Over time you may have changed something in your shop. That new and improved feature needs its place in the sun to grow your sales.

Your current and potential customers need to know and understand how you can help them. Educating them on your capabilities and awesomeness should be job number one for any marketing idea for your shop.

After all, if they don’t know you can do something how will they know to buy from you?

Sure, someone might argue that you shouldn’t tout “new and improved” because if something was great before, why would you improve it? However, businesses change. They add technology. Different production methods. Even people.

This article aims at exploring some ways you can incorporate that new and improved idea into your marketing plan to attract more sales. Let’s take a look:

New and Improved Technology

Many shops are riding the wave of adding new technology to improve their turn times for orders. This could be with some workflow automation equipment, such as an auto-coater in the screenroom, direct to screen imager, or even a DTG press.

If you are one of those shops that are dropping your turn times from seven to ten business days to three to five, you should be talking about this with your marketing.

Customers are seeking out shops that can deliver orders faster. That is a growing need in this industry.

Have you invested in new processes or equipment to handle that? If so, design a campaign that speaks to that point.

For one example, let’s talk about DTG printing. Many end users don’t understand the benefits of this production method. Make it easy for them to understand by providing a short video case study. If it is fun and memorable, it will get better views, so be sure to inject some humor into the video.

Yes! Finally, a reason to make your shop dog a star.

One great app for creating short videos you can use is Magisto. It’s reasonably priced and you can add your logo, text and even music to the piece.

InkSoft Tech

Showing off InkSoft tech can be a big benefit too.

For example, if you want to drive more users to use your InkSoft Design Tool, you need to develop ways to market that feature.

One way is to highlight successful designs that come originate from that tool in your marketing. Push this on your Pinterest page, Instagram, Facebook or website portfolio. If you are new to using the feature, have your art team create a few to show off the capabilities.

Try some influencer marketing by having a customer or two give a video or written testimonial on how they created their own art for their order. Maybe even a monthly or quarterly design contest based on designs created with the tool.

You could even walk folks through the process of how fast and simple your shop can set up an online store with the Rapid Product Creator by developing your own short video walking them through the steps. If they are a school, restaurant or organization, tailor the video to that group with an example so they can understand how it would work for them.

Connect the dots for them.

Garments on the Market

Of course, new and improved doesn’t have to stop at technology or production methods.

Every year there are new garment choices to offer your customers. This might be the easiest way to show what’s new too.

Think about it. You are the expert. Here’s how you can demonstrate your industry knowledge.

Build a MailChimp campaign that shows off the latest apparel that your customers might be interested in. This could be that new seamless hat from Outdoor Cap. Maybe it’s the jazzy heather on heather ST362 raglan performance tee by SportTek. Or even that you can decorate on women’s leggings for that yoga studio or athleisure request?

It is up to you so link your product expertise with your audience.

Show not only what’s new, but how you would decorate it.

New and Improved Decoration

Which is where this idea comes in.

Go to any mall or sporting event. Take in a concert or a movie. Pay attention to what people are wearing, and what is popular in your area.

Can you emulate that?

What did you see that might strike a chord with your customers? A different decoration location? What about a custom hem label on the sleeve or the bottom of the shirt? Do you notice a dominance of single color or multi-color decorations? How large is the art?

The new and improved discussion that you need to be chatting about with your customers is that you are in tune with the latest trends.

Show how you are taking that new t-shirt style that just came out and branding it with the latest decoration style. Demonstrate how on-point your creativity is for your customers.

Make sure you include a call to action.

This doesn’t necessarily mean a sale either. “Schedule a call with our design team today”. Let’s say you sent out the marketing message to 3,000 customer or potential customers for your campaign. Even with a 5% action rate, that could bring 150 new orders to your shop.

Action Drives Success

Like having a gym membership, if you never make the time to work out you can’t enjoy the results of improving your health.

You have to do the work. If you want more success, build your new and improved show and tell campaign.

Constantly monitor it and tweak it.

Add more ideas to it.

Your customers are starved for this type of content. They don’t know what’s new unless you tell them. And in this industry, there’s something new constantly. Will you be the one to highlight the breaking news?

Don’t let your competition get the jump on you.

Pay attention and push out ideas on a continual basis. Monitor what works, and what’s not. Tell your story.

You can do it!

“Research is creating new knowledge.” – Neil Armstrong

“Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.” – Brian Tracy

“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping old ones.” – John Maynard Keynes

Production Manager Tool

From day one, we’ve been devoted to making InkSoft the most useful tool for printing and customization professionals across the industry. While thousands of users are growing their businesses with InkSoft Stores and the Design Studio, we know we still have a lot of work to do to help print shops run more efficiently.

The next big step is a production management tool. We want to bring InkSoft full circle by providing a powerful way for you to streamline production and communication, ultimately boosting profitability and reducing costly mistakes. Not to mention, solving the challenges outlined in this article.