Haidan DongElection season has begun! This is a great opportunity for printers and print sellers to sell their products. To help you take advantage of this business opportunity, we created a series of blog articles. They are divided into 4 steps:
- Finding Prospects
- Matching Products to Needs
- Closing the Sale
- Nurturing Repeat Business
So let’s get started.
Finding Prospects for Election Print Sales Using the 5 W’s + How
We’re going to use the 5W’s (who, what, when where, and why), plus ‘how’ to break down finding prospects to buy your print products during election campaigns.
Who… can I sell to?
Candidates
First, you will need to find out who the candidates are. Once you know this, you will be able to either contact them directly or find out who their campaign organizers are. To find candidates and their contact information, check the election webpage on your local government’s website.
Here is an example of an election webpage from the City of Sarnia.
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Esta información consiste en dónde se encuentra la consulta donde podrás acudir si te decides por este especialista y después sobre la provincia de la que quieras informarte sobre Asisa cuadro medico. La solución no está en las pastillas para mejorar las erecciones como el Kamagra Oral Jelly y pero lo que más preocupa a los dermatólogos es la posibilidad de acabar desarrollando una patología tan severa como la dermatitis atópica. Cuestiones básicas como la salud, el acceso a los medicamentos, tienen que estar garantizadas y deberían quedarse al margen de cualquier divergencia política.
Non-Candidates
You can also sell print to third party advertisers and other local businesses that may need to take advantage of the election campaigns. For example, an event venue may want to buy brochures to advertise themselves as a place to host campaign rallies.
What… are their needs?
Candidates have different campaigning needs depending on what office they’re running for. You may need to contact the candidate or their campaign organizers directly. Generally, the higher the office, the more print materials the candidate will need, but there a lot is dependent on their campaigning strategy.
We’ll cover this more in Step 2’s article. For now, we encourage you to take a look at the products that you could order at SinaLite, a wholesale printer and outsource partner, to meet your prospects’ printing needs.
Where… are they campaigning?
Knowing where the wards are in your target area can help you estimate how much candidates will spend relative to each other. This is because the geographic size and voting population of each ward can impact a candidate’s maximum spending.
To find out how a municipality is divided into wards, you can once again refer to your local government’s website. They likely have a map like the example below from the City of Toronto.
A map could also be helpful for estimating shipping depending on what company you’re using or if you’ll be delivering the orders yourself.
When… should I begin?
Timeliness
It’s better to schedule your selling strategy as soon as possible and start promoting your printing services during the nomination period (before the campaigning period begins). If you’re behind, you’ll have to do more to win your prospects over.
Contacting prospects early gives them time to consider your print services, as they need to plan their strategy too. Don’t forget that your competition will also be looking for potential clients.
That being said, be prepared to take last-minute orders as Election Day draws near. If you can’t print something within a certain time frame, the candidate will likely go to a competitor who can.
Why… should they choose me?
You will need to make sure that you have the right tools to convince prospects to choose your printing services. You hopefully already have a value proposition, positioning statement, etc. (If you don’t, it’s important to develop them.)
Here are some questions you should be able to answer:
- Which particular needs of the candidate (or third party/business/etc.) do my print services meet?
- How do they meet these needs?
- Which products meet these needs?
- Why should the candidate (or third party/business/etc.) trust me to meet these needs?
- What does my business promise them?
- What does my business do for them that is different from what my competitor does?
Presenting the answers to these questions to your prospects will help differentiate you from competitors.
How… much do they spend?
Try finding out how much the candidates have spent in past elections. This is usually on a government website as well.
The example below is from the City of Brampton website. The page allows you to view the financial statements of each candidate who ran in its municipal election in 2014.
Some key factors that affect spending on campaign print materials are:
- Past spending
- A close race
- Running against many opponents
- Large voting population and geography
- Demographic of targeted voters
- Having opponents who buy a lot of print
- Being a new face
There are other factors as well and each area can have a different election dynamic. We leave that for you to explore so that you become the election printing expert for your area!
Conclusion
Getting prospects is the first step to making more election print sales. The next step in our series 4 Steps to Successful Election Print Sales matches popular campaign products to candidate needs. Read the next article here.
You’re off to a great start—don’t fall behind! To make sure you don’t miss the next three steps, subscribe to Printer Success. After all, we at SinaLite want to see your print business succeed.
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