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Which types of company are the best to call when looking to pitch printing services?

I was asked this question recently by one of my contacts. It’s a great question. It’s also most easily answered with another question.

What sort of clients do YOU want?

If we look at this more realistically, most companies have clients that suit them and ones which don’t. For instance:

• Printers with ten-colour long-perfectors don’t want clients that focus on tiny orders such as business cards. They typically want clients that place long-run brochures and magazines.
• Printers with highly-automated workflows don’t want clients that want high levels of hand-holding. They are seeking customers that are efficient to deal with.
• Printing companies that have invested heavily in colour management don’t want large volumes of cheap leaflets. They want high quality customers such as auction houses or luxury retailers.

 Most companies tend to find that they end up specialising in certain markets

They may not have planned it that way. However, some companies tend to find that they have a lot of charity work. Maybe they deal with a lot of agencies. Perhaps they have a lot of education-based clients. Or they could have built up a large base of local retailers.

It’s often worth looking at where you have been successful and targeting more customers in that area. (That does assume that you like the customers that you have!)

Remember, you can’t be all things to everyone

It’s far better to create a sales message around a specific target market. Otherwise your sales message will fail to engage anyone.

There’s one other thing to remember

Make sure that you are in the customer’s world when you are selling. Your message should be all about them, not you.
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