example mockup from our UXI® design templates:
Make sure your website has a strong call to action that will motivate people to contact you. Also, keep your navigation simple and clear, particularly if you have a lot of different print services you detail on your website.
Make sure it’s easy for people to download designs and images in all the formats you work with. Offer clear instructions on how to send downloads, and test the process yourself to make sure there are no glitches.
Printing Service Marketing Idea #2: Should I Be Like Vista Print?
We get a lot of people starting print businesses who wonder if they should try to emulate a business like Vista Print, particularly with the functionality to create and process print orders entirely on their website.
For the typical local print shop, the answer is no. The biggest problem is that creating a website like Vista Print’s is prohibitively expensive and complicated. It’s a major investment that a small local shop won’t get a return on.
The second problem is that Vista Print already exists. If you want to enter that market, how will you win market share from them? Do you have the resources to market against them? How will you differentiate your services?
For the local print shop, a website is a lead generation tool. The intent is to get prospects to take initial steps on a job. You might list base prices and have the ability to view different design elements, but target your local market, not the national online markets where you have to compete against major players like Vista Print.
Print Service Marketing Idea #3: Master Search Marketing
To drive traffic to your website, you’ll want to show up for print-related searches in your area. There are three ways to dominate the search results.
The first is pay-per-click advertising. These ads are run through auction-based systems like Google Adwords and Bing Ads. The main advantage here is that you show in the top positions (reserved for paid ads) and that you can control the ad copy and landing page. For example, you might want to run an advertisement for business cards. Your ad and the page it goes to on your website can match that offer.
Read printing service paid advertising case study.
Next, you need to set-up and rank for Google My Business. This is the maps listing and review platform Google uses for geo-targeted searches. It’s a free listing you can optimize with your descriptions and by getting customer reviews.
Then you have the organic website listings. These are also free clicks, with ranking gained by optimizing your website for keywords, gaining links, getting social media traffic, and adding content to your blog.
If you do each of these tactics effectively, you can show up in three places on page one:
Make sure that you’re optimized for local searches, including phrases modified with locations (print brochures Denver) as well as “near me” searches.
Print Service Marketing Idea #4: Manage Your Reputation
While your website content is vital, there is another type of online content equally important: online reviews.
Today’s consumers check online reviews for most services, including print services. What’s said about you in those reviews has a big influence on their decision to work with you.
This starts with your service itself. Realize that everything you do with clients impacts your marketing. Today a business must make customer service part of their culture. When in doubt, put the customer’s needs first. Overwhelm people with your service.
Also, follow up with people to encourage them to review you. Mention it in phone call follow-ups. Our reputation management team uses email follow-ups that are effective at getting more reviews using this type of template:
Try to get reviews on the major platforms including Google, Top Rated Local, and Facebook. Do not solicit reviews for Yelp as they have a strict policy against it.
Keep an eye on what’s said about you and respond to anything negative. Reviews are also a great place to get customer feedback that can help you improve your service.
Learn more about how to get positive reviews.
There are still a lot of printing companies that don’t do a good job of gaining or highlighting reviews. If you do, you’ll have a strong competitive advantage with your lead generation.
Pro Tip: Put Testimonials on Your Website
Another excellent way to be proactive about customer comments is to put testimonials on your website. This is a way to get positive comments in front of people before they go searching third party sites.
You can have a testimonials page, but what’s more effective is spreading the content around your site, close to your calls to action. Video testimonials are also really effective.
Also, there are widgets that allow you to embed reviews from Google or Facebook, and the Top Rated Local badge links to that site where all your reviews are together with a rating score.
Read a reputation management case study.
Printing Service Marketing Tip #5: Develop a Unique Value Proposition
One of the tough things about the printing business is that most services have similar offerings. The technology and end-products are often the same from service to service.
That’s all the more reason to stand out with some type of unique value proposition. If there is one type of printing you can become known for, it gives you a competitive advantage so you’re not always in a bidding war.
There may be a type of printing you excel at and/or have exclusive technology for. If you do, highlight it on your website. For example, we have a client that specializes in foil sleeking. The use this infographic to explain the value of this offer:
Some printers also do well working for certain industries such as microbreweries, sports organizations, or municipalities.
You can also gain an advantage if you have marketing expertise so you can help the business develop the message for their collateral (often the most difficult part).
What you want to avoid is looking like a commodity to the point that prospects are just comparing you to Vista Print. That puts you into a price battle you’re not likely to win.
Printing Service Marketing Tip #6: Partner Up Locally
One of the things you can do – that Vista Print can’t – is leverage your local networks.
As a printing business, you are in an excellent position to take advantage of local referrals. Every business you work with can turn into a relationship where you refer each other new customers.
As a printer, this is in many ways an extension of your reputation management. It’s vital that you earn local referrals. But since you connect with so many businesses, you can also refer clients for certain services. Do them that favor, and they’ll do the same for you.
Printer Marketing Idea #7: Retargeting
You can advertise on Facebook and Google with retargeting banner ads.
Retargeting ads display to people who’ve previously visited your website or Facebook page. These banner ads remind them of your brand and motivate them to come back to your site. Here is an example of a Facebook ad:
Retargeting works well because people online tend to hesitate and get distracted. These ads are a gentle reminder to work with you or buy that print they wanted.
Printing Service Marketing Tip #8: Create A Facebook Business Page
With the visual elements of a printing service, Facebook offers some strong marketing opportunities.
The consumer public (including your leads) are on Facebook. Many people ask for recommendations and discover businesses on Facebook. You need a presence there.
That presence is your Facebook business page. This page is half website, half social media updates.
It’s a website in that you can list all your relevant business information, set up a call to action to request an estimate, and even use messenger to communicate directly with leads.
You also post to your timeline so people can get a feel for your staff, work, and the daily ins and outs of your business. You should connect with your partner businesses and comment on their posts.
Last, setting up this page is free. Nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Pro Tip: Other Social Media Platforms
In addition to Facebook, create Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn accounts.
Instagram and Pinterest are ways to update and categorize your gallery of work. You can create Pinboards to display all types of ideas for business printing projects.
LinkedIn is a great place to network with businesses and extend your referral network. It’s also an excellent place for valuable B2B marketing.
Printing Service Marketing Tip #9: Create a Video
Video can be an effective way of getting your value proposition across, and does a good job of engaging mobile audiences. For example:
This short video also does an excellent job of describing their unique value proposition.
Printing Service Marketing Idea #10: Use Marketing and CRM Software
Managing clients and marketing tactics on the fly is all but impossible nowadays. There are too many channels to deal with, too many ways for people to communicate.
Marketing 360® is a platform designed to integrate all your leads, contacts, projects, emails, and marketing campaigns on one platform. It’s a great organizational tool that will help you track people, projects, and budgets.
We also work with you to develop an effective marketing strategy for your printing business, then execute the tactics so you can stay busy selling leads and working with clients.
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