What Do Print Buyers Want?

What Do Print Buyers Want?

What Do Customers Want When It Comes to Their Printed Collateral and Marketing Material?

This question “What do Print Buyers Want?” to some, may feel like it has an obvious answer, while others could see it as complex, but the reality is that print buyers want outcomes.

So the answer to the question is that “Print Buyers Want to Achieve Their Goals” (goals and outcomes).

But then the question you may ask is what are the goals and outcomes of the print buyer? And that is the question you should be asking so let’s dive into what those are and show how you can better market yourself as a print solution provider.

What Are Goals and Outcomes? Not Just for Print

Again, we don’t want to come off as too rudimentary here, but if we focus broadly on what they are… Goals are the desired Outcomes or results that a person, customers or organization wants to achieve. Goals provide direction, motivation, and clear focus. 

Here are what Goals actually do and provide…

1. Clarity of Purpose – Goals help clarify what you want to achieve, giving you a specific target to work towards.
2. Motivation – Having clear goals keeps you motivated and gives you a reason to keep going.
3. Measurement – Goals provide a benchmark for success, allowing you to measure progress over time.
4. Focus – They help you concentrate your efforts and resources on important tasks, avoiding distractions.
5. Accountability – Setting goals creates a sense of responsibility and encourages commitment to achieving them.

So why is this important? Because your customer may not actually want something printed, they actually want to get something that they believe the print will provide them. Help achieving a goal or outcome. 

Let’s look a little more at the goals and outcomes customers would want print to provide.

What Goals Does Print Help Buyers and Customers Achieve?

This is the key to your success in selling more print and being able to command more profitable prices for your work. Focusing less on the commodity of print you can spend more time talking about their goals and outcomes.

Print as a Goal

Now we do still have to admit that every company who wants print from you, does in fact, want print. But you’ll also find many Agencies or Graphic Designers wanting a certain level of quality in their print which is still more print focused because they care A LOT about color and quality. Even though the Agencies and Designers customers care more about their Goals and Outcomes, the Agency and Designer will focus more on Quality in your relationship.

There is so much nuance to this it’s hard to make blanket absolute statements, but this one is pretty spot on.

Revenue as a Goal

We’re also a firm believer that most businesses and organizations have an end goal of revenue. If you need money to operate then ultimately money is a goal and achieving revenue targets allows you to do that. You can sustain or grow with revenue and in many cases Revenue is a direct goal. So your messaging can center around how direct mail or other printed marketing can help increase revenue for a business or organization.

Much of the goals listed below ultimately result in more revenue, but the goal at hand for a company can be a few levels above the revenue mindset and that’s what we are sharing below.

Customers as a Goal

Getting more customers is critical for a business or organization to sustain itself and to grow so of course they would want to bring in new customers or replace customers who leave. Again, including messaging about acquiring new customers can generate more of a focus on that goal instead of the print itself and sharing how print can do that will put you ahead of the competition.

Members as a Goal

Similar to getting more customers is getting more Members. This is a little bit different because some organizations have members who pay directly, while others get funding elsewhere, but in many cases funding is dependent on the member count. Startups, Churches, Non-Profits, Schools, Government Funded Organizations and other types of companies like this just need to increase their membership which requires a different approach to acquire them. You can speak to how you do that using print marketing solutions.

Attendees as a Goal

Many companies and organizations hold events and they need people to show up. This may require attendees to pay but in many cases there is no payment required, they just want people to come to the event. A different approach and message is required to get people to show up and in some cases depending on the type of event you may need to create extremely innovative strategic approaches to lure in the most apprehensive targets.

Awareness as a Goal

A big goal for marketing is Awareness especially for younger companies and those who’ve never relied heavily on branded identity but are now ready to take their brand to the next level. Obtaining more awareness leads to more of everything. If customers don’t know you exist they’ll never do business with you so it’s critical to drive up awareness and ensuring that your print customers know you can help you with that is very important.

Education as a Goal

And many organizations need to ensure they share more detail about what they do, how they do it, and where they differentiate. While some institutions such as hospitals need to give explicit direction to patients. But all of this is focused on educating a customer. And that is a very specific goal very different from increasing revenue or acquiring new customers & members. Making sure your print buyer knows that you can create printed solutions that educate their customer base will allow you to close more print business by focusing on that message with these groups.

We could go on for even longer about this, but you get the point. There are different goals and outcomes that your print buyer and print customers need to achieve and when you speak directly to those goals and objectives it will get you more business and generate more substantial customer relationships.

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