Top Marketing & Printing Tips for Small Business Growth

8 years ago

Successful business marketing incorporates many different elements that work together through different mediums to deliver the growth and results desired. But it all hinges on two things that you have, a great product and a team that wants to excel.

So where to start?

All marketing starts with a strategy. A pre-launch strategy outlines:

Targeting: Who you are trying to target? Focus and refocus so no resources are wasted.

Channels: Which marketing activities are you going to use?

Frequency: How often are you going to carry out those operations?

Co-ordination: Ensure that all channels interlink to carry the same brand message.

Measuring Results: KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) to ensure that you are hitting targets.

Marketing Activities

Networking: Your network is everything; business is often conducted via personal connections and recommendations (Social Capital.) so go to networking events and business shows refer other businesses, pass them a printed business card. Join clubs and societies to meet like-minded people and expand your social capital and your business sales will grow in return.

Facebook: Is great for creating a company personality, it’s free and you can add friends, get your colleagues to add friends, share your company page etc… which improves your brand awareness and connects your business with the millennial generation. Facebook advertising is also very cheap in comparison to other advertising platforms and can be targeted quite accurately with great data capture.

Twitter: Can quickly elevate your company exposure and is great for finding business to business leads. Because of the limited characters per tweet, companies have to be inventive, short, snappy and impactful but you can always have a link in your tweet, so this is a great way to share your content.

Linkedin: Is great for interacting with other SME’s; it can be a very important tool in showcasing your products and services, locally and nationally. If your main sales are business to business then LinkedIn is a great place to start. Post daily company updates and publish articles or posts to entice potential customers.

Google+: Has lots of interesting relevant communities to join, great for search engine optimisation (SEO) purposes. Google+ is interconnected with your website and allows you to tag posts i.e. #printing which helps google realise what type of company you are and what you offer.

Printing: High quality printing is far from dead and if you want to reach customers and have a big impact, then one of the key elements in your marketing mix to consider is printing. For instance leaflet printing and direct mail printing, if you can deliver the right message at the right time then your sales and business growth will instantly increase. With the advent of digital printing technology printers can now precisely target and personalise print media such as brochure printing and printed leaflets which further enhances your conversion rates from potential to current customer. A printed brochure is one of the most important pieces of media a company can commission, because it is a tactile and physical being with content that gives the potential customer a company overview, highlighting your business objectives, branding and in particular your products and services, couple this with professional graphic design that exudes your brand message throughout and attach your business cards to add that personal touch and you’re on track to a winning formula. Checkout one of our previous articles: Why Print Advertising Is Still An Essential Marketing Tool

PR & Content Marketing: The regular generation of relevant and informative content with appropriate media exposure i.e. Newspapers, online blogs etc.. is vital in modern marketing because it highlights how you as a company are a leading authority and source of information within that sector. This helps in terms of brand awareness, search engine rankings, and cumulatively builds your company’s brand trust level.

Email Campaigns: Email marketing can work very effectively if implemented correctly. It is good to ping over an emailer to ensure that your company is at the forefront of potential customer’s minds. To improve the ROI (Return on investment) of your email campaigns be sure to send a personalised email to a customer straight after a purchase to say thank you or to give them an offer on their next purchase.

SEO: Triple check that all your meta tags and meta descriptions for your website are accurate, relevant, include keywords and a call to action to make your google listing the most appealing on the page.

It is essential that you gather data throughout your marketing campaign, so that you can track what is being most effective and the best ROI etc… Utilise feedback from your customers and data captured to adapt your marketing strategy as the faster you can resolve customer objections, and improve the product to match market demand, the more likely you are to increase business growth and sales in the long run. Be fluid with your marketing strategy and don’t be scared to try and test new marketing avenues. Successful business marketing is judged by attracting more customers and then to keep them coming back time and time again. Checkout this fantastic article from The Guardian newspaper for more advice on marketing and printing from the experts: Small business marketing: lessons from the experts

Ensure that you carry the same marketing message across all different channels for brand uniformity purposes and to really elevate your campaign refer to your other platforms to increase integration and build a truly holistic cross-media marketing strategy that will grow your business.

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About PrintUK.com

We are PrintUK.com We are a leading online printing company that specialises in high quality printing and design services. Our ambition is to be the best print and online design company, so we invest heavily in technology and software development to ensure faster turnaround times, sharper pricing and higher quality. We are here to help your marketing budget go further without compromise. We continually invest in technology to improve upon our quality, production efficiency and turnaround times. Any cost saving is passed onto our customers which allows us to offer incredibly competitive prices. We predominantly serve Design Agencies, SME’s, print buyers, local authorities and large corporate businesses. Our website and business is designed to help businesses promote themselves cheaply and easily through print and for larger customers to help stretch those limited marketing budgets. We accomplish this by providing easy to personalise design agency quality templates accompanied with cheap high quality printing. We believe that well designed, high quality print, delivered into the right hands on time has and will continue to have an important role in the marketing mix. Print UK is here to help achieve that aim. That's our promise. Production We run a 24hr production operation which allows us to be extremely responsive and dependable, couple this with our continuous investment in stat-of-the-art equipment and we are able to deliver flexible print solutions. That allow us to cater for all complexities and scales of print work from standard generic print products i.e. Leaflets, Business Cards etc... to extremely complicated, time constrained, bespoke products that are increasingly used as part of any marketing and advertising strategy. Artwork We are here to help your marketing budget go further without compromise. We continually invest in technology to improve upon our quality, production efficiency and turnaround times. Any cost saving is passed onto our customers which allows us to offer incredibly competitive prices. If your a novice to the print and design world we would suggest that you use our 'design templates' rather than spending hours trying to work out how to produce your own print artwork, it will undoubtedly be a cheaper, less time consuming option. Also you know that your artwork will print properly and it will allow you more time to focus on your business. If you're an expert and have print ready artwork, what are you waiting for? Choose your specification, upload your artwork and we'll deliver wherever you want. If you have any questions or want more insight into our business please get in touch.