Focus on Your Top 20% of Customers, Stop Ignoring LinkedIn Marketing, and More To-Dos for Print Managers This Spring

Feb. 26-Mar. 4

SEO Run some tests to see how your shop ranks when someone asks their phone: “Siri, where can I get wide-format print service?” As the stunning release of ChatGPT showed, the future is upon us – the chatbots are coming to take over.

Mar. 5-11

SELF-CARE Catch your breath. You’ve likely been working non-stop since the end-of-year holidays. “Take more time off,” says Diana Herrera of AP Imaging.

Mar. 12-18

MARKETING Your best customers are your current customers. Identify your “top 20 percent” clients. Draft a plan to cater to them over the next nine months.

Mar. 19 – 25

STORE Get in touch with your electric utility. Many offer free energy audits, which can spur ideas for how to reduce your electric bill. Some water utilities do the same.

Mar. 26-Apr. 1

CRM Send flowers to everyone who referred customers over the past three months. For a big sale, perhaps send a gift certificate to a local restaurant.

April 2-8

MARKETING LinkedIn has many of the same micro-targeting capabilities as the other major social media sites, but it is less crowded and more focused, so your message is likely to gain more traction. Build a quick profile and ask your staff and customers to connect. Then, target specific demographics – say, “professional women over the age of 35.”

April 9-15

TEAM Set a learning goal for your team members. It could be sales skills, social media practices, or production efficiency. Just make sure the knowledge is new to them. Research shows workers thrive when they experience both a sense of vitality and a sense of learning. They also are healthier and less susceptible to stress and burnout.

April 16-22

SEO The notion of creating a sea of content in the form of a company blog that Google can’t ignore may seem daunting, but it’s actually not so hard. List the 100 most common customer questions. These are the titles of your fist 100 blog posts. If you answer two per week in writing, that’s a whole year’s worth of fresh content across all your channels.

April 23-29

STAFF Ask team members for their summer vacation requests.

MONTHLY PROJECT

Claim Your Domain

We’re always surprised by how many readers tell us they don’t have a website… more shocking? That they don’t need one.

We do not agree. Even if you’re a well-established business with two months of work booked and no reason to prioritize SEO ranking, you have good reason to invest in a basic site.

As a small business, it’s important to make the most of your resources. An effective website eliminates the need to call for directions or hours of operation. Freeing your phone lines from simple questions also can alleviate an already spread thin workforce.

If you do not already have one, this month your project is to create a URL for your business. (GoDaddy.com is a great place to start.) Keep it as close to the business name your customers are already familiar with and stick with a “.com” extension whenever possible. You might be surprised by how many domains are no longer available. If your preferred name is not available, try adding the name of your town or another distinguishing descriptor, like GraphicsonMainATL.com or ABCImagingPDX.com.