When evaluating inkjet equipment remember to look outside of your normal book of business. Or, if you already own production inkjet and need to fill press time with nice value-added business, there are areas of printing which you can incorporate into your offerings that will demand a higher price. The key is to look at printing that is designed with a marketing strategy beneficial to your customer—customized, personalized and low run. High-speed production inkjet has changed the old sales model of “sell quantity,” to “sell quality” messaging. Your sales staff should be creating relationships, and helping customers create a customized marketing message throughout their printing.
Here are a few ideas, that with a little planning, can help you develop a robust marketing message for your customer while creating repeat business for your inkjet device:
Personalized Calendars: Although doing one-off calendars of bad holiday photos is nice (and amusing), there is real money to be made when having your sales staff approach local businesses. Creating a marketing plan that outlines their products for the entire year and printing it in calendar form will create a sales platform for your customers each month. Most local stores keep track of what their customers buy, so why not use that data to create personalized calendars that feature the products they buy the most with a coupon that they can use each month. Once the calendars are printed, punching and wire bounding is quick and simple. Jewelry stores are a great place to start. There are some great treated and coated papers available that will give the printed calendars the high-print quality needed for such images.
Customized Notebooks: If you have any kind of book binding, this one should be a no brainer. Approaching schools, trade organizations, convention centers and hotels—which are always promoting their establishment, products and services—is a good place to start. In the case of hotels and convention centers, having a resource for customized “business” oriented give-aways is a win. Talk to your customers about cross advertising and how selling space within such books is a good way for their schools and businesses to offset their printing costs. The key is to approach this concept with a well established marketing plan that will help your customer and make it easy to incorporate into their structure. Choose treated or coated stocks that have a structure like 116 to 200 gsm weights for the cover, and uncoated or treated (depending on print quality requirements) in 90 gsm for the book body.
Posters: When you look around a business, school or even restaurants, they all have one thing in common, posters or some type of paper signage. These items hang in offices or in areas of general public and get switched out often. Customized posters that follow the sales or marketing calendar theme mentioned above, creates a marketing “package” for your customers. When you go into any place of business, look around and notice all the printed material. Then ask yourself “how can I help keep this customer’s message or conversation going through the world of variable printing?” Consider a sturdy 150 to a 200 gsm regular offset grade for common text posters, and for higher print quality requirements, an inkjet treated grade.
For any of these ideas listed, creating various easy-to-use templates that customers can visualize will give them control to create great marketing products over and over.
If you are looking at adding production inkjet, here are a couple of items to keep in mind if you are wishing to have value-added business: Note the max gsm paper weight that can be used with each device. Having your options open for different areas of value-added business may be hindered by devices that cannot handle higher gsm weighted stocks. Also be aware of the max image processing size—some printers can only print 22” length or less. If you are looking to produce items that require longer print requirements, be sure you know the processing cut off length.
Printing products for your customers that are different will set you and your salespeople apart from your competition. Taking time and working out a plan with your customers will increase visibility, as well as help them create a marketing product that they wouldn’t have done otherwise.
Inkjet has created wonderful personalization and marketing options for customers. How does your sales team “work it” to benefit your customers’ marketing message?