7 Challenges Printing Businesses' Face And How To Fix Them

For years, printing businesses have primarily focused on enhancing the capacity of their equipment while neglecting to develop their business and marketing strategies.

In this post, I will delve into the specific needs of customers that printing businesses can cater to and turn them into opportunities for growth. By understanding these needs and providing the right solutions, printing businesses can stay ahead of the curve and thrive in the ever-evolving industry. From finding new customers to creating and designing marketing materials, there is a lot that printing businesses can do to help their clients achieve their goals and boost their success.

So let's dive into these suggestions and learn how printing businesses can leverage these to their advantage.

In recent years, the printing industry has faced challenges with the rise of digital technology, leading some to believe print is dying. However, print is not dying, but it's rather entering a disruptive phase where digital technology is taking centre stage. With the evolution of inkjet printing, large format, and digital printing, print is thriving and able to print on a wide range of substrates. Interactive print is utilising big data for personalisation, while others are expanding into brand-new applications. The only thing missing is commercial print leaders adapting and leading the way for better impact.

To achieve business growth, staying ahead of the competition is crucial. Every entrepreneur starts a business to expand and succeed. The question arises, how can one drive growth?

To achieve growth, businesses must employ various strategies and tactics. Here is the catch, for instance, the services sector, including insurance, health, real estate, and hospitality, among others, requires needs such as finding new customers, retaining existing ones, marketing and selling products and services, organising events, training staff, documenting processes, improving company image, and enhancing productivity.

Printing businesses can turn these seven common business development challenges facing enterprises into opportunities.

These challenges include:

1. Finding new customers,
2. Maintaining current ones,
3. Marketing and selling products and services,
4. Promoting businesses,
5. Organising events and special events,
6. Training people in various fields of endeavour,
7. Documenting processes and transactions, and
8. Improving company image and enhancing productivity.

By understanding and meeting these needs, printing businesses can help their clients achieve their goals and boost their success.

• For instance, hospitals and clinics need communication materials that give them information about patients' records, procedures, and treatment. This presents an opportunity for print providers to up their sales and marketing efforts to provide these organisations with digital colour printing and personalization.
• Customer retention is also crucial, and savvy enterprises develop customer retention strategies through the production of communication materials such as customer testimonials, feedback, loyalty programs, and customer service communications that speed up processes and enhance productivity.
• Printing businesses can also help their customers and engage their audience and followers to advertise and sell their services and products through outdoor and digital channels such as social media.
• Additionally, they can suggest the need for branding events and provide banners, way-finding signage, promotional signage, product displays, and speciality items that enhance branding displays.
• By tapping into HR firms, printing businesses can develop and produce employment-related paperwork, including application forms, offer letters, employment contracts, benefits documents, and employee handbooks.
• Companies also use books, order forms, tax forms, and other application forms to complete processes in their day-to-day activities, and printing businesses can tap into this opportunity.
• Finally, branding and awareness creation require a lot of marketing communication materials which printing businesses' marketing, sales, and graphic designers can team up to produce appropriate content and images for their clients as part of their cross-selling efforts.
  

The aforementioned list highlights some of the essential business needs that printing businesses' clients require to grow and succeed. However, the challenge lies in how these needs are strategically executed. The ultimate goal of any printing business is to design and produce print applications such as brochures, newsletters, posters, and chequebooks. To combat the misconception that print is dead or dying, print business managers must carefully consider the suggestions presented below.

How To Fix These Difficult Challenges Printing Businesses Face

In the healthcare industry, for example, their main preoccupation is to provide goods and services that diagnose, treat, and cure illnesses. To undertake these tasks, they need to develop communication materials that give them information about patients' records, procedures and treatment. This is a big opportunity for print providers to up their sales and marketing efforts to provide these organisations with digital colour printing and personalisation.

Finding New Customers For Your Printing Business

1. One of the biggest challenges for printing businesses is finding new customers or generating leads. This is especially true in industries like healthcare, where hospitals and clinics are competing for the same patient base. To stand out from the competition, these organizations need high-quality print materials that provide information about their services, procedures, and costs. Brochures, information packets, and cost comparisons are all great print applications that can help hospitals and clinics attract new patients.

But it's not just healthcare organizations that need help in finding new customers. Insurance companies, banks, and other enterprises also need to reach new audiences. Printing businesses can help by creating targeted marketing materials that speak directly to these audiences. This might include direct mail campaigns, personalized brochures, or targeted social media ads.

The key is to understand the unique needs and challenges of each industry and to tailor your marketing and sales efforts accordingly. By doing so, printing businesses can position themselves as valuable partners to their clients and help them achieve their growth goals.

Develop a Customer Retention Strategy Materials

2. Retaining customers is crucial to the success of any business. It requires a significant amount of effort to find, nurture, and convert leads into paying customers. Losing customers can be counterproductive. Smart enterprises develop customer retention strategies by creating communication materials such as customer testimonials, feedback, loyalty programs, and customer service communications that streamline processes and increase productivity.

Cross-sell to Your Customers With  Outdoor and Social Media Advertising

3. Helping your customers and engaging your audience and followers to advertise and sell their services and products through outdoor and digital channels such as social media, is a way to go. Help your customers sell their services with billboards, banners, POP posters, banners signage, wallpaper, fleet graphics, framed canvas, back-lit light boxes, activity posters, directional signs, visual aids, calendars, site signs, line drawings, maps transactional documents and more 

Create an Opportunity Of Helping Businesses In Their Brand Awareness Efforts

4. Many businesses struggle to find ways of increasing brand awareness. Suggest to your trusted customers the need to host events as part of their branding efforts. Provide, banners, way-finding signage, promotional signage, product displays and speciality items that enhance branding displays.

Team up with HR Firms To Develop And Produce Employment-Related Paperwork

5. Even though the numbers have dropped due to digitisation, there is still a great number of HR firms managing the company's employees, including recruiting, terminating, training and completing all employment-related paperwork. The employee paperwork includes an application form and an offer letter, an employment contract, a benefits document, and an employee handbook. Many firms may not require all of these, but it's worth trying. 

Tap Into The Production Of Companies Books and Other Forms For Managing Business Processes

6. Every company uses books, order forms, tax forms and other application forms to complete processes in their day-to-day activities.

Create And Design Brand Awareness And Other Marketing Materials For Companies

7. Many companies or enterprises engaged in an ongoing process to improve company image and enhance productivity. Branding and awareness creation requires a lot of marketing communication materials which your marketing, sales and graphic designers can team up and produce appropriate content and images for your clients as part of your cross-selling efforts.

Ready to turn these challenges into opportunities? Fortunately, innovative technologies and methods are available to overcome these obstacles. Schedule a free consultation call with our experts to discover more.