UKvUSA: How to Ignite Your Print Sales Channels

Here’s the latest episode of UK v USA.  Here Deborah and I concentrate on how to improve print sales.

We know email and cold calling have diminishing returns. So listen to discover some practical and unusual tactics from both of us which will reinvigorate your print sales.

We’d love to hear your perspective. What tactics are working for you right now? Drop a comment below.

Mentioned in This Episode:

‘Your Next Print Customer is Already on the Calendar’: https://www.piworld.com/post/your-next-print-customer-is-already-on-the-calendar/

Appreciation Days Calendar PDF: https://printmediacentr.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Appreciation-Days-Calendar_Print-Media-Centr.pdf

‘How a Little Box Can Make a Big Impact on Your Printing Business’: https://www.piworld.com/post/how-a-little-box-can-make-a-big-impact-on-your-printing-business/

Hydraulic Press Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/HydraulicPressChannel/videos

Is It Cake?: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18314214/

Matthew Parker: https://www.linkedin.com/in/profitableprintrelationships/

Profitable Print Relationships: https://profitableprintrelationships.com

Deborah Corn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahcorn/

Print Media Centr: https://printmediacentr.com

Subscribe to News From The Printerverse: https://printmediacentr.com/subscribe-2

PrintFM Radio: https://printfmradio.com/

Girls Who Print: https://girlswhoprint.org

Project Peacock: https://ProjectPeacock.TV

TRANSCRIPT

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:02] DC: Print Buying UKvUSA is a series dedicated to helping printers create stronger, more meaningful, and more profitable relationships with print customers on both sides of the pond. I’m Deborah Corn, Founder of Project Peacock and Principal at Print Media Centr.

[0:00:21] MP: And I’m Matthew Parker, the champion of print at profitableprintrelationships.com.

[0:00:26] DC: We may not always agree, but that’s when it gets interesting. Turn up the volume, get out your notepad, and welcome to the program.

[EPISODE]

[0:00:41] DC: Hey, everybody. Welcome to Podcasts From the Printerverse. This is Deborah Corn, your Intergalactic Ambassador. More specifically, we are here with the UKvUSA Podcast. Which means, on the other end of this microphone is my archnemesis from the UK, Matthew “Not Horacio” Parker.

[0:01:03] MP: Hello, Deborah. How are you today?

[0:01:05] DC: Obviously, a little more excited than you. I’m taking over for you. If you remember our last podcast, you went insane. I was enjoying it very much.

[0:01:14] MP: Yeah, though I enjoyed this as well. Maybe I should just go a little crazy again at some point today. You never know. I might get to that rancid point.

[0:01:23] DC: Or as the kids say, “Go ham.” I like that one.

[0:01:26] MP: Go ham. Okay.

[0:01:27] DC: Go ham. Go ham. That means go crazy.

[0:01:29] MP: Go ham. Okay. Can I say that as a vegetarian? Can I go corn substitute, or something instead?

[0:01:36] DC: Let’s keep my name out of your mouth, please, sir. Let’s try that. Okay, especially with our substitute. There is no substitute for me, Matthew Parker. Bad. Okay. This is your episode to host. All I know is that we’re talking about prospecting in some form. So, why don’t you kick us off?

[0:01:58] MP: Okay. Every time I see a printing company approaching customers, specifically new business, what I’m finding is that they send an email, or they send an email that’s generated by AI, but let’s not go there, because I did that last time and I got very, very angry. Occasionally, they try ringing up. I just think that these days, everyone ignores emails. I mean, I kind of just select a whole batch of them and just delete them based on the headlines. If I think it’s a sales email, it just goes. Surely, probably the same for you as well.

