Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

What are the benefits of printing in this way? What would these be used for? I think giving potential customers ideas about the great ways they can be used is key.

If you just announce you can print on anything, that is just a technical capability - a pretty cool one, but you need to supply the real "WOW" ideas to clients to get them excited and get them imagining how using this capability can make great things happen for them.

So - how are they used? Give examples. What are the benefits? Remember, customers want 1/4 inch holes, not 1/4 inch drills. So make sure you are not just selling the drill, sell the hole it creates - the drill is simply a tool to make it happen.

I would also mail a classic direct mail package, which almost always outpulls a postcard. You need a powerful sales letter, a buck slip, and a reply card. Top it off with an envelope and a teaser and mail that.

250 is much too small a number - you need to find all of the multiple uses for your capability and reach out to these people - For postcards, my minimum mailing is 5,000. I have seen success with as little as a few hundred, yes, but it is more likely to get the response (or lack thereof) that you are seeing.

Increase the size of the mailing, identify the audience, improve your package, get lots of exciting uses for your product and then remarket. This is the most important part.

I've been selling to this target group for many years. Are you sure these designers spec that type of product? When I go into a new territory I check for listings in Interior Design-- some just do furnishings, some just window coverings-- yet call themselves designers. And technically they are right.

You need to understand the interior design sale. First, they must - at this second, have a project on their desk that this would be appropriate. And one with the budget. Now at least a few of the 350 designers you mailed to probably do. But post cards are too passive, you need to walk in there and show them.

You need get on the phone to follow up with that postcard, set appointments, do presentations, and hopefully you have a portfolio of projects that you can show them. And repeat. If there is a local design mag for your area- they are wonderful to mine. Then you can call and say, I saw your project in xyz mag, and I what I do aligns with the type of work you do.

Out of sight is out of mind. Plus if they do tile, they have a guy -- that doesn't mean there isnt' room for you. But they see tile and say I've been working with whoever for years and I am sure he can do anything. That isn't true of course. From their persective too, their reputation is as good as their subs. And they've eaten jobs because of bad subs. Another reason for the face to face contact. They need it and they need it often. Again, out of sight is out of mind. Especially since you probably aren't ready to invest in the standard marketing collatoral that stays in their library (arch binders).

Sell Well and Prosper tm

I assume that you created this postcard yourself. Do you have it available in softcopy? You post a copy somewhere so that we can take a look?

Does the postcard include a link to your webpage? Have you checked to see if traffic has increased? Can you provide us with a link to your website?

Do you really think that a single postcard to a very small list will have much of an impact?

I second what Dave (Telemoxie) said. Can we see an image?

Also, a postcard will generate leads and interest, but not direct sales (particularly for something like this). You want to offer them something they'll want (a guide or a checklist or something) in return for contacting you.

If you want to get closer to a sale, you're better off sending a full package (possibly a small sample they can feel and see).

Lastly, the benefits you listed are really features. You need to sell a solution and an experience (wow, that's cool, nobody else will have one), not a process. As someone famously said, "Lawn, not grass seed."

Jodi

Agree, just keep hammering the images home.

August is brutal in our industry (CRE); dead-zone without par...

Fall should produce results. Consider expanding your maket area, too.

Hang in there. And pray the economy picks up, too!

jag
MarketBase

Again, you have to show these designers applications. Even though they are creative types, they need help visualizing. Show the art in room settings, residential and corporate. Or anywhere else you might find them.

The rock sales may be geographic. I just moved to the "Bible Belt". Here, I can see why religious rocks would outsell anything else. But for a substantial piece of art the size of this-- I'm not sure. I went into many homes, house shopping and saw tons of small pieces, but larger pieces -- if they had anything other than photographs-- I didn't see that.

I have worked with a company that did lazar on stone custom pix -- not in color as yours. And they hit the corporate market, logo's-- and the wedding and new baby market. When I started to work with them, they demo'd the product by asking me for my business card-- and lazar etched me a new business card holder.

You might want to check out www.imaginetile.com. Its a company I work with. You'll see how they do actual room settings and get a lot of info on what I mean by understanding the designer sell. Click around specifications, etc. If you've been in a Subway with tile on the counter front (veggies) -- you've seen Imagine Tile.

The sampling for a designer is a full page catalogue of the "standard" designs. The back few pages are dedicated to custom projects. Then a slot for a 8 x 8 tile. Its an expensive piece, but fits nicely in the library. I'm working on a project right now for a casino-- about 30K of product at $16.50 SF. I love the sell because once I get it specified, there is no reason to barter onprice-- they protect their patents vigorously. That is what is so great about custom and the designer sell. Once you get it specified, sure they can value engineer -- and you have to protect the spec against non-or equals-- but basically you got the job. And once a designer uses it, they are likely to use it again and again. This is not just an overlay, a commercially rated product. I lost a sale to a wanna be or equal that was an overlay-- it faded and failed -- and replaced.

While their standard designs are about the price of yours--their custom designs can run several hundreds of dollars a SF. A client did a panarama shot she took of the mountain range in Alaska-- they reproduced it for tiling her bathroom. Another several hundred SF project was an airport-- the city ran an art competition and selected art was reproduced on the elevator wall. Instead of just being the "blue floor" there was a great graphic to go with it.

Its so expensive cause their process is like screen printing-- in the airport example, to keep costs down, the art had to be so many repeating panels. Unlike from I'm getting from you-- no such limitation.

We've placed it in some retail stores-- but honestly, they don't get it-- including HD Expo. The majority of the sale is from the A/D community. And people like me, driving the sale as I have in the casino above.

I'm glad you aren't doing the lazar thing-- there were a lot of those machines sold, and its hard to stand out. The market for this is small, but profitable when correctly marketed and sold. (I'll make 30% on that 30K Casino Sale)

I don't know why that link isn't working from this post. If I just key in imaginetile.com it comes up, but not from this post. Try that, or just google it. There really isn't anyone doing it exactly as they are. Like I said, they protect their patent vigorously.

The whole point of that rant is I think their model of marketing would work well for you. They spend zero on advertising-- just marketing via press releases etc. Their marketing gal gets into the major mags-- but with press releases she's there as "news". And their also on the home decorating shows. And they give their reps the right tools to market to designers.

That is exactly my point. If they are getting the prices they are getting consistantly, your possibilities are endless. You just need to help the designer understand the product-- and visualize its pendless potential uses. Which the example I used does very very well. That is why they get their sales. And that is why I send the link-- so you can see just how they do.

Right again it is a different process- but there are similarities in your market niche. As interesting as it is, there are some projects that just can't take that price point. But still want the "pop". Your pricing is an extreme advantage. And you have more capability. You might want to consider doing a show like Hospitality Design. Or Global Shop (retail designers). Besides individual designers, the in house designers of many chains attend. I think both groups would be hot niches for you. Getting out as you say, but targeting designers doing that type of work, would be good tests if those shows would work for you.