Work to land repeat business and annual contracts.
If you have a screen printing business, you may not want to spend your entire marketing budget on traditional advertising vehicles like commercials and billboards. Instead, consider more strategic plans to ignite your marketing message and boost your sales on screen printed orders. With a little quick thinking and a few tweaks to your internal production process, chances are you can do a lot of the marketing utilizing a grassroots approach.
Customer Service
It may seem obvious, but providing your customers with the utmost in customer service--from the variety of styles you have in stock to delivering the product on time--is an essential marketing tool. Keep your customers coming back by continuously scouting for new vendors who can offer competitive pricing. Not all of your customers will be looking for the best price. Some will want the best quality, and you need to incorporate a variety of fabrics and color choices into your product mix. Turn-around time is another thing to remember. Shortening your production time will accommodate customers who bring in last-minute projects.
Contract Work
Contact large agencies like schools, colleges, churches and government programs to solicit their annual printing contracts. Generate a list of business types that already exist in your database and prospect for new customers by expanding your base in similar categories. If you're doing business with a day care center, send fliers or coupons to all the day care centers in the area. These groups are notorious for getting t-shirts made for campaigns and projects and asking for their business directly can lead to repeat business. Offer discounts for large orders or specialty prints.
Event planning and marketing partnerships
An often overlooked idea is to partner with marketing and event planning professionals for their event and branding related projects. Event professionals are responsible for coordinating the vendors for large-scale events such as conferences, trade shows and festivals and often require screen printed items for attendees. Marketing firms use items for branding tools for clients and promotional use. Contact firms of each type and introduce your services while offering discounted options as well as packages for repeat business. Make it a goal to either land contracts for these types of partners or to serve as their exclusive screen printer.
Tags: repeat business, your customers, screen printed