You'd be amazed how many print shop owners are quite good
at stupid marketing. They aren't actually stupid but they aren't professional
marketers, either. Stupid marketing mistakes are often obvious and can be disastrous.
One classic example of stupid marketing is:
A print shop owner looking to expand his business finishes some lessons and decides to identify himself as a marketing services provider. As a good marketer, he knows he must let all of his customers know about his new services. He designs a very clever direct mail postcard campaign and adds some personalization to impress his audience.
The campaign is hugely successful as evidenced by the print shop’s website experiencing a 45% increase in traffic immediately after the postcards are delivered. However, no phone calls, emails or any other communications are forthcoming. In fact, business overall seems to turn down rather than up!
What’s the problem? Stupid marketing, of course!
As happens too often, the print shop owner failed to stand back and look at the image he was projecting to the marketplace. What’s that?
The owner did a great job announcing his new services and pushing his customers to his website…but, his old, ugly website delivered a totally different message to his customers:
One classic example of stupid marketing is:
A print shop owner looking to expand his business finishes some lessons and decides to identify himself as a marketing services provider. As a good marketer, he knows he must let all of his customers know about his new services. He designs a very clever direct mail postcard campaign and adds some personalization to impress his audience.
The campaign is hugely successful as evidenced by the print shop’s website experiencing a 45% increase in traffic immediately after the postcards are delivered. However, no phone calls, emails or any other communications are forthcoming. In fact, business overall seems to turn down rather than up!
What’s the problem? Stupid marketing, of course!
As happens too often, the print shop owner failed to stand back and look at the image he was projecting to the marketplace. What’s that?
The owner did a great job announcing his new services and pushing his customers to his website…but, his old, ugly website delivered a totally different message to his customers:
- He does/did a lousy job of marketing himself
- He doesn’t keep his own marketing up-to-date
- He’s not particularly good with details
- He doesn’t have much sensitivity to image or brand
- If he’s this sloppy in his marketing, what else suffers?
We make this point intentionally edgy because we continue to see print shop owners doing this. But, now the good news!
We also see many other businesses doing exactly the same thing.
If your print shop does website design, you may have just learned a new trick for identifying and selling website opportunities.