I mean, people don’t read emails that they don’t want to read these days and they can pick them out. Gmail, for instance, has got much better. It just puts anything it suspects as sales into the promotional folder and it’s never even delivered to some of the customer looks. Then we tried picking up the phone. Sometimes I like to play along just if I’m a bit bored. I’ll just string a sales person along just to annoy them, because I don’t like getting cold sales calls. I don’t want someone ringing me up going, “Hey, Matthew. We do great print. It’s fantastic service, marvelous quality, cheap prices. Can we do you a quote?” I’ve heard it all before. No, I don’t want to do any of that.

That leaves printing companies with a problem, because if all they’re doing is getting on the phone and all they’re doing is going, “Hey, ChatGPT, can you write me an interesting sales email?” That sounds just the same as everybody else’s, then they’re not going to get any new business. What I thought today was we could put our collective heads together and come up with some new ideas for printing companies to approach new prospects. Actually, we’re going to do three each. My three Es aren’t even that new, particularly. They’re just things that they should be doing and I don’t see many people doing. I think we put our heads together, come up with six ideas for printing companies to get new prospects without relying purely on phone and email.
[0:04:05] DC: I have way more than six, sir. This is what I do all day.

[0:04:09] MP: Fantastic. Okay, well, we’ll do 116 then. I’ll do three and Deborah can do the next 130. By the way, guys, this is going to be a long, long episode. So, buckle in. It will be different.

[0:04:19] DC: He’s only kidding, everybody.

[0:04:22] MP: With your 113, you could be here for the next six hours.

[0:04:26] DC: Okay, Matthew. Let’s not make people click off the podcast. We have 30 minutes.

[0:04:30] MP: This is going to be six to the point useful ones. If you want more contact, Deborah. She’ll leave her contact details in the notes for the podcast. Right.

[0:04:40] DC: I’m just going to talk fast.

[0:04:42] MP: Okay. Deborah said that she wants to go second for everything. I’m going to kick off. The first one I’m going to suggest is wait for it, this is really radical. This is using print and sending direct mail. Sending print through the post. I mean, it’s not something that a printer should normally do, because we’re printers and we just pick up the phone and send emails. Why don’t we use the channel that we’re actually active in? Why don’t we evangelize what we do? Because nothing says use more print like a printer, sending you an email instead. Send a letter, potentially make it handwritten to your prospects. Now some people are going to go, “Oh, but it’s so much hard work having to write a letter for people.”

Well, first bit of news is sales can be hard work. That’s what it’s all supposed to be about. Secondly, it’s getting results. I read LinkedIn today, there was this digital marketer who was like, had had this sudden realization. I’m finding I’m getting really good results by sending my prospects a piece of mail, folks. You should try this. If digital marketers are coming out and saying that, when they should be evangelizing email and other forms of digital marketing, then you know what? Possibly, there’s something in it. Maybe we should be proud of what we’re doing. Maybe we should have faith in what we’re doing, and maybe we should send some sales letters as well.
If I’m going to send a sales letter to people, there’s a few things if you want to make it good. First of all, spend some money and some time and some effort on it. I’m not suggesting that you send 5,000 sales letters over the next three months. Pick out 20 prospects you’d really like to win, that you have a realistic chance of winning as well. Maybe don’t pick some massive brand if you’re a small company. But pick 20 prospects that you would really like to engage with. Send them a letter that has got some handwriting in it, because people connect with that, it seems personal. Put something in the letter.

Okay, now I’m not quite sure about the US postal regulations. I’d say, send them a bar of chocolate, or a brownie, or something, but send them something so that it looks bulky so that people want to open it. Send something that they’re actually going to want. Please, no more notepads, no more pencils, even personalized notebooks. I’ve got probably a whole cupboard of them these days. Send them something that they would like to have. Send them a letter explaining what it is that you do to help their business, not the fact that you’re a printer and you can do nice quality and good service and all the stuff that we expect you to do. Send them more than one and then follow it up.

The fact you’ve done that and people will remember it means you’ve got a far better chance of starting that conversation. I do not understand why people do not do this more. I still remember good pieces of mail that printers have sent me, where they’ve sent colorful printed envelopes that stand out from all the white envelopes and brown envelopes that we get through the post. They sent me big, oversized pieces of mail and, “Oh, what’s that?” It’s not difficult to stand out in this space. Deborah, your thoughts?

