How Marketing Automation Can Help Your Print Business: Part II

By JOHN FOLEY – January 23, 2017

Missed part I of this mini-series? Please click here to read my previous post!

How Marketing Automation Benefits Your Print Business

Marketing automation offers big benefits to your print business:

• Time-saving. Once you’ve set up your initial workflows and triggers, marketing automation takes care of the rest. No more time spent carrying out each task manually.
• Never miss an opportunity. It’s all too easy to forget to send a follow-up email or put in a call. With marketing automation everything is scheduled so you’ll never miss an opportunity for client contact again.
• More relevant marketing messages. With marketing automation, you can make sure your print customers only see information that’s relevant to them. That means you’ll stand out as truly understanding their current needs.
• Better lead nurturing. From an initial website visit, email or phone call, you can nurture each lead towards ordering print materials from you.
• Build customer loyalty. More relevant messages and better segmentation means better customer loyalty. You can nurture long-term relationships and encourage your customers to come back to you for their printing needs again and again.
• Improve your reputation. As well as making sure information is sent in a timely fashion and contacts are always followed up, marketing automation also cuts down on human error such as spelling mistakes. The overall effect? Your print business looks professional at all times.
• Save money. Marketing automation cuts down the amount of time your staff needs to spend on marketing tasks. Instead, they can spend more of their time on core business tasks, which is more cost effective for your print business.

Marketing automation means you can stay in touch with customers and boost sales while saving time and effort.

How to Use Marketing Automation to Grow Your Print Business

Marketing automation can grow your print business, getting you more sales and more customers, and encouraging existing customers to come back.

There are many ways to use marketing automation to grow your print business. However, they all start with two vital things:

First, know how you’re going to segment your audience. You might segment your audience by:

• Length of time as a customer
• The industry they work in
• Previous orders
• Actions such as ordering online or downloading content

Second, make a plan for each audience segment. Ask yourself:

• What do you want marketing automation to achieve with each segment?
• What can you offer them that is truly useful?
• What can you do at every stage of their relationship with you to move them closer to a purchase or build their loyalty?

Once you’ve identified your audience and your aims there are many ways to use marketing automation:

• Schedule social media posts to keep you in your customers’ minds
• Reach out to new clients to find out what their experience with you was like and if there’s anything else they need from you
• Alert returning customers to a special offer just for them
• Send out SMS alerts to customers to remind them of your most relevant services
• Invite customers to schedule a call with you to discuss their printing needs
• Send qualified leads useful content that establishes you as an authority
• Use emails (and other content such as blog posts and white papers) to guide customers towards purchasing printing services by showing them what your services can do for their business
• Send out follow up emails after a purchase or download
• Ask customers to fill out a survey or let you know what they need from you next

Marketing automation is a game changer for any printing business. You’ll be able to laser focus your content to speak directly to your customers and build long lasting and profitable relationships while saving time and effort.

I hope you enjoyed this two-part mini-series on how marketing automation can help printers grow their business. Feel free to tweet us at @MarketWithMAX if you have any additional questions on marketing automation!