UKvUSA: Print Sales Strategies for the Summer Slump

In this episode of UKvUSA, Deborah Corn and Matthew Parker discuss strategies for printers to make the most of the summer season by engaging with the local community, identifying printing and promotion opportunities, and hosting events to drive print sales and business growth all year. (Transcript below)

 

Mentioned in This Episode: 

3 Tactical Strategies to Secure New Print Business Over the Summer: https://printmediacentr.com/3-tactical-strategies-to-secure-new-print-business-over-the-summer/

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

Profitable Print Relationships: https://profitableprintrelationships.com

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

Print Media Centr: https://printmediacentr.com

Partner with Print Media Centr: https://printmediacentr.com/partnerships/ 

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

Project Peacock: https://ProjectPeacock.TV 

Girls Who Print: https://girlswhoprint.net

drupa: https://www.drupa.com/

drupa Next Age (drupa DNA): https://www.drupa.com/en/Program/Forums/drupa_next_age

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:01] 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: 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. So 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, Matthew Parker from Profitable Print Relationships is on the other end of this microphone. Hello, Matthew.

[0:00:58] MP: Hi, Deborah. How are you today?

[0:01:00] DC: I am wonderful. Thank you so much. Road to drupa. There is 30 days before the world will meet at Messe Düsseldorf, so I’m really excited about that. But it’s also a signal that the summer is coming, and that is what we’re going to focus our podcast on today. Summer traditionally is business – some things slow down, and people go on vacation. There’s a lot of professions that take off the month of August. Notoriously, Americans can’t find Europeans in the month of August, because you all go live your lives while we’re working 40 hours a week. But it is also a great time to look for new business and also start making your plans for the fall and the winter. That is what we’re going to focus on now. Matthew, first of all, what are your thoughts about summer and the summer slump?

[0:01:59] MP: Well, we’re not all on holidays, maybe the French go on holiday, on summer, I think. We do take holidays. I tend to think, when I was thinking about today is, you know this really weird thing? Summer comes every year, and yet, loads of times I’m talking to printers, and they’re going, “Yes, really quiet at the moment. It’s summer.” I’m thinking, “Yes. You knew about that 12 months ago, 24 months ago, why haven’t you done anything about it? Why haven’t you planned about it.” So, that’s what I think about summer. Plus, hopefully, it’ll start getting warmer here soon. It stopped raining here soon. I can go out and do some longer walks, and things like that. The summer slump I quite like, because I can enjoy some good weather. But if you’ve got to press it to run, you really should be planning for it.

I just feel there’s too many printing companies that run on hope and the expectation that the telephone will ring when it hasn’t done or the email will come in. Let’s get more than here. When it hasn’t done for so many years beforehand. What’s going to make this year different?

[0:03:00] DC: Well, that’s exactly what we’re going to have a conversation about today. Why don’t you start however you wish to start?

[0:03:09] MP: Okay. First thing with summer, I’m going to suggest that you think about your current customers, because most people go, “Oh, no one’s around in summer.” Let’s face it, most of the really obvious markets are probably getting; A, they sorted themselves out, but also, they’re getting a lot of attention from the competition anyway. Things like tourism sorted itself out, education. Everyone’s thinking about education before then. Everyone’s thinking of summer. We must talk to schools, and universities, and get prospectuses done. You’re going to be number 537 in the line if you’re trying that.

Why not talk to your current customers? Now, you may say, “Oh, but they’re quiet during summer.” That’s fine. But what can you do to actually get them busy in the summer? Again, after summer, quite often, the printing industry ramps up again, it gets quite busy, and you get to September, October, and everyone’s going, “Oh, no. It’s so busy. I haven’t got enough space on the press to do my jobs.” Well, talk to some of your customers that you know. What can you do to persuade them to bring some of the jobs forward? Some people may be very happy to do that. Some people with a bit of forward planning may be able to do it. Some people may be persuaded to do it if you put some incentives their way. Some people, it’s going to make no difference too. If you’re doing regular stockholding work for people, why not get that done during the summer rather than your busy periods?

It just requires a bit of talking to customers, telling them that this is a good time for you to get things done for them now, and how can they help? Often, that conversation is – will, hopefully, lead to you getting some more work in the summer.

[0:04:50] DC: Or after, right?

 

[0:04:51] MP: Yes, or after.