[0:08:04] DC: My thoughts, I’m not going to address your comments, because – This is my thoughts. I’m not going to address that, because I created my own new channels. I don’t care about the old channels anymore. You want to send print? You don’t want to send print? Good luck with all that. I’ve never received anything from a printer that made me just be like, “Oh, my God, I need to call these people,” ever, including in my advertising career, which just means there’s an opportunity to create something that would do that.

Okay, my first new channel, which is not calling, which is not emailing, which is not sending a piece of print, I’m calling Ignite, the Ignite channel, okay? My Ignite channel is for – it has to do a lot with my philosophy of how I became the Intergalactic Ambassador to the Printerverse, which is that I created a place where everybody wanted to come, my LinkedIn group, and then it branched from there. Ignite channel is “create a reason for people to notice you.” Use print creatively. Use all your capabilities to ignite inspiration in local businesses and show them possibilities that they may not have considered.

You might be saying, “How do I do that, Matthew?” Well, I started writing for Printing Impressions again. I shared an article about that Tesco made a wrapping of lettuce look like a soccer ball during the World Cup. Then I shared a list of all the Internet holidays that are out there that you can – like National Donut Day to go into the donut shops and say, “Hey, let’s talk about creating a campaign to get everybody in here for National Donut Day.” That’s the low-hanging fruit. Then go to anywhere that has a waiting room, an oil change place. You come in, get an oil change on National Donut Day and get a free donut while you’re waiting for – you have 15 minutes for your car. You can also upscale it. You can go to restaurants, or higher-end restaurants and have them create really special custom donuts on National Donuts Day. If you come in and you buy a steak dinner, you get a donut, whatever it might be, Ignite. I also wrote an article about little free libraries. I don’t know if you have them in the UK.

[0:10:33] MP: Yeah, we do.

[0:10:34] DC: You do? Okay. Create a little free library, or create a little free library, do-it-yourself kit that you can give to people. Print bookmarks. Put them in the little free library thing. Donate books. Put a little sticker, “We are proud to support this community.” And here’s a bookmark. Have your employees consistently refresh. One side could be a nice picture, the other side could be what you do, including we print books. It doesn’t matter. It’s igniting interest by not selling anything at all.

You could create a community scavenger hunt for the weekends. You can do a local business passport. We see that at trade shows all the time like, go to all these booths and then something happens. Okay, work with a bunch of your customers and create some sort of mutual beneficial tour. Or first, we’re going to go to the wine shop and do a wine tasting. Then we’re going to go get some appetizers at the restaurant and then we’re all going to go to the jazz club. Whatever it might be, that’s a way to stand out. Create something collectible for your own community, whatever that might be. Neighborhood postcards, historic landmarks, seasonal things that there are events in your place that people are doing. Sponsor overlooked community print.

We all talk about going to the farmers market and seeing if anybody there needs packaging help, or print help. By the way, they do. Think about the opportunity in a bigger place, a sponsored map. I mean, that’s one of the things. You never know who’s in the farmers market. Same thing, you’re doing bookmarks for the little libraries, do bookmarks and donate them to the actual libraries. School programs, just get involved by giving things. High school football is very big in the United States in some areas of the company. Print out programs, print out schedules. You know people are going to keep them for those Friday night late games that are very popular here.

Then, of course, look for local moments, openings, anniversaries, festivals, neighborhood events, seasonal celebrations and other opportunities where you can make your business part of your community and ignite printspiration and goodwill towards potential customers.

[0:13:11] MP: I like it. You’ve got to most of your 113 ideas already with that list. Okay.

[0:13:16] DC: I said, I’d talk fast.

[0:13:18] MP: Oh, guns. Yes, love it. It’s good. We’ve caught this from a slightly different angle. What I’m hearing from you is almost like the messaging and some, can I call it guerrilla marketing? Is that all right?

