Gone are the days when printing businesses could just follow the conventional routine in marketing and be done with it. Then all they had to do was wait for the offers to start pouring in.
But now, with the millennial generation accounting for a major share of the world’s population, we can pretty much say that a significant portion of a company’s target market lives online, more specifically on the social media.
And that’s true of any business, let alone a printing business.
This only means one thing; if your target market is online, your marketing efforts have to be too, even for a printing business.
Now if you’re thinking, “what does a print shop have to do online? Wouldn’t that be a contraindication?”
To answer that, here’s what Neal Schaffer, author, CEO and one of the Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers says about social media – “Social media replaces nothing – but compliments everything.”
Social media is the most effective channel for your print shop for a number of reasons. This is especially true for 24 hour printing shops that have a larger market of customers to serve. The most popular networks can be used to
- Take better control over your online reputation and do what’s necessary to improve the same
- Generate more traffic towards your website
- Enhance customer trust in your business
- Engage actively with customers
- Serve customers better by answering their queries promptly, receiving feedback etc.
So how do you go about doing these?
Actionable tips to market your print shop with social media
Don’t sell; rather engage – A lot of businesses make the mistake of being too outright with their marketing initiatives. Sure ad campaigns so help sell to some extent, but the best way it to engage your customers online, by sharing insights and knowledge, responding promptly to customer enquiries etc. Almost 7 out of 10 customers are said to change their perception of a business once they receive a prompt response online.
Social media is all about connecting and networking, mostly with the millennial generation. So if you try to sell something directly to new followers, they are not going to buy it.
Get to know your customers – Social media channels have a wide range of live features meant for businesses to receive real time feedback on their products and services. You can make use of those features such as polls and live videos to gauge the performance of your company and the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. You can also use these features to understand customer preferences and interests, so that you can narrow down your target market and focus efforts towards particular groups.
Create and share relevant content – It is when you address some real world problems faced by your target audience that you create relevant content for them. You need to dig deep and keep a close eye on what their printing needs are and swoop in with a solution. Nothing more than that though. Nobody has the time to go through thousands of words. Be crisp and convey the solution in a precise way. Remember, you’re trying to show market expertise and reliability by sharing such content. You want your target audience to reach you for their printing needs.
Follow these pointers for a smooth sailing social media journey. Increase conversions slowly and steadily.