[0:04:52] MP: This is work that you might get after, that you’re bringing forward, so that busy period isn’t quite as stressful, and the quiet period isn’t quite so quiet.

[0:05:02] DC: I mean, there are a million types of incentive programs I can think of, of summer sale, on business cards, or print to your point, meeting with your customers, see what they do, and see if they can’t do some of that stuff in the summer to your point to get it out of the fall when it gets crazy. Along those lines, I’m going to mention something that actually covers both of these things. My suggestion is to, for right now, just put your current customers to the side and get in your car, get on your bike, or take a walk, because it’s summer, it’s the nice weather. And go through your town or your city and see who is having seasonal sales for the summer. You can pretty much guarantee if they’re having a summer sale, they might be having a fall sale, and they’re having a winter sale. So, you can start establishing who has a need for a complete change of printing and promotion, let’s say, every quarter, every four months, because there’s four seasons.

Go in, establish, shop, buy some things, be a customer, just look around, and see the types of printing, and promotion that they’re doing for selling the kayak, or the ice cream cone, or whatever it might be. Then, formulate a plan to talk to them about the next season or the next summer. Or, I would say, this is a great time to come up with a subscription program, where every season you come in at an appropriate time before they’re going to change their windows, or start promoting things for that season. Whether it’s skis, or bathing suits, or sandals, or hiking boots. Just think of all the places that have seasonal opportunities, and create a subscription program based upon everything you see that they’re doing, add things that they’re not doing to it as a menu of items. Let them choose the package they want.

They basically, I mean, I can get into a lot of details, but I’m not going to. Let them choose the package they want, have them sign on the dotted line, and you have the customer for a year, and you can schedule as you want with the right type of information. In other words, knowing how much the discount on sale on the flowers is for Mother’s Day, or knowing the dates of their Christmas doorbusters we call it here. Things of that nature. Then, as I said, it’s something you could do in the summer that can have yearly benefits. Thoughts?

[0:07:53] MP: We don’t often agree on this podcast. In fact, we kind of make it our mission not to agree wherever possible, because –

 

[0:07:57] DC: Except, you always agree with me.

 

[0:08:00] MP: And you often agree with me. Actually, maybe we do agree. Yes. Yes. Even Deborah is grudgingly saying yes at that point. So maybe we do agree more than we think. You just took my second point, which is, plan for winter. I totally agree. I think your specific examples work best with the independent retailers and businesses around town, rather than the large commercial chains who will have planned all this already. But yes, absolutely, I think people should be planning for winter now.

It’s a time when you can say to people, don’t make it last minute, let’s start planning. Let’s even start printing now, or at least, let’s start designing now. So that, when the time comes, we’ve got a decent amount of time to print, because all you’re doing is dropping in the final product, or the final price reduction into your design, and we’re ready to go, rather than starting everything from scratch because you thought you didn’t need to at that point.

It’s also a good time to say to people, “Why don’t you try something new this year?” As you said, with your list of ideas that – have they tried doing any doordrops to relevant people in town. I don’t know how it works in the US or in the UK, you get doordrop profiling. If you’re a high-end fashion retailer, you can make sure you do door drops to the right streets where your target market is likely to be living, and not say to the area, the streets, which are full of students, for instance, who probably aren’t going to be able to afford your products. It’s a good time to encourage them to expand their thinking as well.

 

[0:09:35] DC: What do you mean by door drops?

[0:09:37] MP: Door drops come in two forms over here. They’re basically that unaddressed mail, but you can either get them done by the postal services, and they will do a batch, and they’ll drop leaflets as part of the post-persons rounds. But you will also, you can get specific companies that do this, and they’ll go around, and deliver it separately to the post office for you. Now, I know that in America, you’ve got maybe some more regulations around this, and we have – and it may not be quite as easy.

[0:10:08] DC: No, I’m not really sure. I mean I know what unaddressed mail to occupant or resident of. I mean, there are services that the USPS postal service offers for that kind of stuff. So, the other thing is like when you put like a flyer on someone’s door or something like literally around their door handle, or you talk about, they stick it in your mailbox somehow?