[0:13:27] DC: It is a little bit of guerrilla marketing. But to me, guerrilla marketing is not staying and engaging and igniting. It’s, I guess, okay, in this case for ignite, yes, guerrilla marketing ignites. What is that? I would agree with you on that. But the difference I think is what happens in the next step.

[SPONSOR MESSAGE]

[0:13:53] DC: Get ready to turn up the volume on print. PrintFM is a global internet radio station dedicated exclusively to print and graphic communications, accessible around the clock in every time zone. No more searching across channels and apps. PrintFM brings relevant topical programming from Print Media Centr, Girls Who Print, and an array of industry contributors who bring their own perspectives, guests, and conversations to the mix. PrintFM also broadcasts from industry events, with live shows being scheduled throughout the year. Visit printfm.com to explore our daily programming, event schedules, and opportunities to share your content or sponsor our shows. Expert discussions, real-world insight, and industry voices are just a click away. Listen long and prosper.

[EPISODE CONTINUED]

[0:14:52] DC: Go ahead. Give your second idea and then I’ll throw mine in.

[0:14:57] MP: Okay, so I’m harking back to when you said, you never know who’s in the library, or you never know who’s at the farmers market. Sorry, when you’ve got your maps there, you put your map in the farmers market, people pick them up and you never know who’s at the farmers market. It could be the CEO of a big company who likes that and then wants to get in touch with you potentially.

[0:15:15] DC: It could be somebody who, “Oh, my God. I was going to get my wedding invitations on 1800getmeaweddinginvitation.com. Now, there’s a local printer who is participating in this. I’m not suggesting offering discounts, but you can say, if you mention this farmers market, we will add something to your order. Maybe you give them a T-shirt, maybe you put some varnish on it, whatever it is, no discounts, but a free bonus something.

[0:15:46] MP: You’ve learned well from me, Deborah. No discounts.

[0:15:48] DC: Oh, God.

[0:15:50] MP: My next one is you never know who’s in a group of people. I think that these days, a lot of salespeople, either it’s in their comfort zone and they stick in the office doing all this email and phoning, or actually, they’re just set stupid targets by companies and are told to sit in the office and make emails and pick up the phone. But not enough people are actually doing networking. There’s lots of ways that you can network. There’s the business networking groups, some are better than others and it depends on what you’re looking for, but I do know people who’ve had a lot of success with those. Let’s take it further as well. I’m not, by the way, talking about the print networking groups as such, but there are a lot of things, like your local Chamber of Commerce. That’s a UK thing, but you have a similar in the US Chambers of Commerce.

There’s networking groups of people who are small businesses getting together. If you don’t know a networking group, why not start one? Just people getting together, not to sell to each other, but to talk about their common challenges, what they’re seeing in the markets at the moment, what they’re doing to overcome those challenges, they get to know you. Now the key thing with networking, and I got this very wrong when I started networking, was I immediately assumed that everyone I talked to was a sales target, and they’re not. But actually, if you can go out and help someone you meet, chances are the karma goes around and they will try and help you, or you’ll meet someone else who wants to try and meet you instead. It’s not who you know. It’s who your network knows.

It’s a bit like LinkedIn in that way, that I’ve got a good connection of LinkedIn connections. But actually, if I want to reach out to someone, I can probably put a message up on LinkedIn and go, “Is someone else connected to this person, because I’m not and I’d love an introduction?” The same thing happens in real life, only it’s far more likely to happen, because actually, you’re talking face-to-face to a person, you know that person, you’ve built that personal relationship. I would urge everyone to put some more time into networking, not to view it as sales, but to view it as building up your network of people who know you, who support you, who will make introductions for you. Effectively, they can work as your sales and marketing team but in a slightly different way. I just think there’s so much we have from that. And it’s more fun, because you get to meet and talk to people, as opposed to hiding behind your screen in your handset. Deborah, over to you.

