The keys to running a successful print shop are the same as ever, even in the digital realm: get your brand name out there, give people reasons to try you, and provide such a good service that customers keep coming back. Social media can help you do each of these things, making it a powerful promotional tool.
If you run a print shop, then, you should absolutely commit time and effort to establishing and maintaining a social media presence — but how exactly should you use it? Let’s take a look at 7 social media ideas that are perfectly suited to promoting printing services:
In a time of digital content, there’s a lot of appeal to having things printed. You can take advantage of that interest by running a competition through social media. Here’s an example: you could ask your followers to share some original artwork along with your assigned competition hashtag, with the promise that you’ll select the best five pieces to print on canvas and send to the creators. It’s a great way to drum up some attention.
There must be certain pieces of work that you’re particularly proud of, whether due to their complexity or their turnaround speed — provided you get the go-ahead from the clients, you can showcase those pieces on social media. Plenty of printing websites offer little more than concept art — mockups of what they claim to do — so there’s power in having real-world proof. Online buyers like to see accurate images of what they’re getting, after all.
It’s too costly to produce printed catalogs in bulk, particularly since plenty of customers will be happy with your digital service listings, but that doesn’t mean you should never make them. Make a social media note that they’re available upon request, then send them out when asked: it might give you the edge you need (with everything moving online, holding a physical product in your hands is more compelling than ever), and shouldn’t cost you too much.
Almost every type of business can benefit from demonstrating personality on social media, because people prefer to work with brands they like. Tell your followers stories about how your business came into existence, why you do what you do, and what you hope to achieve in the future. The more you come across as likeable, the more customer loyalty you’ll win — and lasting business relationships are extremely important for your long-term success.
Simple and reliably effective, the basic retail discount works perfectly on social media because you can make it easy to use and promote it without much effort. If your site CMS has native marketing features, you should be able to generate coupons and discounts before sharing them automatically across your social media accounts — if it doesn’t, look for suitable plugins (such as these for WooCommerce) and use those to set them up.
Showing proof of your work is great, but what goes excellently with that is offering direct feedback from your happy customers. There are various reasons why prospective customers might hesitate before working with you (they’re not sure if your prices are justified, they’re not ready to trust that you’ll meet an important deadline, they have questions about the quality of the materials and tools you use, etc.), and testimonials tend to address them directly, making the decision to pick you significantly easier.
Some companies can’t show too much of what happens behind the scenes for fear of giving away their secrets, but a printing company can (and should). With the help of an online video editor, create videos of its printing process in action.. It looks interesting (many people don’t really understand what goes into printing), and gives you an opportunity to show the professionalism and high standards of your operation. All you need is a decent smartphone to record some behind-the-scenes footage: you can even try running a live stream if you have a decent following.
If you can implement just one of these social media ideas, it should help you get some more traction with your prospective customers. Implement all of them, however, and you’ll surely see a significant uptick in engagement and conversion.
Author Bio:
Kayleigh, a writer from MicroStartups.org – a blog dedicated to supporting micro businesses by donating its ad revenue to a different charity each month.