[0:10:29] MP: They stick it in your mailbox, that’s what’s done over here. You don’t tend to have as many door handles over here, there’s no option but to do that. The other thing to say, I’m sure most of the UK listeners know this already. But it’s not the same as sending out a second-class piece of mail. If you’re doing a blanket door drop in an area, particularly if you go to the independent postal operators, the significant savings to be made over standard postage rates. So, there’s a lot you can do that your clients may not realize is possible and may be a lot more economical for them than they realized.

[0:11:02] DC: Yes. I love it. Okay. Did I steal your second one? Do you have another one? Otherwise, add to that.

[0:11:08] MP: I’ll go to my plan B after this.

 

[0:11:10] DC: Okay. Go to your plan B.

 

[0:11:11] MP: Which is – as I said before, summer comes down every year, and it’s time to plan for it. Yes. We were going to talk today mainly about marketing, and sales, and things. But as you’ve taken my excellent second point and used it already, actually think about how you’re going to structure your business at this time of year as well. So, can you reduce the shifts that you’re going to put forward? What can you do to incentivize your staff to take some holiday at this time of year, rather than at the busy time of year when you’re running lots of overtime? Can you run, not necessarily overtime bands, but just no overtime at this time of year? What can you do to actually work things around so that your outgoings are less? Clearly. you’ve got some advantages. Unless you’re in Australia, we’re in the summer, and it’s warm, so you won’t have to run the same amount of heating that you do otherwise.

[0:12:04] DC: You mean it’s cold in the sum – what do you mean? They have opposite –

[0:12:07] MP: That means, if you’re in Australia – yes, their summer is the other time, isn’t it? If it’s summer now, it’s going to be cold in Australia, so they will need to run their heating. But yes, there’s things that you can do to reduce your outgoings from that point of view as well. But yes, just have a think about what you need to do to structure business rather than assuming it’s business as usual.

One of my clients, they get quiet in the winter, and they actually run a part-time. They shut for, I think, four days a week during the winter. It reduces outgoings and the business is structured around the work coming in. Would it be appropriate to do something like that? Obviously, you’re going to have to have some consultations with your staff if you don’t do that already. But you may be surprised at how many people will be very keen to have long weekends during the summer when it’s nice and warm. That’s my other one, it’s a quick and easy one. But, plan for it. You may find that you’re running a little late to do that now as we’re recording on the 30th of April. By the time people hear this, I’d be mid-May. But certainly, for next year, you should be planning and having these talks in the very early spring to see what you can do.

[SPONSOR MESSAGE]

 

[0:13:14] DC: Print Media Centr provides printspiration and resources to our vast network of global print and marketing professionals. Whether you are an industry supplier, print service provider, print customer, or consultant, we have you covered, by providing resources and strategies that enable business marketing and creative success, reporting from global events, these podcasts, Project Peacock TV, and an array of community lifting initiatives. We also work with OEMs, suppliers, industry organizations, and event producers, helping you connect and engage with our vast audience, and achieve success with your sales, marketing, and conference endeavors. Visit Print Media Centr and connect with the Printerverse. Links in the show notes. Print long and prosper.

[EPISODE CONTINUES]

 

[0:14:08] DC: Along those lines, it’s also a great time to cross-train people on presses and technology in the print shop. To sign up for those demos that you haven’t had a chance to see regarding marketing technology. To catch up on the replays of all the events that you signed up for and couldn’t attend at Tuesday at two o’clock, and do some personal investment in your personal and professional growth as well. You’re still working, but just working on a different aspect of the business, which is making it better for you, making it better for people in the print shop if you’re in a position to, bringing new technology and things of that nature.

[0:14:52] MP: I should say, make sure you’ve caught up on all the Print Media Centr podcasts.

 

[0:14:56] DC: Oh, yes, of course.

 

[0:14:57] MP: Because that’s the ideal time to do it. But I really like the cost of training as well. because if you get cross-training now, that means you’re going to be a lot more flexible with your staffing next summer, and you may be able to reduce – offer people then the chance for some unpaid leave over summer. If you’ve got the right cross-training, it’s not going to hit your business so hard, so I love that idea.

[0:15:15] DC: The next concept I want to introduce is actually from a post that I wrote last month called, ‘Three Tactical Strategies to Secure New Print Businesses Over the Summer.’ They were all focused on the community that the printers are in. And yes, I tend to focus on those small to medium businesses that actually need help versus like an RR Donnelley or VistaPrint, who’s pretty much got things under control the way that they function, Matthew.

