Building Your Business

If you want solid business, you need to do more than just have a lot of sales.

Do not get me wrong, but those companies that hold a lot of sales are going to get a certain amount of business, but the kind they get will be short lived and may probably last only until the sale is over with. The more sale based your customers become, the less business you will be doing with them during those periods between sale activities. What you need to do is develop stronger ties with your customers – even if there is a sale or not.

The first thing to do is to constantly contact them for reasons other than just the sale activity of the store. There are all sorts of methods for maintaining good relationships with your customers that go beyond simple sales. Why not use color printing to send out some newsletters each month? Tell your customers about what kind of people you have working for you and what other events you have planned. Let them get to know you, form a stronger bond with you, and you will find you have customers who really want to shop with you.

Holding events outside of sales is another good way to developing a strong relationship with your customers. Host local events or organize other kinds of interesting activities. I have seen plenty of bookstores that have special reading events where people can bring in their children to have stories read to them.

Back during the craze for Pokémon Toys R Us regularly held tournaments specifically for Pokémon cards. By going beyond purely advertising upcoming sales, they were able to develop a different kind of bond with their customers and create the strong image of a fun store to shop at.

You also want to be sure that your line of communication is two way. Do not just send out a bunch of ads without any concern for what your customers think. Ask them for their thoughts and opinions on what kinds of events you should do or what kinds of sales they would like to see the most.

Make them feel important to you. Make sure they know that their input is valuable, and they will feel closer to your company. I always like the feeling that a company is really trying to do its best to make me happy. They are not just concerned with how much money they can make from me.

If you own a larger store, how often do you go down and walk the sales floor? How often do you actually talk to customers face to face to ask them how they are doing and what they would like to see more of?

I like to talk to the person in charge to know that my opinions are going to be heard by the real decision maker. There is no reason to hide away from the people who are allowing your business to exist by shopping with you.

Just remember that color printing can be used for more than telling people about the next sale. Get up close and personal with your customers and I think you will find you will develop a much stronger relationship with them that works out better for everyone involved.

Katie Marcus writes about color printing technologies for the marketing and advertising campaigns of businesses.

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