Selling yourself short

Nearly two years ago, Fespa’s Richard Kensett offered printers five useful tips for marketing themselves online ( http://www.fespa.com/news/blogs/guest-blogger/top-5-tips-to-cracking-content-marketing-for-your-print-business.html ). If anything, his thoughts are even more relevant today. In essence, he said print firms needed to be more creative online, ensure their brand was consistently expressed across all channels and offer personalised, useful content that is easy to share.

Sounds easy enough? So why aren’t more printers doing it? Too many think having a functional website and a Facebook page is enough. Yet how many likes has that Facebook page got? What’s the biggest discussion you’ve ever had on it? And how many of the people who ‘like’ you on Facebook actually interact with your company in any other way?

Content marketing sounds expensive, laborious and time-consuming. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. The ‘right’ content that gets you noticed can be something as straightforward as a photograph, some compelling words or even the right question? But if content marketing is to be done well, it has to be done often.

If you feel you’ve missed the boat, don’t worry; one of the great virtues of content marketing – especially when it comes to using social media – is that it is incredibly easy to catch up. Jeffery Hazlett, the author of ‘The Mirror Test’, says: “You don’t need some high-priced consultant to get started. Just remember the 4E’s: Engage, Educate, Excite, Evangelise.”