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Welcome to the Web to Print Marketing Minute. Whether you are interested in getting more traffic to your printer's presence online, building a better printer website, or marketing to acquire more print buyers, these resources are here to help you get the most out of your presses.

Check back often for valuable tips on selling more print online.

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Breaking Through Print Sales Barriers.

One of the most annoying philosophies I hear for selling print is that prospecting is a “numbers game,” that requires you to wade through a long trail of rejections before you finally close the customer.

You’ve heard the old mantra:  “With every no, you’re closer to a yes.”Web to Print - why  

Nonsense.  Instead of patting yourself on the back for the 10%, 20% or 25% of leads you’re converting, remember that this approach guarantees that you’ll be losing up to 90% of your potential business.

Any barriers created between you and the customer are often created by you, not them.  They did not call you or request a quote for “something to do,” they have a real and urgent need for your services.

I’d estimate that 80% of these rejections are due to 3 common “barriers,” and can be easily prevented with a slightly different approach.

Barrier #1:  “No thanks. I’m happy with my current printer.”


Cause:  You sound just like their current printer.
Solution: Change your "keywords" – on the phone, in emails, and on your site.

Not all prospects will be actively listening to your message, but will instead “scan” what is being said to quickly get a sense of who you are, and then make a decision.

If you use give-away words like “printing,” “graphics,” or “design” the prospect will instantly pre-judge your services, equate them with what they already have, and say “no thanks.”

Drop these words from your sales vocabulary and speak to their goals directly.  

For example, if you know the prospect frequently markets with brochures, direct the conversation towards strategies that will help the piece be more effective as a selling vehicle: such as perforated mail in panels, adding a PURL component to the campaign or adding a money-back guarantee to the offer.

Barrier #2:  “I can get the same job printed elsewhere for less.”


Cause:  You are turning craft into commodity.
Solution: Change the specs.

If you quote the customer based on the exact specs they provided, you are forcing them to make a buying decision based solely on price – and there is always someone cheaper.

Any specs they gave you have already been submitted to your competitors, and if you all have identical quotes the customer makes an apples to apples comparison on the only item that is different: price.

Be an orange instead.  

Ask additional questions:  “Hi John, I received your quote request.  I can see a number of ways we can reduce your cost per thousand, would you mind if I sent you some suggestions?”

You just got the customer’s permission to change the specs.  You are unique among all the other shops they are researching, and have removed price as a barrier.

Barrier #3:  “I need X additional quotes before I can make a decision.”


Cause:  They are smart, and are researching your competitors.
Solution:  Give them the quotes yourself and pre-empt your competitors.

Smart customers always get a few different prices before making a decision.  They want the best deal possible.  Of course, the best deal is you, but how do they know that?

Printing can be a highly regional business, so you should know who your competitors are (or can easily find out).

Have yourself or someone on your staff “mystery shop” 3 of your competitors with the customers specifications as if you were buying from them yourself.

Then send your customer your competitor’s quotes as well (being sure to use the strategies from Barriers #1 and #2).

It sounds counterintuitive and a little crazy – why would you want to help your competitor close your customer?  

You’re not.  You’re saving the customer time, and positioning yourself as the qualified leader in the customer’s mind – as anything your competitors provide them with is “old information” they’ve already gotten from you.  

This also let you address any reasons for them to buy elsewhere as the research you’ve done allows you to revise your offering to outmanoeuvre your competitors for every aspect of the job.

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Selling to the Amateur Print Buyer.

Industry leaders have been warning printers for years that the traditional ways are dying or dead, and the industry as a whole has yet to make the leap into the world of online marketing and sales.

It may be true that the traditional “quote and hope” method of selling is becoming less effective, but this is more due to a change in print buyers rather than the craft itself. 
 
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Get out of the Basement.  You are a Consultant, not a Commodity.

How many times have you tried to sell print services to a customer only to be told “ABC Company can give me the same quantity for cheaper?”

This may be true, but the problem does not lie with ABC’s pricing, but rather with you.  If you believe that printing services are a commodity, then by all means lower your prices until the race to the bottom puts you out of business.

If you’d rather grow your business and customer base, then keep reading.
 
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Printing with Google.

You can have the greatest equipment, the speediest turnaround times and a dozen pickup locations, but if no one can find your web site, you will be missing out on thousands of potential customers every day.

The best way to get these customers is to ensure that when a visitor types “Printers in [your region]” you are the first result they see.

Called “Search Engine Optimization” or “SEO”, this practice is a way of streamlining the structure and content of your website to make it “Google friendly” for the specific keywords you want to rank for.

SEO issues are constantly in the minds of printers who rank well. How do I get higher rankings on search engines?  Why is my printer website not showing up on the top pages of search engines?  Why are my online printing products not selling?
 


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