How to boost sales withbusiness print a ste by step guide by AC Print Ltd

 

Whether you have a fully functioning marketing plan already set up for the year ahead or no plan written down but a keen eye for opportunity, you can boost every piece of marketing you create by adding the power of print to the mix.

Bold words, we know.  But true none-the-less.  After all, working print & digital marketing hand in hand leads to far higher results than either one alone.

How to boost sales with print:

This is our easy how to, step by step guide to take you through various kinds of marketing and how you could use print to boost the results of that activity.  You could pick one or two new ideas up, or use them all – it’s information we’re excited to share so please take advantage!

 

How to Boost Outdoor Advertising Results With Print

Run a targeted Direct Mail campaign.  Your potential customers have been driving past your advertising day in day out.  Now take things up a notch by sending Direct Mail direct through their door where they can’t forget about it.  They’ll instantly recognise the promotion as the one they’ve seen when they’ve been driving so will be already be interested and keen to take the next step.

  • Do you want to build traffic to your website?  Use this Direct Mail to give them a discount code to use on your website.
  • Do you want to build footfall to your shop?  Use this Direct Mail to give them a coupon to use in the shop.
  • Do you want to build email sign-ups?  Use this Direct Mail to tell them how they can get exclusive offers by signing up to your newsletter.
  • Do you want to build additional sales?  Use this Direct Mail to tell them about products that are relevant to the promotion.

Direct Mail can be used for almost any business objective.  Start your marketing campaign with outdoor advertising then watch your sales soar with Direct Mail.  The perfect combo.

 

How to Boost Radio Advertising Results With Print

You’re brand new jingle is featured daily at key times on the radio.  Within weeks your jingle and your business name is stuck in everyone’s heads.  The phone starts ringing.  Enquiries come in and sales are secured.  Fantastic.

But wouldn’t it be even better if you could do something to build on this and secure EVEN MORE SALES?

Use your radio ad to drive people to your website (they’re much more likely to remember your website than your phone number) and fill in a form to request a free brochure  / sample pack / leaflet / money off coupon / catalogue.  The aim is to obtain their contact details so that you can tell the people who are interested in what you have to offer, more about what you do / sell and drive them to BUY.

Print is used here as the mechanism by which you can spread the knowledge about what you do and why you’re worth it, to the people who are likely to buy from you.  In obtaining their contact details you can then add them to your mailing list / e-newsletter – a powerful way to generate future sales.  But crucially they also become sales leads who your sales team can call.

WE MAKE IT EASY for you too – we can print your brochures / sample packs / leaflets / coupons / catalogues and deliver directly to the customers requesting them.  All you have to do is send their details across on an excel type spreadsheet.  No boxes to store, no stamps, no trips to the post office.  We do it all for you.

So adding the print element to your radio advertising campaign will generate additional warm leads for your sales team AND increase the size of your mailing lists / newsletter database, with minimal workload on your part.

 

How to Boost TV Advertising Results With Print

TV advertising is expensive.  Very expensive.  So exploiting every opportunity to make the most of it is vital.  Print is key here as it allows you reach real people, directly, in a real way that they cannot miss or ignore:

  1. Exclusive vouchers linked to the TV promotion that give customers something extra whilst driving them to spend in store or online.
  2. Direct mail linked to the TV promotion driving people to visit one of your stores / website / social media pages – whatever your objective is.
  3. PVC banners outside of stores, promoting the TV advert.  McDonald’s is a great case study here, they advertise certain products with a limited availability and those stores selling it put up a banner so people know they can ‘buy here’, driving sales for those particular stores.  And if McDonald’s are doing it, you know it works!
  4. Point of sale is be used to trigger people to ‘buy today’.  They’ve seen your TV ad and now are in your shop.  Point of sale is there to remind people to buy today while the promotion is on or they will miss out!  Point of sale can range from large floor stickers to hanging graphics to wobblers hanging off of shelves to full on window displays.  The aim is to shout about your promotion as loudly as possible to drive immediate in store sales.
  5. Generate follow up sales with booklets, catalogues and leaflets in the carrier bag or even printed carrier bags.  Use specific promotional messaging tied into your TV ad that will drive customers to the website / social media pages / to make future purchases using money off coupons.  You can even warm them up with the dates of the next offer, always keeping them engaged.

