Impressions - June/July 2014 - 46
Blue Ribbon was the best-selling beer in
America. Schlitz Beer was floundering between fifth and eighth place, and had been
stuck there for years.
That all changed when copywriter
Claude Hopkins went to visit the Schlitz
Brewery to learn how beer was made. During the tour, he learned about the seemingly
extraordinary lengths the brewery went to
in order to preserve and maintain the beer's
quality. The thing was, every brewery used
the same meticulous steps to assure their
quality, but nobody knew about them.
When Hopkins told the story and
detailed the precision of each step, the
market was fascinated. People were so
enthralled with Hopkins' narrative that
Schiltz's sales rocketed past Pabst Blue
Ribbon in less than a year. Of course, all
the other breweries cried that it wasn't
fair, but they looked silly in the process.
The lesson for apparel decorators is
exactly the same. Few consumers know
or understand the story behind what you
do, the steps you take and the effort you
expend to deliver great shirts. After I read
about the famous Schlitz case, I began
documenting my firm's own process and
was astonished to find we had 112 separate
steps from beginning to end. Many of those
steps seemed common sense to us, but
when we began telling the story of "How
Your Shirts Are Printed (Decorated)," our
customers were equally surprised.
THE WHY FACTOR
A key component of telling the story
is articulating why it is important to the
buyer. In studying influence and persuasion, people will agree with nearly
anything if they know "the reason why"
they're being asked to do something. Most
importantly, base this reason on an emotional decision, not a logical one.
For example, you may be printing
youth shirts for a local elementary school.
Of course, you're concerned about the
safety and welfare of those wearing your
products. Safety is an emotional issue. This
means you can tell your customer your
shirts are a bit more expensive than the
guy printing shirts in his garage, but there's
a good reason why. You use PVC- and
phthalate-free inks, as mandated by the
Consumer Product Safety Commission
(CPSC). Chances are really good the other
guy isn't even aware of the regulation.
You can use the same argument if you
offer water-based inks as a more ecofriendly alternative to plastisols. Even
though the premise is debatable, the perception is that non-toxic, water-based inks
are better for the environment and the designs are nicer to wear.
The reason why comes in many forms.
Sit down and really think about how your
customers use your work. You'll find many
opportunities to apply this justification in
your marketing materials. Since our last
example focused on youth apparel for a
local school, let's continue with that.
The opportunity exists with nearly all
school work centering on the use of parent volunteers. It's almost always the same
parents who repeatedly volunteer. They're
always super involved in their kids' lives
and short on time. They're rushing to
sports practices, events, PTA meetings
and parent/teacher conferences. Anything
you can do to free up time for them will
be seen as a valuable contribution, which
means they'll be willing to pay for it. In
your marketing materials, talk about the
steps you take to make it easy to distribute
the shirt order when it's finished.
My firm prepared a simple Excel
spreadsheet for each classroom teacher,
who would fill in the students' names and
the shirt sizes they ordered. We would sort
the classes based on size and then print out
the list of names and sizes on Avery label
sheets, which you can get at any office supply store. Since the list was sorted by size,
we would simply sticker each shirt with
the kid's name and size, and pack them
into a box for that classroom.
When the volunteers picked up the
shirts, the boxes were prepackaged by
class with every student accounted for. It's
amazing how few requests we got for missing shirts when we started doing this. We
added $0.25 to each shirt for this service.
PACKAGE DEALS
Use Info*Action #23 at impressionsmag.com/infoaction
46
Impressions | June/July 2014
Educating consumers is all about conveying the reason why you should be their
choice. It's about their benefit of doing business with you. This also is part of your story.
The powerful techniques of education and
choices position them for maximum profitability. This is done by creating three tiered
programs based on their situations.
impressionsmag.com
http://www.TransferExpress.com
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Impressions - June/July 2014
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Impressions - June/July 2014
Impressions - June/July 2014
Table of Contents
First Impressions
From the Show Director
FYI
Product Gallery
ISS Conferences
Printing Profits
Cool Kids
Back to School
Storytelling
Shop Spotlight
Embroidery Design & Digitizing
Embroidery Production
Screen Printing Production
Screen Printing Graphics & Design
Screen Printing Technique
Classifieds
Online Directory
Ad Index
Impressions - June/July 2014 - CT1
Impressions - June/July 2014 - CT2
Impressions - June/July 2014 - Impressions - June/July 2014
Impressions - June/July 2014 - Cover2
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 1
Impressions - June/July 2014 - Table of Contents
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 3
Impressions - June/July 2014 - First Impressions
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 5
Impressions - June/July 2014 - From the Show Director
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 7
Impressions - June/July 2014 - FYI
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 9
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 10
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 11
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 12
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 13
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 14
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 15
Impressions - June/July 2014 - Product Gallery
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 17
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 18
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 19
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 19a
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 19b
Impressions - June/July 2014 - ISS Conferences
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 21
Impressions - June/July 2014 - Printing Profits
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 23
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 24
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 25
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 26
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 27
Impressions - June/July 2014 - Cool Kids
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 29
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 30
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 31
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 32
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 33
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 34
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 35
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 36
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 37
Impressions - June/July 2014 - Back to School
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 39
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 40
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 41
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 42
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 43
Impressions - June/July 2014 - Storytelling
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 45
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 46
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 47
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 48
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 49
Impressions - June/July 2014 - Shop Spotlight
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 51
Impressions - June/July 2014 - Embroidery Design & Digitizing
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 53
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 54
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 55
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 56
Impressions - June/July 2014 - Embroidery Production
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 58
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 59
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 60
Impressions - June/July 2014 - Screen Printing Production
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 62
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 63
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 64
Impressions - June/July 2014 - Screen Printing Graphics & Design
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 66
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 67
Impressions - June/July 2014 - Screen Printing Technique
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 69
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 70
Impressions - June/July 2014 - Classifieds
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 72
Impressions - June/July 2014 - Ad Index
Impressions - June/July 2014 - 74
Impressions - June/July 2014 - Cover3
Impressions - June/July 2014 - Cover4
Impressions - June/July 2014 - ISS1
Impressions - June/July 2014 - ISS2
Impressions - June/July 2014 - ISS3
Impressions - June/July 2014 - ISS4
Impressions - June/July 2014 - ISS5
Impressions - June/July 2014 - ISS6
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