It takes a lot of work to set up a screen printing business. Learning the craft of screen printing can take time. At some point, however, you will get the hang of it. It’s this point that you realize that you will need to find a way to gain customers. They don’t just magically appear. A business will fail if they don’t have a good marketing plan to bring in new customers. It is understandable that you may not know everything about marketing. You’re not expected to know everything.
This article is a basic primer for marketing. All of the concepts can be applied to screen printing. It is the business owners job to find a way to create a marketing strategy from the basic information. This will ensure that there is a steady stream of customers.
What is a Marketing Strategy
Stop and think about everybody trying to get your attention. There are a lot of people attempting to get you to purchase products or take action. You see signs wherever you go. When you are on the internet there are ads flashing at you. People call you on the telephone trying to get you to donate. Everywhere you go there is some sort of advertising coming at you. It can be quite obnoxious.
Guess what. You need to get in on the game. You have to get people's attention. So how are you going to do it? How are you going to reach people? You are going to develop a marketing strategy. It is just a fancy plan for a way to bring in new customers.
There are so many options for things that can go into a marketing strategy. They range from traditional marketing methods to social media marketing to email marketing. We are going to detail each of these options for you.
Traditional marketing
These are things that most screen printers have been exposed to all their lives. They include print, tv, mail and outdoor advertising. These methods are standard in the marketing industry. They have been around for so long that people forget all about them. You may feel that some of these options are out of your reach, but actually it is easier than ever to produce a tv spot or an outdoor advertisement.
Social Media Marketing
There are more social media platforms out there than you can imagine. While there are a few big players in the space, there really are a number of smaller social media platforms as well that don’t get much attention. Social media can generate new customers for a business. There are two ways to generate interest in your business. There is organic traffic, and paid traffic. A social media company will generate interest in your business and send traffic your way when you post random things about your business on it. However, social media companies are not in business to send a lot of free traffic to its followers. Instead it would prefer that an organization pay for the platform to send customers your way. The platforms do not require a large investment to begin advertising. Most will generate traffic for you for as low as $5/day.
Email Marketing
The most valuable thing on the internet is an email address. When you have a potential customers email address you are able to communicate with them at a very cheap level. You will be able to use a program such as Mailchimp or Constant Contact to send emails to them.
Website
It is practically impossible to run a business these days without having a website. It is the central hub to all of your marketing efforts. Everything springs from your website. The ultimate goal is to drive as many customers from all of your other efforts to your website. It is the only space online that you can control yourself. So it is important to have the best website that you can. You can always learn to do it yourself. However, it takes time to learn how to do all of this. Remember it is important to work on your business. For this reason it is best to just outsource this option. Find a reputable developer to create your website.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing a website using keywords to generate traffic to your website using Search Engines to send organic traffic. It involves a lot of research and an understanding of how a website works as well as how the search engines work. This is typically not the simplest thing for a beginner to take on, but it can yield great results.
The Final Word on Screen Printing Marketing
There are many different ways to get your message across to potential customers. It would be great to be able to do all of those things at once, but it is not necessarily practical. Marketing does take money. Marketing does take time. Even the research for all of these things can be a hassle.
Start small. Ask yourself what your budget is, and how you can get the most bang for your buck. You want to make your money go the furthest. You also don’t want all of your money going into one spot. If you put all of your money into email marketing and it doesn’t generate clients or revenue then you will have wasted your money. Instead, spread it around. Allocate a percentage of money to each of the areas that you would like to utilize to reach people. The same goes for time to reach those people. Do not run every program all at once. Spread them out. If you run every program at once you run the risk of having everybody show up at once. Yeah, it is great to be busy, but you don’t want to become so overwhelmed that you can’t keep up with the pace of work. Then you deliver late work or shoddy quality. By spreading out your advertising efforts you can generate customers over a longer period of time.
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