'On Demand' Printing Benefits Small Businesses

Digital printing or ‘on demand’ printing, as it is sometimes known is a fairly recent edition to a very old established industry. The arrival of digital printing has revolutionised the print industry and significantly changed the way small businesses are now able promote themselves.

Digital printing has reduced the costs of small run print jobs and significantly reduced the turnaround times. This enables a small business to send their customers highly targeted, highly effective marketing messages.

Short run, full colour litho printing was an expensive option for small businesses. A large proportion of the cost was down to the time consuming and costly process of setting up a traditional 'lithographic' printing press. These set-up costs meant that it simply wasn't cost effective to print a few copies of a document or brochure, so small businesses had to think long and hard about what they would print as many hundreds or even thousands of copies would need to be printed.

The set-up process for litho printing would also mean that delivery schedules would be much longer, perhaps a couple of weeks. You also needed storage space for all your printed documents, as you had so many extras printed over and above your initial requirement, you also ran the risk of them being out of date before you used them.

So to summarize the benefits of digital printing to your small business:

• Ordering your print 'on demand' means that you only order the quantity you want
• Turnaround times for digital printing are faster than traditional printing
• Your literature, information and prices will be more up to date and accurate
• Your offers can be changed more often perhaps seasonally, instead of repeating the same offer several times a year
• You can have specific targeted versions of your literature for each group of customers instead of ‘one size fits all’
• You will get a better response rate the more accurately you target your literature and offers and you can even add scarcity value
• You can test your marketing messages by trialling different versions and then printing larger quantities of the most successful version
• You will be more environmentally friendly as you will have less old out of date literature to throw away

Digital printing has significant benefits to small business owners enabling them to get the most out of their resources and time, both very valuable commodities in the current climate. Being able to specifically target your marketing messages and change and adapt them to the constantly changing environment means you will be in the right place, at the right time with the right message for your prospects and customers.

Who is your prospect in your target market?

Having taken into account the 7 key areas, which I discussed in more depth the previous blogs, listed here as a quick reminder:

1. Worries
2. Age
3. Gender
4. Education
5. Relationship/marital Status
6. Income
7. Location

Now it is time to construct a specific profile for your target market and make it really personal, this will then provide you with a picture in your mind, you will now be talking to one specific person and we all know its much easier to talk to just one person, than stand up in front of an audience of thousands.

Your reader will also feel like you are really just talking to them, and them alone, you know their circumstances, you can empathise with them, you are on their wave length, speaking their language, understanding their needs and wants.

Now imagine how well you message will be received, you are appealing to their emotions, they want what you have to offer.

So, bearing all this in mind get started with generating your person, give them: a name, age, gender, marital status, occupation, home, location, children, pets, hobbies etc

Some examples might be:

John is a 22 year old single, care free, no responsibilities, university student, who lives in a shared flat with two other guys. He lives a short distance from university and uses his bike to get to and from lectures. He is into facebook, twitter and the internet and only opens his post if it’s vital and important, conducts his life online and on the phone. Is into sports and fitness, goes to the gym, plays football and cycles. Plans to go around the world when he qualifies in 4 years time before starting work as an accountant.

Sally is a 35 year old married working mum with two children, a 5 year old boy David and an 8 year old girl Jane. She and her husband Paul have their own business in landscape gardening, Paul does all the gardening and Sally runs the office, so she can be around for the kids. They live in a small house in town, run two cars and go abroad once a year in the school summer holidays. They have a cat, a dog and two rabbits. All the family use computers and the internet regularly for work, pleasure and school work, Sally books the summer holiday online every year.

You can expand your prospect profiles with as much detail as you feel is suitable to enable you to picture this person in your mind’s eye; I hope you find the two examples useful and a good starting point to get your thoughts flowing.

You can quickly see from the two examples above how different your messages would need to be to make them interesting and attractive to either John or Sally and her family. You can also see how sending a message that suits John would be a complete waste of time and energy if it was sent to Sally, more importantly Sally may be turned off from one of your products or services in the future because she has already received something from you that is of no interest to her. However had you sent out the correct profile message you could have kept her interested for something in the future.

7 Things you need to know about your prospects in your target market – Part 7

Their location, where do they live, in a flat or house, in the town or country.

This is not the same as income related i.e. big house in the country, again this is about what they will need and want, a lawnmower is no good if you are living in a flat.

You also need to be aware of both cultural and regional differences, whether you plan to sell across the world or just across the UK ( or your own country) you will still have differences you need to be aware of, possibly even offering different language options.

Values can change widely from north to south and east to west, so be aware of this and target your message accordingly.

These 7 key areas to consider when writing your target message to your prospects will ensure you come away with a much more specific message targeted to and written for YOUR audience at that time.

Also, an added benefit, having done it once, for one , you will find it easy and quick to target the same offer with a new focused message to a different audience when applicable.

In the next blog (part 7 bonus) I will write more about your specific target market profile and how to develop one for all you marketing messages across the web, email, sales letter whatever you use to talk to your prospects.

7 Things you need to know about your prospects in your target market – Part 6

Their income, this is not a rich or poor scenario, as both may have a need for your product or service, but there may be different levels of service you can offer, or an entry level product with accessories as extras, rather than everything you need purchased at the same time.

……….to be continued

7 Things you need to know about your prospects in your target market – Part 5

Their relationship/marital status, it’s not a case of are they married, but more the difference between the message to a single 40 something, with lots of disposable income and few responsibilities or a married person in their 40’s with two kids, a mortgage and a lot of responsibilities.

……….to be continued

7 Things you need to know about your prospects in your target market – Part 4

Their level of education, this is similar in some respects to the age related question, once again we need to speak in language the recipient will readily understand.

It is not a case of treating everyone like idiots or conversely like brain boxes, but being appropriate in what we say and how we say it, to ensure the right message is received and understood by the right audience - your target customer.

……….to be continued

7 Things you need to know about your prospects in your target market - Part 3

Their gender, even though we live in a more equal society, we still tend to segment by gender and market accordingly to the specific needs and wants of the different sectors.

……….to be continued

7 Things you need to know about your prospects in your target market - Part 2

2. Their age, this may seem unusual, but think about it, everything we say or write is targeted to our recipient, after all we may have the same conversation with our grandmother and our children, but we definitely do not use the same language.

The words we use are all different, the styles, the type of expressions, even perhaps slang or text speak.

……….to be continued