The New Year is right around the corner, and everyone wants a fresh start. There is no better time to plant seeds with customers that keep your business growing in 2024, and beyond.

Consider these three ideas to open new business opportunities in 2024.

New Business Consulting

Mission: Stand apart from the crowd by helping your customers improve their bottom line, communications and engagement by understanding their short and long-term business goals. 

How it Manifests: Set up ‘new business development’ meetings to understand how your customers are trying to grow their business, their sales and communications prospects, and any targets they are setting for customer acquisition and/or revenue they will share.

Gather info, do not make any suggestions or plans at the meeting other than giving them a date they will hear back from you with a New Business Development Plan mapped out for as long as is relevant.

Go back and strategize with your team. What have these customers ordered previously? What are they missing? How can you help them improve their materials and print smarter?

Your formulated plan includes a menu of print and omnichannel options, including value-add options for those options. Customers can pick items from your curated list of materials that help them achieve their business goals. 

Your customers are choosing what they want, you aren’t selling them. There is a big difference in that. If they print more or spend more… bonus. Either way you win and firmly establish yourself as part of their team and their success when goals are met or exceeded.

Customer Convenience

You have invested in state-of-the-art printing equipment, software and technology. Do you share that information as it relates to customer benefits?

Customer convenience comes with a cost. Customers are willing to pay for it – don’t you?

Need a package tomorrow? A quicker ride share pick-up? Next day service at the dry cleaner? Priority security screening at the airport? These are all examples of customer conveniences. And they have convenience costs. The system already exists and is accepted. 

Mission: Make a list of all the ways you offer customer convenience. For example, your press, finishing and/or workflow investments help your customers get to market faster, you have an online ordering system, you have online portals where customers can store logos, images and files, you have online design tools, and so-on.

How it Manifests: Create messaging around these conveniences and price accordingly. If you are challenged on price, don’t get sucked into a ‘commodity’ conversation. Re-focus on how your price includes customer convenience, and how it manifests on that job. Most people are willing to pay a little more for something that benefits them.

Work customer convenience into your overall marketing and sales messaging to attract new customers. Testimonials are perfect for this talk track. Ask a few of your best customers how you make their job easier, and share – share – share those quotes, everywhere!

Productize!

Bundling services and creating a product name for them is the fastest way to increasing work and revenue for your print business – especially if you incorporate a little psychology into it.

The Mission: Close your eyes and picture a car wash menu. Starting from the lowest cost bundle of services to the highest, they are adding in services and increasing the price. Simple formula. 

Where it gets creative is how car washes name the bundles.  The difference between a ‘basic’ wash and the ‘ultimate’ may be $13-15 with all the add-ons. But sitting right below ultimate is the ‘deluxe,’ which offers way more than the ‘basic’ and almost as much as the ‘ultimate’ but costs less. 

How can you pass that up? You feel like you have won. You got more for less. 

How it Manifests: Apply the concept to your services by creating bundled offerings that are specific to the needs of your customers, their customers, vertical markets and so on.

Here are some examples of that have a lot of options:

New Business Acquisition

Customer Retention/Loyalty

Marketing for Start-ups

Meetings and Events in a Box

Create your own version of basic, deluxe and ultimate packages within those topics. 

Price the bundles so starting at deluxe makes your customers feel like they are getting more for less. Show packages side by side so customers and prospects can see all your offerings and learn about things they didn’t know you could do. Bonus!

I hope you are already thinking beyond how you currently offer and communicate about your services. Attend my thINK Academy class on this topic on November 16, I’ll go a little deeper into each idea.

Until then… Print Long and Prosper!