# Help with new business.. how to market printing services in a small town?



## bonedaddy68 (May 1, 2007)

Hello all,

Let me discribe our situation and see if we can get any advise from anyone thats been there. My wife and I started a small business, we got a LLC for it but now we are kinda of at a loss as to how to promote it and bring in business. We live in a small town of about 20, 000 and there is only one screen printer in town and he has a strong hold on everyone in town for stuff. We had so many people tell us that if someone else were doing t-shirts and stuff they would go to them and thats why we started our business but we have been in business for almost 2 months and we have only had 2 orders. 

We bought a hotronix stx digital auto clam shell 16x20, and a epson C88+ and plan on doing most of our business using plastisol from either Transfer Express or one of the other sites and the c88+ for any personalized stuff that needs to be done, I am also a freelance graphic artist. One bad deal is we do not have enough money to open a shop or get a store front so we are working out of our house. We live outside of town so one thing we did was offer free delivery. We have put an add in the paper and I went to all the local ball diamonds and put up flyers that we made. We also had about 250 business cards made up to give out. We are open to anything, if I need to just go door to door or cold call I will, if we should start a website or try cafepress we are open to that as well, we are really down after being so up to start things. Any advise would be great as we really want to make this work.

Thanks in advance
for any help...

J&D @ Tee Shirt Express, LLC.


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## vctradingcubao (Nov 15, 2006)

On small towns like yours, going to the shops and other business establishments and introducing your services and leaving your business card is the thing to do, IMHO. Good luck with your cold calling!


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## sunnydayz (Jun 22, 2007)

What about and small restraunts who might like something for their employees or the local schools, churchs? Do they have any annual events like when I lived in a small community they had things such as the annual apple festival, do they have any events like that? if they do maybe contact the organizers to see if maybe they would be interested in promotional items. A website is a very good idea for getting orders out of your targeted area and bring in more business. hope this helps.
Bobbie


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

Taking in samples with the customers logo can be a good way to get future business. Cold calling can help too.

You also have to note that in a smaller town, there may be times when nobody needs custom shirts (and there will be times when it seems like everyone needs it).

Going to the local chamber of commerce and introducing your business, mailing out postcards can also help.

You can find a wealth of great tips and suggestions by reading here: http://www.t-shirtforums.com/tags/local-marketing/


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## debz1959 (Jul 29, 2007)

Been there, still there...

We bought our TJet3 about four months ago trying to pick up the market of the one screen printer in out small town of about 25,000 that was retiring. We've done radio, our local cable channel, local newspapers and we are members of the Chamber of Commerce. 

One advantage that we have over you is that we do have a store front in town, a small, fairly busy cafe that we own. We have t-shirts hanging up all over the place, but sales are still slow. A lot of people come in for shirts, but they want them right away, so we've just purchased a C88 Artanium dye sub set up and some Hanes SoftLink shirts. 

Now the only problem we have is we need more employees. I actually wait tables from 11am until 3pm when my only paid server comes in, a high school student. A disadvantage of living in a small town where the unemployment rate is very low, is finding and keeping good employees.

Anyway, back to your problem....

Some ideas that I think have worked, other than the consistant advertising that we've done...

1) I always wear one of our original t-shirts and I have many business cards to hand out all of the time.

2) I talk to people everywhere I go; standing in line at the market, the post office, bank, etc...

3) I'm not quite sure if this will help, but the UNISUB website has some Free Target Sales Campaigns under their Marketing tab, filled with sample leters for different industries.

4) and YES!!! a website. Even if it only to show the locals what you do...

By the way, if you have a local Chamber of Commerce, do they have a website or member directory? That's a BIG help!


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## plan b (Feb 21, 2007)

I have used this several times,,, talk to the news paper,, most do write ups on new business and every time I come out with a new product I try to get a write up again,, its free, people read that over a add, it works pretty good. 

R.


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## binki (Jul 16, 2006)

Step 1: Be a joiner. Got a church in town? *Go often*. Got a Chamber of Commerce? *Join*. Got a Masonic Lodge? *Join*. Got an Elks Lodge? *Join*. Got Girl Scouts? *Volunteer to be an adult leader*. If you are a man they will love you. No kidding, the girl scouts need male delegates to their conventions. Got the point? I did it for seven years and after all the bug bites, 8 year old girls knocking their tents over at 2am, freezing my @$$ off camping, I can look back and say I really enjoyed my weekends with 25 girls and 10 adult women. At least I got the bathroom to myself. 