 

How to Boost Social Media Marketing Results With Print

Print can be used in endless ways to drive your social media marketing results.

Initially it can be as simple as to direct real people who have an interest in what you do, to like / follow you on social media and sign up to your newsletter.  A simple tweak to your existing company brochure (though ideally everything you have printed) can have a powerful impact – add the symbol(s) of the social media sites you use and ‘Follow us @acprintltd’ for example.  It works like this:

  1. You’re using a call to action ie. telling people to follow you – they won’t do it if you don’t prompt them!
  2. You’re telling them how to find you – people are too busy to search for you so make sure you’ve made it easy for them.

Et voila!  Increased likes, follows and sign-ups.  In real terms what this means is more people seeing everything you post on social media and more people receiving your e-newsletter = more opportunities to reach more people and make more sales!

But this is just 1 way in which print can help your social media marketing steam ahead.  Some other highly effective ways include:

  1. Use direct mail to tie in  with a social media campaign and drive existing prospects/customers to not only buy but follow you / sign up to your newsletters.
  2. When visiting tradeshows and events advertise your social media pages, website and newsletter sign-up on your pull-up banner, leaflets and paper bags printed with you logo.
  3. Print bags or vouchers to give to customers in your shops and drive them to sign up to your newsletter / follow you on social media.

 

How to Boost Email Marketing Results With Print

This one is actually really straightforward, with 4 simple steps to success:

  • Send out your email newsletter on day 1
  • Send it again on day 3 but only to those who haven’t already opened it
  • Post out your related promotional leaflet or catalogue to arrive on day 7
  • Send a follow up email newsletter reminding the customer to place their order on day 14

Why does it work?

The easy answer is: you’re providing 4 opportunities for customers to buy rather than just 1.  But let’s break this down:

Your email newsletter goes out on day 1.  Roughly 20% of people will open it.  Of the people who open it let’s say 5% click through to your website to buy.  Your database consists of 1000 people so you’re looking in the region of 200 opens and 10 sales.  If you just relied on this email newsletter, you will just make 10 sales.

Re-sending the newsletter out to the 800 people who didn’t open it the first time will assure you of additional opens.  In our experience this is usually a slightly lower open rate around 15%, but that’s still 120 more people potentially opening your newsletter then if you didn’t send it at all.  Assume again roughly 5% of those people click through and you’re looking at around 6 more sales.  So already that’s a 60% increase in sales within a few days.

Almost 4 times as many people read all their post than open emails.  So if they didn’t read your initial email, or read it but forgot about it, they are unlikely to miss your posted leaflet / catalogue.   On top of this, catalogues sit very nicely on the coffee table and get looked at for up to 6 weeks after their arrival, drip feeding you with additional orders for a longer period of time.  Let’s break this down in the same way we have with email: your catalogue has been sent out to 1000 customers on your database.  790(ish) people open it.  If we assume similar sales rates of 5% then you could anticipate an additional 40 sales – 4 times as much as your initial email alone.

Your follow up email then reminds everyone who has received an email and / seen your catalogue, but  haven’t yet made a purchase, that now is the time to buy.  People are busy and quite simply could have forgotten so your prompt will pull through additional sales.  Looking at the same maths as before, your follow up email will go out to 944 customers (your 1000 database – 56 sales made so far).  A 20% open rate will mean 188 people have just been reminded to make their purchase.  Again if we assume 5% of these will click to buy, then you’ve just added 9 more sales to your total.

By following these steps it’s easy to see how 10 sales can be boosted 6.5 times to 65 sales.  Imagine if each one of these orders were worth £100 – that’s an increase from sales of £1000 to £6500!

 

You Have the Power

Now you know how to do it, make print part of every marketing campaign you run in 2016.

You can see the value of expanding your campaigns to incorporate print and just how diverse it can be depending on your objectives.  Using print to fulfil your business needs can lead you to increased sales leads, increased revenue, increased followers and engagement of real customers on social media, increased website visits and increased newsletter sign-ups.

Print as a key marketing tool provides support to the full sales cycle – creating leads that turn into repeat customers.

 

Contact our #PrintGeeks Today

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