[0:18:29] DC: Excellent. Okay. Well, my second new sales channel pretty much overlaps with that in a lot of ways. I’m calling this one Engage. First, we had Ignite, now we have Engage. What engage is is to create the reason to know who you are, to go where businesses are already interacting with each other, or create something that they want to participate in. You mentioned the Chamber of Commerce, there’s merchant associations, local business organization events. Find out what the businesses are in there and do your research before you reach out, or anything, but be where they are. Go to vertical specific local gatherings for restaurants, retailers, real estate, hospitality, nonprofits, manufacturers and other markets that you want to serve. Create a local business breakfast, or round table around a subject that’s useful to business. Not a presentation about printing, right?

[0:19:36] MP: Yeah.

[0:19:37] DC: Become the connector. Introduce local businesses to people who can help out each other and we did two episodes about that that I will tag in this podcast. How to bring your print clinic where businesses can bring their menus, their direct mail, their pictures of their signage, packaging, whatever they have and other materials to brainstorm possibilities. Participate in street fairs and farmers markets and festivals and neighborhood events, while looking for ways that print could improve and enhance the experience of where you are at the event that you are at. Collaborate with local designers, photographers, agencies, sign companies, event companies and other creative providers who already have business relationships. Maybe you can fill a hole in their wine list. Don’t go there and say, “I can help you print everything.” Go there and say, “We understand you have these customers. Fantastic. Here are some of the things we can do that you can’t do. If you want to partner on these items, your relationship, we could just become your output source, trusted output source.”

Then, of course, we say this all the time, going to a print show is fantastic, but you’re not going to find a lot of chief marketing officers walking around that trade show floor, or advertising agency producers, or creative people. Go to the events where those people are and put yourself where the verticals that you want to serve, that those people are already there and engage with them.

[0:21:22] MP: Yeah, couldn’t agree with that more. I think we’re building on each other’s there. I like that. I really like, never thought of this one, but I really do like bring your print to bring your print clinic. I think that’s a really nice idea.

[0:21:33] DC: Oh, are you stealing it for me? You can.

[SPONSOR MESSAGE]

[0:21:38] MP: Do you need some direction or new ideas for your business? Would sales goals setting and accountability improve your revenues? Or do you have a member of staff who could be performing better? I’m Matthew Parker, the Champion of Print at profitableprintrelationships.com, and I offer a personal mentoring service. Together, we work out exactly what you need. We create a personal mentoring program for you, and then we speak twice a month. You get set goals and action points to make sure you progress.

What makes me different is that I’m the buyer. I’ve been approached by over 1,400 different printing companies, so I know what works, and I know what doesn’t. If you’d like to find out more, go to profitableprintrelationships.com, click the training tab, and then go to mentoring. Or, alternatively, just hit me up on LinkedIn. I look forward to working with you.

[EPISODE CONTINUED]

[0:22:32] MP: Fantastic. I’m going to move on to my third one. I’m calling my third one, I’ve called it brand building and I’ve also called it building raging fans. Everything that I do is all about trying to get people to come to you, rather than you going to people. Because then, you’ve got a warm prospect and you’ve got so much better chance of closing them and winning the business. I think this one is an interesting one, because most print companies don’t think of branding, or if they do think of branding, it’s their logo and what it looks like and making sure it’s over all the doors of their factories and on their brochure, or whatever, which isn’t what I’m talking about at all.

Or they just think about it and go, “You know what? We’re a printing company, there’s nothing exciting to brand here.” But you can really start building a community of fans in strange ways. One I liked, there was a company on Instagram and they were a signage company. Every week, they would put a sign up and they created a signage of a football event, or typically, a sports event. Some of this is going to appeal to quite a large number of people, and they started building up a big following of people who just wanted to see the weekly sign reveal. This wasn’t a client sign. This is just something they printed purely for the channel. It’s not going to cost you a whole load to print a sign with a local football club logo on it, but it will engage people.
They were finding people wanting to know what’s the next sign going to be. Is it something local to me? Now are all those people going to buy print from you? Of course, not. Some of those, they were beginning to get inquiries in through that. Are they getting talked about and therefore, the word getting spread around to people who aren’t following them on Instagram, but actually might need some signage? Yes. This is a thing that you can start doing. If you start trying to present your company in a different way. I think we both remember there was a company that used its guillotine to slice something different every episode for a while. I love that one that they put a block of cheese under the guillotine, and that didn’t quite work

[0:24:46] DC: What? I missed this.