Step 2: Make something for the group you belong to and wear it to an event. Make extras to take with you but keep them in the car. When someone asks you where you got the cool hat/shirt/shoe/scarf/whatever tell them "what this? oh, I make them, would you like one?" Cha-ching! customer for life and repeat orders. 

Step 3: Believe in everything you join. If you are insincere you will loose customers and will be done. Your customers in these organizations will give you business because you are one of them. If you break that trust you are done. You don't have to rip them off, you only have to make a profit and they expect that. 

Good Luck.


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## bonedaddy68 (May 1, 2007)

Wow, thanks all for the suggestions, they are great! We will give them a try, we were already thinking about doing the inside business section in our paper, its for new business's and think its a great idea.. We were wondering if anyone had an opinion on wether we should continue to use the durabrite ink that came with our espon c88+ or would it be worth our while to buy a set of sublimation inks to use. They are pretty expensive compared to the durabrite but if its worth it we will give them a try. Once again thanks all for the suggestions, this website has been priceless in helping us...

J&D Tee Shirt Express, LLC.


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## plan b (Feb 21, 2007)

Depends on what you want to do,, sub inks limit you to polyester material,, however then you can do coffee mugs , tiles,, christmas ornaments etc,,, look at conde web site they have a ton of sub stuff,,, as cheap as the c88 are you might just get another one for sub inks then you can do both... hope this helps,,

R.


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## bonedaddy68 (May 1, 2007)

Thanks, thats a good idea, we will look into that. It might open up a few more windows of opp for us to be able to do mugs and stuff. Oh and if anyone has anymore ideas about bringing in more customers let us know we are still looking..


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> We were wondering if anyone had an opinion on wether we should continue to use the durabrite ink that came with our espon c88+ or would it be worth our while to buy a set of sublimation inks to use


You may want to start a new topic for that question in the Heat Transfer section of the forum so this thread can stay on the topic of local marketing of printing services. That will make it easier for people to know what's inside the thread when they look for similar help later on


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## Transfer_printer (Aug 15, 2007)

First of all, you should read Selling For Dummies by Tom Hopkins. You will find a lot useful tips for your problems.

Robert


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## TripleT (Apr 29, 2007)

Jon, I wrote this on another thread but this should help you also. Google: Guerilla Marketing (some people spell it: Gurilla Marketing), for some great marketing tips. Good Luck.


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## tim3560 (Jan 7, 2007)

As far as the sublimation cartridges, I recently found out that Conde has refillable cartridges. There are a lot of headaches that come with the bulk system, so don't be convinced that it's the way to go. With the refillable cartridges, you don't have to print something everyday to keep the ink from clogging. Also please consider the price per item of sublimation. If your area wants rock-bottom pricing, they might not be interested in sublimation. I can get t's contract printed (shirt+print+shipping), one finished screenprinted shirt for the price of one sublimatable t-shirt without printing and shipping.
I'm in a similar situation as you are. My wife and I started selling screenprinting and Embroidery services from our home in March and I went full time in June. Face to face marketing is the key. You have to go out and get your sales in person. If you have to stay in the shop at all times, maybe you can find someone to do outside sales for you. Send out your wife at 3 when your high schooler comes in. People do read ads, but in a small town like mine and yours they rarely act on them. Make a nice flyer and go out. I've had several people call me back to there stores to place orders, I've had other customers who had called other companies, not knowing about mine, and when I showed up and gave them a quote, they gave me a check for half of the order that day. My town has 50,000 people in it and at least 4 companies providing the same services that I do. So per capita, you're odds are better than mine. 
Get a different business card than everyone else's. We got a blue pvc plastic card with silver foil on it. Out of 500 that I've given out, every single person has said, "Wow, that's a neat card!" People remember different. A white card with black ink gets thrown in with everyone elses. Mine is bright and shiny and blue and is very easy to recognize over everyone else's.
If you already have the coffee shop, make t-shirts for the coffee shop with a good design that are cheap enough to give away and under the design or on the sleeve put the name of your screenprinting business. Double advertising! Everyone likes a free shirt. They feel like they've won a prize! And they'll wear it with pride. If you think about the costs of the other forms of advertising, you'll figure out that giving out free t-shirts will go much further than per week in a news paper, per ad on the radio, etc.


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