When it comes to the community, the first idea is something that I coopted from a real estate agent from Chicago, who somehow got my email address, because we all used to go to a Graph Expo in Chicago. All of a sudden, I started getting emails from this realtor. But they weren’t emails, Matthew, they were actually – it would come right before the summer, and it was basically a weekly community event calendar. He’s a realtor, so the point of this was for people to print it out, and hang it on the refrigerator, and his contact information was on the bottom of it, but that was it. The rest of it was completely dedicated to, “Hey, there’s a fair on Tuesday, and there’s a concert in the park on this day.”

They would come weekly, there was nothing about sales in it, whatsoever. The only reason I knew anything about this guy is because his information was on the bottom. And he was basically like, “Let’s just celebrate where we live and have a great summer.” I reached out to him a couple of times, just to say, “Thank you. It was a great idea.” He did tell me that, eventually, it wasn’t – he was doing it to keep himself top of mind with people. He said, “Yes, everybody’s not in the market to necessarily buy a house when you need them to.” But that, people did circle back to him and say, “We had your number up on our refrigerator, we always knew that we wanted to work with you when we were ready, because we appreciated that you were, not only part of the community, but you were helping to support it in many ways.” I’ve got more about that, but you have anything you want to say?

[0:17:49] MP: There was a printing company that used to do this as well. I used to get a regular email from them, and what was on in their community. I can’t remember who it was now. I don’t know if they’re still doing it, I unsubscribed because I didn’t really want to get a weekly update on what was happening in parts of America that I wasn’t likely to visit. But yes, so it’s already been adopted by at least one printing company. I think it’s great that, if you’re going to be the community printer, you will be top of mind, and you will get work coming from it. To that point, what can you do with local business communities to host the business breakfast, go around and sponsor, even local sporting events, and things like that? You don’t have to have a massive budget. But if you can put in a small amount of money, and get your name out as someone associated with the event, that can drive a lot of goodwill as well. There’s all sorts of ideas like that that can really help. So yes, thoroughly agree with it.

[0:18:42] DC: Of course, since printers would be involved in this, there’s a way to print. I don’t know if you, over there if you do this. But over here, especially like for colleges, they put the full football schedule – I mean, football, not soccer, football and basketball schedule on a magnet, and people can keep that on their refrigerator so they know when everyone’s playing. Same way you could do that for like concerts in the park and things of that nature.

Now, I get it that you might not want to send it to everybody. But my point here is this, there is a lot of cross-promotion that can be done on these calendars. For example, if there is a concert in the park, what are the stores that are around that park? Is there a restaurant? Is there a bar? Is there an ice cream parlor? Is there a place that sells blankets and lawn chairs? What does somebody who sees a concert in the park need, and you can start using the information that you’re sharing freely with the community, be it festivals, and concerts, and things like that to cross-promote and drive new business. And not for nothing, but this ties back to our seasonal sales as well.

You might not know who is the concert on next August Saturday night, but you know there’s going to be one. So, you can start planting the seeds. By the way, go to some of those events. There are farmer’s markets, there are plenty of things in the community that you can start getting involved with. The first step, to me, would be to go and gather your intel. What is the printer using? What is the printer not using? How are people supposed to know that you could take your concert ticket and get a free one with dinner down the block before the concert or after the concert? How are people supposed to know that and how do you promote?

My other craziness around this is, if you have the time in the summer, do a collective promotion with everybody on one strip mall or row of shops, as you say, over there. The closest one to the place where the event is, and see if you can’t get everybody to first share the cost of that promotion that will lead everybody to that one street. Then, after that, if you get the many results, “Hey, we had 20 more people come in last Saturday to get dinner, and wine because of our promotion.” Then, you can look at, “Okay. What else can we help you with for the rest of the year because you have some proven results?”

I understand these are big ideas. I understand that they take a lot of time. But this is what you can do if you have some downtime in the summer, start really strategically making a plan to not have downtime next summer. Thoughts on that, Matthew?

[0:21:36] MP: Yes. I mean, you could take it even further and start the community magazine. I think we might have mentioned this on a previous episode before. Why not actually encourage people to advertise? Then, you become the community hub, because they know you produce some magazines. So, automatically think of you for print as well, and you can drop in copies of the magazine to them, and you can drop in a monthly flyer with copies of the magazines, either for them to share, or just for them to see. Which says, “Here are my special offers this month, or here’s useful products for summer, or useful products for autumn.”

