Every business must have a promotional or sales strategy to be successful. It is important that you understand that there is a difference between the two, and what that difference is. Promoting is how you let people know that you have a decoration business that offers custom printing. Selling is going out and convincing someone to purchase from you. In the custom decoration world, you will likely do more promoting than selling. People purchase custom printed products when they need them, not on a whim or because you sold them on it.
So you need to consistently promote your business, products, and services. You can do this most easily by networking, passing out literature (like business cards and flyers), and by word of mouth. The more you promote your business, the more likely you are to grow your business. Once you obtain an order, you can put your salesman hat on and sell the customer additional or complementary products. You only need to sell custom decoration services when the customer is in the market for custom products.
If you operate a retail storefront, then you will likely have to do just as much selling as promoting. You will probably need to do a combination of traditional and online marketing. Traditional marketing revolves around face-to-face networking, mass mailers, billboards, radio, TV, and print advertisements. Online advertising revolves more around search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, affiliate marketing, and social media marketing. It is important to always keep your return on investment (ROI) in the back of your mind.
The good thing about internet marketing is that almost all of it is easily trackable, so that you are able to know what method or methods are actually leading to sales. Make sure that you not only make your money back from promotional costs, but that it is increasing your revenue. These marketing efforts promote your business to get your customer to come and check things out, and that is where you start selling. Once your customer is in the door, you have the ability to push certain products that they might not have otherwise considered. Online marketing works much in the same way. The first goal is to get the customer to a website through promotion, and then close the sale once they are in a position to make a purchase.
Once you have a good understanding of the difference between promoting and selling, you can begin to create promotion and sales strategies. As stated above, it is a good idea to create a promotional strategy that combines traditional and online marketing methods. Once you have developed your brand, create some literature that explains what your business offers and why potential customers should order from you. Simply having business cards and fliers accomplish this. Both are relatively inexpensive, and they are an easy way to allow customers to share your information through word of mouth. If someone asks for a business card, then give them more than just one and ask them to tell their friends and family about your business. Everyone needs custom printed products at some point, and no marketing is better than having one of your clients tell another potential customer about your services.
Another inexpensive way to promote your products and services is through social media marketing. Social Media sites are accessed by millions of unique people daily, and those visitors actually give away information on their interests, hobbies, and even their shopping habits. By simply using your time to update social media accounts, or using Facebook’s easy-to-use targeted marketing, you can push your brand so that it reaches many interested potential customers. Start with these simple promotion methods as they will have a higher initial ROI and are low stakes in comparison to some other forms of promoting a new small business.
A sales strategy all starts with your pitch to potential customers and clients. Your pitch is something that will get better with time and experience. Your pitch starts with selling your business, products, and services. Simply explaining what you do, how you do it, and why the potential client should order from you should be the focus of your message. Once you have pitched to your client, be ready to answer questions about your business or your decoration processes. There is no such thing as being too prepared when meeting to conduct a potential sale, and this is where your research will come in handy.
However, knowing everything about a certain product or decoration method is simply not enough. If you know the client you are going to be meeting with, then do some research on them and customize your pitch around their business. Every client is going to have different wants and needs, and by simply going online and visiting their website and social media pages you can learn a lot about their business. Also, while selling keep in mind that no one likes a pushy salesperson, but also that you need to be in control of the situation. Do not allow potential clients to walk all over you in order to make a sale. They will expect you to continue to make concessions for them as long as they buy from you. Be firm, but not inflexible. Clients who order custom decorated products typically do so several times throughout the year, so your first meeting is your only chance to make a good first impression and build rapport.
Promoting and selling your business, products, and services is simple, but not easy. There is a lot of competition, but at the same time there is a lot of demand. Being able to create a unique promotional and sales strategy that caters to your target market or an individual client will greatly improve your odds of making a sale. Just know that promotion and selling are not something learned over night and you will make mistakes. These are skills that you will develop over time as you and your business grow. Your hard work and determination should be enough in the meantime to win over prospective clients if you make it clear that you know what you are doing and can fulfill their needs.
