The value of diversifying your business

Wide-format digital printing is considered common place nowadays, but how can companies in the sign and display sector use it to best benefit their business?

You may be buying in print from a trade supplier or have wide-format kit already—but are concerned you are not getting the most from it. Or, dare I suggest, you may be turning away work because, ‘it’s not for me’. Whichever the case, serious consideration of the potential revenue gains associated with diversification is very worthwhile for many and varied reasons.

Diversifying your business through offering new digitally printed products to your existing customer base is, in theory, likely to be one of the most rewarding decisions you can make. You have worked hard to build trusted relationships with your customers that should yield positive results. Give them a try with a new portfolio and keep them close to your company, rather than risk them seeking out your competitors. It is a lot harder to win them back if they have strayed.

Changing face of sign-making

As a core sector of the sign and display market, the traditional sign-maker has probably seen the most change in terms of the impact of—and benefits to be had from— new technology. A wide-format printer, or more frequently, an integrated printer/cutter, can yield very positive results for a company that is not presently offering a photographic, full colour, multi-substrate product.

Diversifying from simply offering a cut, coloured vinyl product to a full colour print will elevate not only your business standing, but that of your customers too. Of course, there is still a place for a simple coloured vinyl job, but a printed product is likely to command a higher margin for you, and a more professional result for your customer. Be it a vehicle livery, shop front, or A-board, it is quicker and easier—and less likely to go wrong when it is a very detailed cut vinyl design—to produce a digital print.

If you are looking for a product that is going to set the tills ringing, producing batches of contour cut stickers for your customers is a good solution. These could contain variable data—and in lucrative short runs, when compared to traditional label making companies’ long run products—a wide-format printer/cutter will fly through jobs like this.

The same machine will also be more than capable of producing your posters and plans, banners and backlit menus and your window graphics or work wear, but it should not stop there.

Start producing, keep thinking

Too often, companies invest in new technology for a tightly determined reason; they have been let down by their trade supplier, they want to increase their profits, or they simply want to ensure complete control of their jobs.

Typically, the next step in the process will be to audition a couple of possible candidates and, ultimately, the company will invest in a productive digital printer. The new machine will be installed and the print service provider will head off on the road to self sufficiency, happily producing all the work they used to buy in.

It is at this point that they will be so, ‘head down and working hard’, that they may miss the potential for the additional work their new machine can deliver. If the new machine is printing ten hours a day, doing the work it was bought for, all well and good. In all likelihood, there will be some down time during the day that could be filled with some opportunistic product samples to give to their sales team, put in their presenter and promoted to their customer base.

By looking beyond that base reason for investing, the profit potential will increase and make the whole purchase that bit more sugar-coated. Basic money making aside, of course, this all harks back to the reasons for going down this route in the first place: serving your customers. Through diversification, you are turning into not just a supplier to your customers, but a partner.

Printer, consultant, friend

At this year’s Print Monthly (SignLink’s sister magazine) round table debate at Robert Horne, I was fortunate enough to meet a very forward-thinking commercial printer, who had invested in wide-format hardware a few years back, and that now plays a vital role in his company’s product offering. The key lesson learnt from talking with him was the need to retain close proximity to his customers.

By offering a design service, a range of print products and techniques, having a marketing capability and working alongside his customers, he stays close to his customers and is a trusted source of advice—as well as being their key provider of all things print.

Put this model into place; accompany it with a diverse product range and value adding capability, and your customers will consider you to be more than simply a print provider. All along, you are keeping them close, and distancing them from the need to talk with your competition.

Taking the new direction

If you are stuck for ideas of what to offer, your suppliers, who hopefully are as close to you as you are to your customers, will help point you down the road with new ideas and directions for your company to take.

Talk with your material suppliers as well and see what they have to offer; new garment marking films, fancy effect vinyls, and other interesting media can open up new product lines for you—all utilising your current wide-format kit.

Look at your hardware manufacturer’s Facebook page and you will hopefully see plenty of examples of great applications that other printers are doing—and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Last but not least; trade publications, such as SignLink, set out to inspire with interesting user stories, motivational applications, and headline installations. If other sign-makers and graphics companies are doing it, so can you.

Stand back, take stock, and look at what you can do. Your clients will thank you for it and the reward should be a more loyal customer base, higher margin work, and, with a bit of luck, a steady stream of new orders for your new goods, allied to consistent demand for your existing products.

Article by Hybrid Services Ltd, Tel: 01270 501900, Email: info@hybridservices.co.uk, Web: www.hybridservices.co.uk

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