I think there’s a lot you can do with it. For the right printer, it’s really important. You have to be the right community printer to manage this and be part of the community, and want to do it. But I’ve seen people do this successfully, and I think it’s a nice thing to do if you have the right culture within your company to do it. Clearly, those of you who are very focused just on totally efficient production, PDFs, and things like that, it’s not right for you. But I think there’s a lot that many printers could do with it, and take that idea. Even if some of these are too big for you at the moment, start off with something smaller first, and then build it from there.

[BREAK]

 

[0:22:45] MP: Do you need some direction or new ideas for your business? Would sales goal setting and accountability improve your revenues or do you have a member or 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 CONTINUES]

[0:23:39] DC: Yes, 100%. There’s actually a whole additional business that can be done around this with the creation of the files. Printers don’t want to – shouldn’t bog themselves down when people can’t create printing files. So creating templates, and just plugging, and playing with different logos, different offers. Just having that be really simple for these local businesses is also crucial. It’s also a way to make these jobs more valuable.

[0:24:08] MP: You know what if you’re doing that, you’re removing one of the barriers to people doing printed stuff, because they think art works hard. If you manage that for them, then suddenly, you’ve got a better chance. You can go, “You know what? This would make a great flyer.” Suddenly, that barrier of old cognitive designs, that comes down.

 

[0:24:28] DC: Yes, 100%, I mean, you template everything, put in their logo, their information, and you cash your check and move on to the next opportunity. The next opportunity is actually supporting local events. Now, that doesn’t just mean a printer going to a local event, whatever it might be and saying, “I will print your banner for a year and I will put my logo on it.” I mean, actually, taking space or participating in these events. Look at amusement parks. There is a ridiculous amount of keepsake printing that goes on on-demand in amusement parks. Why can’t that same situation be applied to a block party, or a street fair, or anything where a printer can create a kiosk, and let kids print stickers, or whatever it might be. And just get more immersed in the community and showing people that print is cool and has different applications.

They can take photos, you can print photos. I mean, just like, I took my mother whale watching for her birthday. There were photos, there was keepsakes, there was frames if they come in. There’s a whole follow-up thing about these photos and what I might want to do about. There’s no reason that that can’t be localized in some manner. Of course, you need to have a press that you can drag to a field, perhaps, but it’s possible, it is being done. Just think about the face painting. You could do a little face tattoo transfer or anything like that, make t-shirts. There are a million things you can do. At the last DSCOOP, there was a vendor there who was giving everyone keepsakes, which were patches that you chose from. They had a whole bunch there, you chose the ones you wanted, and they put them on a hat for you. It took two seconds. It just has to dry.

[0:26:40] MP: Actually, the coolest thing I saw once. It was at the print show last year in the UK. There was one vendor there, and you could get the drink of your choice, but they took a photo of you and your face was on the top of your drink. So yeah, it’s a bit odd drinking a blue Matthew, but it was very cool. There’s something very different and engage people. So yes, those things, it could be a lot of fun at the sort of events that you’re talking about as well.

[0:27:08] DC: The last thing I have is to create your own local event. What do I mean by that? There are a lot of printing businesses that either have really large parking lots, or what do you call them over there?

[0:27:23] MP: We call it car parks.

[0:27:25] DC: Car parks, yeah, or in office parks, which have big parking lots. Perhaps, you can get the right permits and permissions to host food truck Friday, or a local make fair, or just something for craftspeople, or anything of that nature. And just think about all the print that is required to promote that, and have all the people who are going to be participating contribute to the marketing costs and anything they might need. Then, what do the individual people need? Does the granola person who has their stuff in a baggie, is there a better solution that you can offer them, eventually? Now, this isn’t necessarily a pouncing moment. It’s a relationship-building moment. It’s a relationship-building moment between the business and the community saying, “Hey, we’re part of you, and we’re here, and we’re not scary. You can come in and ask us about invitations to your family party. And you can come in ask us about helping you redesign your entire office branding,” or whatever it might be.

Then, to the people who you are attracting to participate, who might need additional print from you. Do they even have business cards on their table or something that people can take away? What are they putting in packages when people buy things? What does their bag look like? So, there are ways that you can store it, ingraining yourself yourselves with these people who know that they need print in their life, but they don’t know how to get it done, and they probably have cost concerns. But now, you’re in a different conversation with them, because you have established a mutual beneficial relationship.

