5 Ways to Stay Ahead of Your Competition in the Garment Decoration Business

 Article written for Printwear & Promotion Magazine

In this month’s issue of Printwear & Promotion, I wanted to share with you some

ideas to consider that will give you a competitive advantage over your competitors

and hopefully plant some seeds about how you approach your sales and marketing.

Become The Expert

By becoming an expert in your field, you very quickly become the go-to person when

someone requires your products or services. There are a couple of different ways to

explore this. The first could be to look for speaking opportunities. Networking events

or membership organisations are always a great place to start. The second would be to become somewhat of an influencer by writing articles either in publications your target audience is likely to read or perhaps by creating your own

blog. Blog posting is wonderful for search engine optimisation purposes and can also

be a great source for attracting new customers.

Riches in the Niches

After I trained to be a Corporate Coach, I was strongly advised to open myself up to

work with people outside of the printing industry and spread myself out more. The

problem with that is, I was setting myself up to compete with the other hundreds of

thousands of other coaches in the marketplace. By niching down, I’ve crafted out a

career with a lot less competition. Being a Corporate Coach who has run his own

print company makes it more appealing to someone in the industry versus someone

with no experience in print.

The same rules apply when customers are looking for new garment decorators. If

lets say a hospitality customer is looking to brand their workforce in new branded

apparel, are they more likely to order from a generic print company or a specific

garment decoration specialist who focuses on that area of the industry on a daily

basis? It will increase your chances of converting quite considerably.

Understand Your Customers Better

Speaking to all your customers, in the same way, can harm your business. That’s

why it’s so important to build profiles for each of the customer types you service. In

modern-day marketing, we call these customer avatars or buying personas.

A Customer Avatar is essentially the profile of your perfect customer. The ones you

make the best margins on, the ones that give you the least challenges and take up

less of your time. It's what they look like, what their habits are, their interests, what

challenges they face each day, and what their aspirations are for their business.

Once you know all this, it makes marketing to them far more effective for your

business and you can show them how dealing with you will make their lives better.

Segment Your Data

Following on from building your customer avatars, you are now able to segment your

audience. Something we can be guilty of is trying to be everything to everything and

therefore our marketing message may not be relatable directly to each customer. By

having your customer base broken down into business sectors, you can target them

specifically based on what you know about them, addressing what concerns they

might have and promoting products relevant to their needs.

Likewise, if you can track customers or said sector’s spending patterns, you can

create targeted campaigns based on products they are interested in or at times of

the year they typically order.

Keep Your Competitors Close

It’s important that you know who your competition is. It can often be the case that

they can provide alternative solutions to your customers that you are missing out on.

Are they offering print products or services that you don’t? Are they targeting specific

industries and having success that you had overlooked?

Analysing them regularly can also help identify things like what value propositions

are they focusing on? Is it a free next-day delivery service? Dedicated account

managers? Free artwork checks? Credit accounts? Discount on 1st order?

Lastly, take some time to check out their reviews. Most businesses these days will

use the likes of Google Reviews or Trust Pilot and within there, you’ll find plenty of

golden nuggets. Reviews can highlight opportunities where your competitors are

falling short and show you how you can gain an advantage and plug those holes in

their business.