Big Picture - January/February 2018 - 16

business + management

Promoting
Your Business
How to leverage old school traditions with new school opportunities.
| by Marty McGhie

L

et's face it: Sustaining a profitable print shop from

year to year is tough. Not only is it challenging to
earn new business in the marketplace, but it's
becoming increasingly more difficult to maintain
existing business. Each year seems to bring more
competition to the market with seemingly fewer dollars to go
around. So, how do you confront these challenges to ensure a
profitable future for your company? There are several
different answers to this complex question, but one important
approach is to effectively promote your business to your
existing customers as well as your potential clients.
Creating strategies to bolster your business can be daunting,
but it's a critical part of success. The good news is that you now
have more options than ever before. The following are some
ideas you may consider when determining how to effectively
market your print shop. There will always be the tried-and-true,
traditional approaches. But there are also some new-age
strategies you should broach for your specific marketing plans.

BIG PICTURE

January/February 2018

FACE TIME
It may not be all that exciting to discuss some of the "old
school" techniques for promoting your business, but in reality,
connecting with customers through traditional means is still
vital. In spite of the various marketing approaches the digital
world now offers, there's still no substitute for a face-to-face
interaction with your existing clients or potential customers.
It's best to meet with them in person as frequently as you can.
Understandably, this can be a challenge. Like you, your
customers are very busy and may not want to schedule an
extended amount of time to sit down with you. They're often

MARTY MCGHIE is VP finance/operations of Ferrari Color, a digital
imaging center in Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and Sacramento.
He is a partner and director of Signs.com. You can find him on
Twitter @Marty_McGhie.

16

so busy they're even reluctant to have lunch with you on your
dime. So, get your creative juices flowing when considering
opportunities for face-to-face interactions. Here are some
ideas that have helped Ferrari Color get in front of our clients,
even for just a few minutes:
* Schedule a short visit to drop off some samples of new
products. If they have questions, you can schedule an
appointment for another time. Often, a brief stop with a few
new products will turn into more prolonged and productive
time spent with your customer.
* If your customer is not local to your business, it's still a
great approach to send them samples of existing and new
materials for cutting-edge applications. These touch points,
even though remote, can become critical links to your clients.
* Deliver a completed job personally to your customer.
This, of course, may not work if they're out of state, but where
possible, delivering a job provides you one more opportunity
for a personal visit.
* If you have a complex project you're working on, invite
your client to your shop to discuss the particulars to ensure
that you have the correct details before moving forward. For
example, this year we worked with one of our largest customers
http://www.Signs.com https://twitter.com/Marty_McGhie
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Big Picture - January/February 2018