[0:24:47] MP: They’ve gone offline now, unfortunately. But they had a block of cheese.

[0:24:51] DC: I love it.

[0:24:52] MP: Spoiler alert, don’t use your guillotine to cut cheese with. You will need to replace the blade, not because it can’t slice the cheese, but it gets everything really, really mucky. Bread was a much more successful one. The loaf can get swished. You have to get all your guillotine settings right. I mean, brilliant. I am not particularly excited about the experience of guillotine particularly, unless it’s people who are writing crap AI copy at the end. We should all guillotine them regularly.

[0:25:17] DC: Okay, hold on. I just want to tell you that I watch, will this hydraulic press crush this thing on YouTube all the time.

[0:25:25] MP: Really? Fantastic.

[0:25:27] DC: There are some crazy things that they stick in there.

[0:25:30] MP: Yeah. What’s the best one? You’ve got to tell. I’ll watch this.

[0:25:33] DC: Ooh. The plastic ones are really interesting, because the plastic ends up becoming like these thin strips.
[0:25:42] MP: Really?

[0:25:42] DC: It’s really interesting. Yes.

[0:25:44] MP: Oh, wow. I thought they’d shatter.

[0:25:46] DC: No, no, no, no. It just depends upon what it is. They did something really squishy once. That was very interesting, how it oozes out. But it is incredible. There is pretty much nothing that a hydraulic press cannot crush.

[0:26:02] MP: Okay, we’ve got to put a link to that in the show notes. We’ve got to finish this episode quickly, because I’m off to search for YouTube now, because I want to find out what a hydraulic press can do. However, this just goes back to prove my point. How many of us are going to look at a YouTube video of what a hydraulic press looks like, and maybe one person, but that’s about it?

[0:26:21] DC: Not after this.

[0:26:22] MP: Yeah. But when you get these weird challenges, you start building an audience, word gets around and you start getting more noise more appetizing than you could possibly imagine.

[0:26:36] DC: There’s a whole show on Netflix called Is It Cake? People just have to stand 5 feet from an object and decide which one is real and which one is cake.

[0:26:47] MP: What you could do, Is It Printed? And you just do a little maybe?

[0:26:51] DC: Well, I mean, if it’s printed, it’s printed. You could see that it’s printed. I’m not sure that that would work. Leave the creative ideas to me, sir.

[0:26:57] MP: Okay. Maybe I need to work on that one a little bit, but there are all sorts of ideas. Everyone, ramp up your guillotines, see what you can cut on a Friday afternoon, put it up on YouTube. If you start building a fan base like this, not only have you got a good chance of getting people interested, but actually, you will get people who are looking for that sort of thing going, “I’m going to go with this company.” Marketing companies are going to love what you’re doing and go come and talk to you.

[SPONSOR MESSAGE]

[0:27:24] DC: Supporting professional growth is good for people, and it’s great for business. When you sponsor Girls Who Print, you’re helping to deliver mentorship, leadership development, and career advancement tools to women across the print industry. Our annual sponsorship packages are designed to fit companies of all sizes with benefits that align with your goals, support equitable workforce development in your company and the industry, and elevate your brand. If you’re ready to stand out and step up to support Girls Who Print, visit girlswhoprint.org and download our sponsorship packages today. Empower long and prosper.

