Printwear & Promotion The Total Promotional Package
Colin Sinclair McDermott aka The Online Print Coach explains why now could be the time to pivot or adopt some new sales strategies.
In this article of Printwear & Promotion I thought I would turn our attention to a question I’ve been asked numerous times within my own community this last month of so. ‘What do I do when I feel I’ve exhausted all of my local sales opportunities?’.
This could be down to a number of reasons. Perhaps you are based in a fairly remote region of the UK or on the flip side, you’re located somewhere where you simply feel there is too much competition. Relying on friends, family, and loyal customers can soon tap out your local market. It could be time to pivot or perhaps adopt some new strategies that I’ll lay out today.
Sell online
If you’re not already doing so, I would seriously consider selling your products online.
The e-commerce market for garment decorators is growing rapidly and if you don’t hop on the bus soon, you will be missing out on potential sales opportunities. It also allows you to reach customers beyond your local area far more easily. There are obvious ways like Shopify you can utilise to take your products online or build something more bespoke through platforms like WordPress.
The biggest issue I see with garment decorators moving online is that they work hard to take their business online and sadly stop there, waiting for the work to start trundling in. It might seem like an obvious mistake but you’d be amazing how often I see this happen.
If you’re going to launch a platform selling online, you need to have a firm marketing strategy in place to drive traffic to your site. You’ll need to invest time in search engine optimisation (SEO), social media, email marketing, etc. but if you get it right, I always say ‘The best thing about selling online is receiving orders while you sleep’. When I ran my own printing business, there was nothing more satisfying than coming into the office in the morning and picking up all the orders that came in overnight.
Social media
Social media can be an essential tool for expanding your reach. My preference will always be LinkedIn when selling B2B however platforms like Instagram and Facebook offer powerful advertising tools to target your ideal customer, more so if selling B2C. People love to see garments being produced so showing behind-the-scenes videos, customer testimonials and time-lapse clips of your decorating process can go a long way. And if TikTok doesn’t get banned here in the UK, you could consider using this to showcase your work too.
Enter a niche market
Another avenue worth considering is niching down in a particular sector. As someone who’s grown their own business by solely coaching businesses in print, signage, and garment decoration, it’s cut out a large chunk of competition and helped me stand out in a thriving market.
You might want to consider focusing on specific industries such as hospitality uniforms, sports teams, or corporate branding. Niching down not only helps you craft more tailored marketing messages but also as I mentioned, helps you establish yourself as an expert in that field.
Speak to your customers
Lastly, you want to ensure you’re definitely getting the most out of your current customers before you go looking for new ones. It’ll cost you a whole lot less and save you more time. How many times have you spoken to an existing customer and they’ve said ‘Oh, I didn’t know you done that?’. Plenty I expect.
The key to long-term success lies in your ability to recognise when to pivot and adapt. There are still plenty of opportunities out there. You just have to decide which path to go down.
