Are You Taking Time to Teach Your Customers?
When it comes to long-term customers, it’s easy to fall back on the old saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Focusing all of your sales efforts during the acquisition phase undoubtedly works well for newer companies trying to grow rapidly. But for established marketing solution providers, this strategy ignores a deep well of opportunity for increased revenue.
That’s because the people who buy print usually don’t make a conscious effort to stay up to date about what modern print providers can do. They have no reason to keep up with the cutting-edge advancements in areas like digital print technology, omnichannel campaigns, automated web to print workflows, and the like.
You can become a resource for your customers that they can rely on to learn about the latest and greatest trends and tools in print marketing. Let’s look at 3 ways you can start teaching your customers and get additional business and stronger customer relationships.
Analyze Your Customer List
If you haven’t made a habit of proactively informing your customers about services and products you offer that could be of use to them, the best way to start is methodically. Start by analyzing your customer list to identify gaps between what you offer versus what you actually are selling.
Write down your biggest customers and the customers with whom you’ve developed stable working relationships. Next to each customer, list what services they currently buy from you. What do you offer that they don’t take advantage of? What might they not even know you could do? And, most crucially, try to come up with reasons why these customers aren’t leaning on you for more.
If you have more to offer in terms of auxiliary services, creative support, and specialized products, then it’s in both you and your customer’s best interest to highlight what’s possible and deepen your relationship with your biggest customers by doing so.
Create A Mailing List
For your biggest customers, after you’ve identified which offerings might make the most sense, the next step is simply reaching out and forming a habit of proactive communication. This can be as simple as being curious. Ask questions about their current projects, how they do what they do, etc. These conversations can naturally lead to openings where it becomes obvious how your services could shine.
For the list of customers who work with you infrequently, or just smaller accounts in general, consider a mailing list. Mailing lists are great ways to non-intrusive, regularly stay in touch with past, present, and future customers. The most straightforward way to do this is to have a blog section on your website where you make short, simple posts every few weeks or so. Then send out that blog through a mailing list.
Make it easy to subscribe to the list with a form on your blog, on your website’s main page, or even in your email signature. Pitch your mailing list as an easy way to get tips and ideas for improving marketing campaigns regularly delivered to your inbox.
Social media is another great avenue for sharing ideas, tips, and new services too. And the convenient thing about platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook is that it requires even less work on the part of your customers to access the information.
Give Value, Not Just Your Pitch
Speaking of mailing lists and blogs, it’s important to note that these resources should focus primarily on giving value to current and potential customers, not selling. Even though ultimately, the goal of all this is to sell more and diversify what your customers buy from you, that shouldn’t be the tone you hit when communicating.
Think of it like this. The people you sell your services to are always looking for the best way to reach their own customers. They want to improve their business and widen the reach of their marketing and advertising. They also probably don’t keep up with the best practices and newest technologies that exist in the world of print marketing. So, if you can be that industry specialist who keeps them up to date and provides a consistent stream of helpful information about direct mail, the newest trends in print materials and technologies, new omnichannel marketing opportunities, and the like, you become more than just a vendor. You become a valuable resource.
Then, all you have to do is link the things you’re teaching your customers with your services. So not only are you teaching your customers about how they can market better, you can seamlessly show them how these concepts can be applied with the services you provide.