[EPISODE CONTINUED]

[0:28:08] DC: I have a really good idea. The next event you go, customer event, or you bring people to your print shop, have everybody put their business card in a fishbowl or something, pick one, they’re the ones who get to come to the print shop and put the cheese in there and then you give them a T-shirt that says, “I cut the cheese at this print shop.” It would be –

[0:28:34] MP: Love it.

[0:28:35] DC: – freaking insane. Yeah.

[0:28:37] MP: Amazing. Yes, brilliant. Right. That’s my third idea. If you listen to this and you decide to do something along these lines, please let us know on social media, or any contact, whether you want to – or by mail, because that’d be really cool. Send us the fact that you’re doing this, we’ll give you a shout-out on it. If they’re good, you get a shout-out.

[0:28:57] DC: Oh, my God. I mean, just think about it. I’m completely on this, I cut the cheese thing, because it’s got so much legs. First of all, everybody’s watching social media on Friday to see who’s cutting the cheese, right?
[0:29:09] MP: Yeah.

[0:29:09] DC: Then they get their T-shirt. But then, the cheese, the block of cheese can be donated to a food bank, or something.

[0:29:17] MP: Yeah. Love it.

[0:29:19] DC: It’s only you don’t mess it up. I mean, but I don’t know how much guillotines cost, but it might be a nice investment to get one that you just use for this stuff, so you don’t have to keep messing up the ones that you need for print.

[0:29:31] MP: I’m intrigued now, because someone’s got to do this, because I want to know how guillotines cope with different types of cheese, because I would imagine your block and with your cheddar would do quite well. But what happens when there’s a squishy brie under there? Is it worth it?

[0:29:44] DC: You can. You can only cut the hard cheese on the guillotine.

[0:29:48] MP: I think someone should try this. I mean, obviously, please do not take this – Quick legal note, we are not advising this. We’re not responsible for any damage you may do for your guillotine, but I’d love it if someone tried some brie. Because of the air –

[0:30:01] DC: No, no.

[0:30:02] MP: – you might need to put it on a tray, or something first just to make it work. I’d love it if someone tried it.

[0:30:07] DC: I wouldn’t do soft cheese, though. It’s no fun. I would get one of those wheels and really do it up.

[0:30:13] MP: There’s so many different textures of goat’s cheese. I think maybe that’s one.

[0:30:17] DC: Okay. I mean, you’re going for it, fine. You’re going for soft cheeses, it’s just, okay. Whatever cheese you use, it doesn’t matter. The point is that I get the I cut the cheese T-shirt. I go on social media, I’m wearing my t-shirt, I’m in the print shop and it becomes a thing. I like it. I like things that become a thing.

[0:30:36] MP: Or we trim your sandwich for you. Something I did. Okay.

[0:30:40] DC: I trimmed the sandwich T-shirt. It’s not funny, Matthew. Again –

[0:30:44] MP: Okay, anyway.

[0:30:44] DC: – leave the creative ideas to me. You stay out of that. Okay, my last one is the channel Reconnect. We have ignite, engage, and reconnect. Reconnect is the reason to continue the conversation, to use what you’ve learned through ignite and engage to make the next contact personal and relevant. For example, if you spoke about direct mail, then send them a curated selection of direct mail samples relevant to their business, along with some information. For example, did you know that most people open up red envelopes that look like they have handwriting on it, if it’s relevant to that business? A retailer talked about visibility. Take them on a neighborhood tour of window clings and posters and signs and graphics and other work that you have produced to show them what the possibilities are in a real-life setting. Plus, you’re together driving around, looking at things and having discussions about those items. It doesn’t feel like a sales tour. It feels like a possibilities tour.

They have an event coming up during – you spoke to someone, they have an event coming up. Reconnect with them on one specific printed idea that they could use to improve their event, or attendee experience based on the conversations you had with them. Don’t go in there and say, “We can print your invitations.” Assume they have that covered. Think about the end and what of those things. If they responded to one of the Internet holiday ideas, like National Donut Day, then bring them the next relevant date and idea for their business that they could use. I mean, you have no idea how many Internet holidays there are. There are tons of them. I will tag the article in Printing Impressions, because I shared a PDF with all the dates. Guess what? They’re the same every year. It’s pretty easy to get on a cadence.

