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Tips on Promoting Your Business

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Please find some links and notes from the 2 Regular Guys Podcast. Terry and Aaron will talk about promoting your business – from vendors to decorators. We’ll talk about the pros and cons of opportunities such as trade shows, social media, open houses, even knocking on doors, and more.

Sponsored by: Equipment Zone

Our regular listeners know this, but 2 Regular Guys is all about garment decorating, a bit of fun, and no rants or lectures or selling. We are not doing this for our employers, but rather for our industry. For the past three years, 2 Regular Guys has been the first and the most listened to garment decorating industry podcast on this planet! We are humbled by all of you tuning in each week. We work hard to bring you information that will make your business better, and our industry better. Take a look at our incredible weekly guest list and you’ll understand where this industry goes for news, interviews and the heartbeat of garment decorating. Thanks for listening!!

Promoting Your Business

Trade shows

  • This is more for vendors selling equipment and supplies
    • Can be good for decorators – Home Shows, Craft Fairs.
  • Do you need to be at all or most “to be seen”?
  • # of shows too many?
  • Can you abandon shows? Can you lead the charge of others away?
  • Said for supplies and equipment but end-user printers sometimes exhibit (but not repeating often)
  • Sponsorships, seminars, in-booth seminars

Social media

  • It’s a must in my book. It is where people are at.
    • 802 Million Active Users DAILY on Facebook (Would be largest country on the planet)
  • Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Spinning wheels… or a piece of the promotional pie?
  • Percentage of content
  • Hootsuite is the tool you need

Internet

  • YouTube
  • Webinars
    • Webinars as a sales meeting
  • Booking Meetings via Web / Hubspot
  • Blogs?

Website

  • Content, content, content… or can you offer straight products and shopping carts?

Email programs

  • Unsolicited emails from companies and individuals I’ve never heard of get the immediate delete from me.
  • Scheduled discount programs and deals

Open houses

  • I am a huge proponent of having events at your location with a captive audience
    • People like to see behind the magic curtain.

Knocking on doors

  • Local/regional sellers, whether supplier or decorator, will find this to be a relationship technique.
  • Atlas example… offering value by doing shop check-ups.

Summary

  • Must know who you want as customers and who wants to be your customer.
  • Important to have a plan – As you could hear below you could do stuff 24/7 and still be behind
  • Focus on one area at a time, don’t try to do everything.
  • Must measure your success and keep doing that.
  • Don’t be afraid to try new things once you have master something else.

Chat Log:

MarshallAtkinson: NBM Show was great!

ErichCampbell: I had major FOMO seeing all of you folks posting pics. 🙂

2 Regular Guys Talking Decoration: Erich when do you head out for the shop tune up?

ErichCampbell: That should be (fingers crossed) the 19th-24th. Failing that, the week after.

ErichCampbell: Saw your FB comment about how things have been going, Marshall- couldn’t be for a better guy, sir. 🙂

ErichCampbell: It seems to me with the rise of social media and relationship marketing, that trade shows become the way to lock down those relationships with face time. (Though it makes me a hypocrite since I never get out to them)

KristineShreve: We primarily do the DAX Shows, and it’s great to have people tell us that they anticipate seeing us there.

ErichCampbell: Do you have repeat customers that always come out, Kristine?

ErichCampbell: Do you enjoy doing the shows?

KristineShreve: Yes. We have people who will contact us to make sure we’re going to be there.

ErichCampbell: (rattling chains) I am not. 😉

MarshallAtkinson: Best way to do Trade Shows is to have appointments with key people at their booths. They dedicate the time for you.

KristineShreve: And, yes, doing the shows is fun. It’s great to see people in person and get to help people face to face. Plus, it’s fun when people know me from my work.

KristineShreve: You have to watch the economics of trade shows. Cost per lead and quality of leads matters.

MarshallAtkinson: Remember you do business with friends, not your enemies. Meeting people face to face solidifies that relationship. Booths are expensive…but traveling to shows is expensive too.

ErichCampbell: Between the expense and the time they take, It’s been hard to justify for me, but I think that has to change.

MarshallAtkinson: Erich, you should do seminar at shows so that helps defray costs.

MarshallAtkinson: Deep dive? Sustainability!! That show in August….

2 Regular Guys Talking Decoration: YES Marshall!

MarshallAtkinson: Social media can be easy with apps. Schedule it with Hootsuite or Buffer. I have mine scheduled out all the way until July right now

MarshallAtkinson: Social media only works if you find out where your customer are. If they aren’t on FB, don’t do it. Follow and share their content. Social means social…you have to interact. Don’t sell, just be nice and friendly and build the relationship.

