How to diversify your business with sublimation

The business of doing business is pretty simple (in theory), no matter the industry in which you work. You provide a product or service to others who have a need for what you have to offer. Ingrid Van Loocke, channel marketing manager for Sawgrass, explains more.

What if you could take that relationship a step further and be able to offer those customers everything they need, instead of one niche of products? Your revenue stream would gain a healthy boost, while your customers would enjoy the convenience of being able to find all of the quality products they’re looking for in one place, and from a company they trust. Everyone wins.

But how do you make this happen? For print-on-demand businesses and digital decorators, diversity is the key to business growth in the current economy. The customers you already have are looking for economy and convenience. Why shouldn’t you be the one to give them what they want?

Though many decorators realise this fact, they struggle to make the decision to diversify because of the cost and time needed to learn a new type of production.

One solution that addresses all of these issues is sublimation. With low entry costs, minimal space for equipment usage and storage, quick return on investment and a seemingly limitless array of substrates, sublimation is the ideal solution for digital decorators who want to become an all-in-one service provider for their customers.

Sublimation explained

Sublimation is a digital printing process that allows any business to quickly and easily apply high resolution, full colour graphics to a wide variety of hard and soft goods, such as: plaques, awards, signs, iPhone covers, photo panels, clocks, tiles, coasters, mouse pads, mugs, poly performance apparel and much more.

It is easy to learn and the process really quick (less than two minutes in most cases). All you have to do is create, print and press. Use a graphic imaging programme to create a design based on whatever specifications you need. Then print that design using a printer designed to work with sublimation dye onto transfer paper. Finally, place your substrate, which must be made of or coated with a polymer, and transfer paper onto a heat press – and then the rest is all chemistry.

Cost of entry is comparably low, especially if you already have a computer and/or a heat press.  Return-on-investment is also much quicker. Labour and overhead costs are very low for creating sublimated products, while the retail value of such items is much higher. This translates into much greater profit potential and quicker return on investment.

 The reward

There are a few things that make sublimation a great addition to an existing business. First is the diversity of high margin products you will be able to sell to existing customers. Though sublimation only works on polymer surfaces, wood, plastic, glass, acrylic, metal and stone can all be coated for sublimation. Some ideas for expanding your product line include:

• Promotional products – Bags, mugs, mouse mats, clipboards, key chains and the like are ideal promotional products that are easy to sublimate and sell for a high profit.
• Awards and recognition – You can offer customers high resolution, full colour plaques and trophies, in addition to the traditional single colour ones.
• Photo gifts and personalised gifts – Personalised products are extremely popular, and customers pay a premium for these items. Adding custom magnets, licence plates, clocks, commercial photo panels, mobile phone cases and similar items to your product line enables you to offer your existing customers more options.
• Apparel and textiles – Customise pre-made apparel or fabrics to be used in various cut-and-sew applications with dye sublimation inks for virtually indestructible images that are incredibly vibrant and detailed.
• Signage – Many of your customers are likely to need point-of-purchase, tradeshow or interior signage at some point in your relationship with them. With sublimation, you can expand your sales by creating high impact signage on demand.

Final tips

The list of rewards for diversifying your business go on and on. However, doing so will only make sense for you if you are prepared to actively upsell these new items to your existing customers and are ready to invest the time and money into learning how to create high quality products.

Active sales techniques are the key to increasing demand among your customer base. Talk with clients when they are placing orders and find out more about what they are doing (or hope to do). Suggest solutions and show them samples of your new products so they can see the outstanding quality you have to offer them.

Create and keep a set of samples, a palette of colours you can produce and other tangible items that will give your customers a sense of what their products will look like

Diversifying your product line with sublimation may seem like a huge undertaking right now. But with time, practice and a steady increase in profits, you’ll find that diversification really is the way of the future for the digital decorating industry.