[0:29:15] MP: If you’re doing events, the one I always recommend people to do, and a couple of my clients done this really, really successfully, is actually host an event for local businesses. Maybe just after work, have it at the local bar, get everyone around and say, we’re going to have a business networking event. Ideally, put on a speaker who has nothing to do with prints. But they do have something useful to say for local businesses. Naturally, you’re going to introduce the event, so you get to promote yourself on that. But this isn’t about you doing the hard sell. This is about you doing something for the community, but everyone knows that you are the printer who did it, and the other person, they’re much more likely to come to as a result of this.

Also, you’re probably going to get to speak to people who wouldn’t pick up the phone to you, or answer your emails, but they are interested in coming and meeting their local business colleagues and discussing how they can make business better around their community. Therefore, suddenly, you do get to speak to them, and it can drive to some very interesting conversations. This is one that doesn’t require permits, it’s very easy to put on, and it doesn’t require an awful lot of effort from you. That’s one that I know that a number of smaller printers who were in their locality have done, they benefited from it, and the community has benefited from it as well.

That’s one I’d thoroughly recommend, is do – it doesn’t have to be business drinks, it can be business breakfast. You could host it at a local bar, always goes down well. You can host it at your company if you’ve got a suitable room, but don’t make it all about showing people your prices at that point. It’s really about the networking.

[BREAK]

[0:30:53] DC: Are you looking to elevate your game, take your bottom line, customer relationships, and events to the next level? Then I want to work with you. I’m Deborah Corn, the Intergalactic Ambassador to the Printerverse. I engage with a vast global audience of print and marketing professionals across all stages of their careers. They are seeking topical information and resources, new ways to serve their customers and connect with them, optimize processes for their communications and operations and they meet the products and services and partnership you offer to get to their next level.

Print Media Centr offers an array of unique opportunities that amplify your message and support your mission across the Printerverse. Let’s work together, bring the right people together, and move the industry forward together. Link in the show notes. Engage long and prosper.

[EPISODE CONTINUES]

 

[0:31:54] DC: Yes. Just as an idea, using ChatGPT to effectively promote your retail business or your business, whatever it might be. People would go to that if they’re interested. They don’t understand how to use it, they’re not in the marketing space, they hear all about it. That would be an unrelated but related speaker, right? Because you’re, at the end, I said, “Marketing your business.” They’re talking about ChatGPT, fantastic. Now, you have all these social media shares. Now, you have blog content. Now, you have more ways that you want to communicate with people. Guess what, as your host of this event, I can help you with some of those things. Or, I still say that the best thing to do is at the end of the day, just hand them something that they can take away, maybe it has a QR code, and it goes to your menu of everything you can possibly do to help a small business or a retail space communicate with their community and with their current customers and find new business. Let them choose and come to you, because you have established trust, and you have established that you’re also part of the community, not just using it for sales. That’s all I’ve got, Matthew.

[0:33:21] MP: Well, you got far more than me, because I thought we were only doing two points each. So, you’ve come up with a list of 75 and I came with two.

[0:33:28] DC: Well, I had one that was divided into three, so it doesn’t really count.

[0:33:34] MP: That was very thorough, very good. I feel that I haven’t contributed quite as much to this podcast. But I will say, your last points, actually, bring along a leaflet that you’ve created using ChatGPT for the text, and using one of the image AI software that’s created the imagery for it. Again, you might be– people will be impressed at what you’ve done. And guess what, it needs to be printed. Anyway, I’m very impressed with everything you thought of there, Deborah. So, I was a bit more restrained coming with those two kinds of slightly smaller points, but I think we’ve covered some of marketing in fantastic detail. Thanks to you.

[0:34:12] DC: Well, you contributed some stuff, I guess.

[0:34:17] MP: I hope I was able to add some extra details to some of your points and added kind of a slightly different point of view with the same idea. but taking it from a slightly different angle as well. So hopefully, I contributed something as well. I

[0:34:29] DC: I think you didn’t. I’m sure everybody else did. I want to thank you for your time. I thank everyone who’s listening for their time. Links to everything we discussed are in the show notes. Until next time, everybody. Summer long and prosper.

[END OF EPISODE]

[0:34:46] 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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