[0:32:55] MP: You can put them in the marketing diary. Yeah.

[0:32:57] DC: And get on a subscription service and just contact people a couple months before it is, so you can do the pre-marketing to get customers, or whatever the thing, the holiday that they might be celebrating in order and give them enough time to communicate with people. Invite them to a tour of the print shop based specifically on the applications that you talked about, or they were interested in when they were looking at your samples. Don’t show them everything. Show them specifically. Then if they say, “Hey, what’s that over there?” Say, “I’m glad you asked. Come on over and I will show you what that is.”

Just because somebody says, yes, that doesn’t mean that they want a generic plant tour of everything you can do. Send relevant samples with the note that refers to the actual conversation you had. What an idea, Matthew, right?

[0:33:49] MP: Yeah.

[0:33:49] DC: Make an introduction to another business, or resource that could help them, as we talked about that before. Reconnecting does not always have to involve an immediate print sale. You’re investing in this relationship. If you make an investment, yeah, it would be great to get a return two seconds after that. But that’s not how investments work. You make an investment, the market goes up and down and you ride it and you decide, at some point you make a decision to keep that investment, or get rid of that investment. Then basically, just invite them to participate in the next ignite, or engage activity to start the cycle again.

I want to make a distinction here. Reconnect is not about following up. It’s following up often means to people that, “Hey, I’m just checking in to see if you want to buy something from me.” Reconnect means contacting someone again, because your previous interaction gave you a relevant reason to do so. Ignite, I have a reason for you to notice me. Engage, we have a reason to interact. Reconnect, I have a relevant reason to contact you again. Those are my three new prospecting sales channels.

[0:35:14] MP: Love it. I’m going to circle back to your tour of the window clings, because it just gave me an idea. I’m going to watch Deborah roll her eyes in despair at my creative ideas, but this is half guerrilla marketing and half reconnecting. You get graffiti tours over in cities in the US, don’t you? Create your own graffiti tour. Over here, there’s several cities where people will take you around the best bits of graffiti. Do the same with your customers. Only you’ve put a piece of graffiti up as a window cling somewhere. You’ve got another as a printing board that you’ve put up somewhere. Just guerrilla graffiti a local area, take people on effectively a spoof tour, and then finish up in the pub afterwards. I bet, it’s just a fun thing to do that’s a bit different. You will get noticed again by the marketing people who see that you’re doing something different. That’s just my suggestion for building on Deborah’s suggestion.

Anyway, as we come to the end of today, I’ve shared my three ways that you might get some new ideas for connecting with prospects. Deborah has shared her 113 ideas of new ways that you can share with prospects. If you can’t get something out of this, if you don’t implement something from this, then I’d be amazed. There’s got to be something here for you to kickstart yourselves and try some new ideas. We would love for you to share what you’re doing and what’s worked for you. Please, let us know and go and slice that cheese on your guillotine, or something else if you want. But we want those guillotines slicing on a Friday afternoon. We want videos. Send us a T-shirt so we can wear them. Send us what’s happening. We want to know.

[0:36:49] DC: Thank you so much, Matthew, for your topic today.

[0:36:53] MP: It’s been fun.

[0:36:55] DC: Everyone can judge your creativity versus mine. That’s fine. My final notes here is that the best channel for prospecting and new business is the channel that people want to participate in. Keep that in mind. Thank you so much for your time and attention. Until next time, ignite long, engage long, reconnect long, repeat that process long, and prosper.

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[0:37:27] DC: Thanks for listening to Podcasts From the Printerverse. Please subscribe, click some stars, and leave us a review. Connect with us through printmediacentr.com. We’d love to hear your feedback on our shows and topics that are of interest for future broadcasts. Until next time, thanks for joining us. Print long and prosper.

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