Aggressive marketing / new to business!

[cptl.ak]

Hey everyone,

Spent a couple hours on this forum today and i'm loving it. I just moved into the wide format screen printing / wheel covers area from having spent the last 20 years offering offset print and packaging, This is a fairly new area to me. I've got a Roland Versacamm and a Mutoh (which is giving me hell) but I'm chugging along.

Either way, because of the guerilla market area that I am in, I'm thinking of coming up with some sort of marketing / catchy phrase's that I can put alongside our ads in the newspapers, I have always receieved this crap about how I'm expensive but at the same time the quality of our products is best in the area.

Can anyone help me with any marketing lines / tags / phrases that I can throw alongside my ad's, I thought of "defining printing" "if its not Best Digital Printing, its nothing", something along the aggressive side, i'm loosing hair now!
Thanks in advance

 

[kylebrk]

Embrace the fact that your more expensive. Tell them there is a reason your more expensive. We tell customers everyday that we never want to be the cheapest.

Tell them they can get something for $25 from vista print, or they can have what they want that actually looks professional and will make them money, but they cant get both.

Also, if you are in a market that is very price sensitive and there are a lot of competitors, no catch phrase is going to help. Get out there and network and establish relationships.

just sayin...

 

[Fred Weiss]

I agree that a catch phrase isn't going to overcome low cost competition. Perhaps meeting it head on is a superior solution. One proven way is the three tier presentation:

Offer three choices for the proposed sign. The choices can be named anything you like but one example would be

• Economy
• Standard
• Deluxe

In this approach the choice is put to the customer while you are simply offering more options for whatever quality the client is willing to pay for or do without. Economy is made with lower cost materials and has a minimum of design features. Standard is the sign you are happy to sell. Deluxe has the best materials and lots of design features.

The concept was explained to me years ago by Butch "Superfrog" Anton in a seminar he gave. The example he used was boat numbers. I'm not sure that you use such items in Tanzania but, here in the U.S., most boats are required to be registered and to display the registration number on each side of the boat. Butch's offer was for plain cut letters @ $30 a pair, outlined two color letters for $50 a pair and outlined two color letters with a hand painted drop shadow for $70 a pair. The results after a couple of years were 10% bought the one color economy version, 60% bought the two color standard version, and 30% bought the deluxe drop shadowed version.

The point is that if you offer your clients an "alternate of choice" you are at the same time educating them in a helpful way while exposing them to a "fear of loss" by dealing with the cheaper competition. If you do this properly will never have to speak against your competition, you will see your closing rate improve dramatically and most of your clients will choose a higher cost option than they can get from your competition.

 

[JoySigns]

That's a great answer/advice Fred!

 

[copythat]

Price too high!

I am as I posted prices here before, very high price. I recently had a new client leave. He comes in for business cards & tells me I'm new in the area & I'll be giving you lots of business in the future. So give me a good price! I told him that we provide a value here & NEVER sell on price. When I tell him that it will cost him $36 set-up plus $55. for 500 full color, he tells me that the guy at the flier factory sells it for $19 for 1000. I told him then go to him. They do sell it for $19 I know that for a fact. His template and no going off of his set-up. Black & white only!!!

So I say to you. Use VALUE in your advertisement & never give in to the DEVIL (Price).


Sign up!

 

[signswi]

If you want to be aggressive you could get some examples from your competitors (buy them like you're a normal customer) and keep them in your shop to show as comparisons. I don't do that in the sign business but an offset shop I worked at did that for business cards. Once the customer felt and saw the difference the price qualms almost always disappeared. I imagine you could come up with something similar with wheel covers.

 

[GypsyGraphics]

Nix the catch phrase idea, they rarely have the desired effect.
unless your a ninja turtle... "heroes in a half shell" :ROFLMAO: ...always thought that was brilliant.

 

[SignManiac]

Appeal to their ego, that works well for me. I let them know that I am the Cadillac of signs for good reason. Once they see my work, they soon realize why. They get bragging rights with my signs and they know it, but you damn well better give them something no one else can to back it up with...

 

[Craig Sjoquist]

Many make signs (your name ) makes advertising

 

[Craig Sjoquist]

Oh yea Fred's post does the trick also and well.

 

[GypsyGraphics]

Appeal to their ego, that works well for me. I let them know that I am the Cadillac of signs for good reason. Once they see my work, they soon realize why. They get bragging rights with my signs and they know it, but you damn well better give them something no one else can to back it up with...

you know you've arrived when people can brag about having used you!

i'm not there yet... but the best compliment i ever received from a client, came from someone who initially said "i'd love to use use but i just can't afford you.

i didn't offer to adjust my price to suite his budget, instead i suggested he interview several designers and gave tips to help him make his choice. a couple of weeks later he came back and said "i decided i can't afford NOT to use you." he's been a loyal client ever since!

don't let clients determine your worth, they'll never think much of you if you do.

 

[Techman]

As an addendum to freds example..

I am selling display cases I designed and manufacture on my router table.
I have an economy model and a premium model that is three times the price.
I sold just 2 economy and gave away 3 of them just to get rid of them.

I sold 29 premiums with another order Friday.
Once they see the premium model compared to the economy model they almost always buy the higher priced example.

 

[signswi]

Common trick is three models/options, not two, and price your ideal price point on the middle offering as that's what everyone will want.

 

[TommyFastLane]

Im a newbie to the sign business...... But it was told to me like this.. " FAST, GOOD AND CHEAP. You can only have two. If you want fast and cheap they wont be good. If you want good and fast they wont be cheap!"