Nurturing Repeat Business (4 Steps to Successful Election Print Sales Part 4)

To help print businesses get the most out of election campaign season, we’ve written a series of articles called 4 Steps to Successful Election Print Sales. You can find the three previous steps at Printer Success:

1. Step 1: Finding Prospects
2. Step 2: Matching Products to Needs
3. Step 3: Closing the Sale

Our fourth and final article is on nurturing repeat business. Election print sales are just a springboard for more success!

During Campaign Season

Think about nurturing repeat business the first time you interact with a customer. This is so that you can start trying to build a long-term partnership with them. Here are a few ways to do that:

1. Ask for their contact information: If you have a newsletter, ask them if they would like to subscribe. Be sure to mention the benefits that subscribers receive, even if it’s as simple as being the first to know.
2. Keep all paperwork: This is helpful for both you and your customer. You’ll need the paperwork for future marketing research (especially during future elections) and they’ll need the paperwork for filing their campaign financial report.
3. Welcome feedback: Use customer feedback to improve your business. Also keep note of what types of products your customers are requesting from you. If you’re unable to provide them at this time, consider offering them by outsourcing these orders to a wholesale supplier like SinaLite.

During campaign season, you should also try to learn more about the competition. Find out:

• Who they are
• What they offer
• How big a threat they are
• What you can do to differentiate yourself from them

At the End of Campaign Season

Here are a few things you should do if your client wins the office they ran for:

• Congratulate them and thank them for ordering from your business.
• Ask them if they would like to print any thank-you products. Winning candidates need a lot of print after their campaign ends to thank their supporters.
• Include their win as a qualification on your website (e.g. “We printed campaign materials that helped our customer win the election.”)

If your customer did not win their office, it is still a good idea to send them a thank-you card or a sensitive letter with condolences. It shows that your business still values them.

Regardless of whether they won or not, there are three things that you can ask them:

Whether they require any paperwork/info mailed to them: This shows you care about their needs.

For reviews and testimonials: Good reviews and testimonials can do wonders for your online presence.

If they want to subscribe to your newsletter: This greatly increases their chances of repeat business with you.

After Campaign Season

When election season is over, there are still many things you can do to make sure your hard-earned success doesn’t go to waste. Here are some important tasks for you.

1. Review and plan: Hold a meeting with your staff to go over what worked and what didn’t. Then, based on your findings, plan your next steps and/or what you’d do to sell more in future elections.
2. Improve your business: Based on what you learned at your review and planning stages, grow your business by following through. This might involve:
   • Increasing your product selection
   • Fixing workflow issues
   • Rebranding your print shop
   • Adjusting your marketing strategy
   • Educating yourself more
   • Anything else to improve business
3. Remind your customers that you exist: Send those who subscribed your newsletters, promo emails and/or direct mail. Reach out to your audience on social media and use the information that you collected during elections to help segment your audience for ads.
4. Grow customer loyalty: Provide special offers to candidates who printed with you. Try running a referral program if possible where those who refer new clients receive a discount or a gift.
5. Stay in the loop: This means staying in your community’s news loop so that you can discover more opportunities to sell print, but also keeping others in your news loop so that they order from you.
6. Prepare for the new political term: Elections bring new people into office. This means school boards, city councils, and other assemblies may need new business cards. Contact them to find out. You should also stay informed about any potential new legislation that could affect your business.

Conclusion

This concludes our four-part series 4 Steps to Successful Election Print Sales. We hope it has helped you maximize your election season print sales. If you enjoyed these articles, subscribe to Printer Success, where we provide you with weekly articles that help you grow your print business.