Marketing Advice By Business Type
Marketing a Sign Printing Business
It's becoming more and more difficult for sign printing businesses to rise above the clamor of the marketplace. Innovative marketing strategies may be your best bet for out-promoting -- and outperforming -- the competition.
It's difficult to pinpoint a single marketing strategy that is capable of turning around a struggling business. However, great marketing strategies share a common characteristic.
In this industry, long-term survivors build their strategies around a core of marketing essentials.
Technological Expertise
The PR and marketing community has embraced technology with open arms, transforming basic marketing concepts into sophisticated, tech-driven systems and solutions. The consequence for sign printing businesses tends to be a search for news to leverage technology to scale up the organization's promotional firepower. In addition to marketing professionals, many businesses now include IT units as valued partners in their strategic marketing efforts.
Loss Leaders
Smart sign printing businesses understand that more customers will walk through the door if a few products are priced at less than full retail value. Moreover, a loss leader marketing strategy can compensate for dead periods when customers tend to making purchases. But to be effective, loss leader marketing requires planning, especially in product selection and price points. For sign printing businesses, the real benefits of loss leaders emerge through the careful marketing of other products, usually offered at a much higher margin. Also, it's important to carefully consider the quantity of discounted products you are willing to offer at the loss leader price since stockpiling or a high volume of loss leader sales can negate the revenue benefits of this strategy.
Managing Negative Publicity
Not sure how to handle negative PR? You're not alone. It's a probably faced by many sign printing businesses. But the time to address your response to negative publicity is before it happens. If you wait until a crisis hits, it's already too late to control the message. The creation of a quality, crisis PR plan and the adequate preparation of key stakeholders is a requirement for any sign printing business interested in controlling negative messages. Mailing list providers can also provide quick access to accurate mailing lists, an important consideration if your crisis response plan contains a direct mail component.
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