KristineShreve: Major issue with social media and something that I talk about constantly. The first word in social media is social for a reason. It’s not about sales, it’s about building community.

MarshallAtkinson: 99-9-1 rule. 99% of people on social media read the content. 9% like or share a post. Only 1% creates the content. Be in the 1%

ErichCampbell: Kristine is totally on it- it’s all about the relationship.

ErichCampbell: Sometimes it means just being personable; I was offered a major opportunity last night, and when I asked why I was the first name on the list, the answer was ‘I like to help nice people.”

MarshallAtkinson: People want answers. The internet makes it easy. That’s why blogs and video work so well.

KristineShreve: Videos can be so useful. We’re working on getting into creating videos more, since we know that customers like them.

MarshallAtkinson: Content is king

ErichCampbell: BTW- writing out the question, not just the answers, is important. Some of my best posts start by restating the question. Remember, the question they have is what they type into the search box, not the answer. 😉

MarshallAtkinson: Look at what Ryonet has been doing… They are killing it with video content.

MarshallAtkinson: Sales funnel = Know, Like, Trust, Buy

ErichCampbell: Act from a sincere desire to help your customer do something they want to do. The content will come naturally and the sales follow that trust, just like Marshall said.

ErichCampbell: CONSISTENCY. Marshall has this one DOWN.

ErichCampbell: I am just starting to make it. (Fridays for me, now – http://www.erichcampbell.com/charity-humanity-philosophical-approach-better-conflict-resolution-business/ )

MarshallAtkinson: BTW, I write all my blog posts in my underwear drinking coffee in the morning before anyone in my house wakes up.

ErichCampbell: I did this webinar for a supplier, and it was really great. Had a ton of contacts after that one.

MarshallAtkinson: Erich you need a subscribe to my blog button

ErichCampbell: I write in spurts- on every device I have including my phone. Time demands I just fit it in when I can. (Not usually in my underwear, but I have been known to be in my boxers in bed writing before bed time. )

ErichCampbell: Will do, Marshall. I also need to get the blog to the front page. THank you for the tip.

MarshallAtkinson: Decorators should use Pinterest more

MarshallAtkinson: Spam to inbox sucks….and illegal

MarshallAtkinson: Newsletter content is best for customers

ErichCampbell: Agree on Pinterest- even though I don’t do it that well, i’ve had a ton of surprising traffic there; also on instagram.

MarshallAtkinson: Instagram rules. I got five new client from one Instagram pic.

ErichCampbell: (put up a quick subscribe widget, Marshall- I’ll have to do a better job and restyle it, though. Thanks again.)

ErichCampbell: What was the pic? Love to see a link!

MarshallAtkinson: Do you use WordPress?

ErichCampbell: Yup

MarshallAtkinson: https://www.instagram.com/p/6Fe8ntle4l/?taken-by=marshallatkinson

MarshallAtkinson: WordPress has some good themes and widgets. Do a search.

MarshallAtkinson: Don’t forget just regular company branding. Boxes, price lists, art approval forms, hangtags, etc. Also vehicle wraps for delivery trucks. Put flyer in bottom of box as reminder to reorder

ErichCampbell: Conventional methods still work well.

ErichCampbell: So does asking for referrals.

MarshallAtkinson: Marketing = Networking. Chamber of commerce. Have business cards in pocket. Talk to people constantly.

MarshallAtkinson:I can’t tell you how many times I’ve met someone and they didn’t have a biz card with them. Even at trade shows!

Trade Shows

Other News/Events

Terry’s Books

Screen Printing: A Practical Guide to Starting Your Own T-Shirt Business Just $4.95 as an e-book.

Direct to Garment: A Practical Guide to Starting Your Own T-Shirt Business Just $4.95 as an e-book.

Scheduling and Estimating Production Time for Garment Screen Printing Just $2.99 as an e-book

Equipment ZoneThis show is brought to you for a full hour by: Equipment Zone, with 20 years experience selling garment printing equipment nationwide. Equipment Zone offers the new Epson F2000 SureColor direct-to-garment printer, their own VelociJet-XL DTG printer, and the all new SpeedTreater-TX automatic pretreat machine with a full 16”x24” pretreat area. Introductory price is $3,995. Equipment Zone also carries a full line of DTG inks and supplies. Go to EquipmentZone.com

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