Marketing Advice for Print Companies

Our Head of Marketing, Kieran Dallow recently shared some marketing advice for print companies with the team at Print Monthly.

Why is marketing important for print companies?

Most printers will tell you that referrals and repeat business are the best form of marketing for them – and that’s fantastic. Referrals are the most cost-effective and reliable way to grow, but they are hard to plan and manage. And, as we saw with the pandemic, events outside of your control can mean these lead sources dry up. What do you do then?

Every printer needs an ongoing marketing programme of some sort, so they have something more than just referrals. Having something in place before there is a slowdown in sales will help to keep a consistent flow of leads, and it is so much better to start something before you need it than when you are forced to do it. At the end of the day, it’s widely known that it takes over 8 touchpoints to make a sale.

What can they do to help themselves stand out from competitors?

The approach I advise people to take in marketing is to be “consistently different”. Do the marketing that your competitors aren’t and if you do it regularly, you’ll be remembered when a prospect is ready to buy.

Try to avoid coming up with the same messages as your competitors. For example, I see a lot of printers that say, “We Print Everything” in the hope of winning new business. But actually, the most successful printers are the ones with a relatively narrow range. Do what you do well and stand out from the crowd.

Also, focus your marketing on the types of companies that suit you. Look at your recent projects that you were able to make the most margin on, and focus on finding similar projects to those. There are also niche areas where you have the specific expertise that you can promote, such as homebuilding, retail or hospitality. These are all different and require their own specific marketing approaches.

My advice to printers, don’t be afraid to try something a bit out there. If it works great. If not, try something else and move on. The proof of any campaign is in its results, so make sure you evaluate what you do and build these into future plans.

Can you tell us about some of the things your company does to promote itself?

We try to practice what we preach and are always experimenting with our marketing.

This year, we have launched several big brand engagement campaigns that aim to get customers involved and give something back to our industry. Our Pets in Print award was very well received and got a lot of coverage in the media and online.

Alongside this, our smaller campaigns develop and build good relationships with new and existing customers and are equally creative like our free doughnuts offers that have become synonymous with Innotech. These foster great relationships with customers and will in turn increase those lovely referrals we were talking about!