Now that the biggest hurdle is over (installing the digital press and opening our doors), I can spend a part of my day on the marketing plan. We have a lofty goal of $1 million in sales in the next 12 months, with an equally high net profit margin we are trying to achieve. When you look at the sales number, it might be an overwhelming number, but I like to break it down into more manageable chunks. Think of it this way: a million dollars in sales is just 1,000 customers spending $1,000 with you in one year – less than a hundred dollars a month. So my goal is to acquire 1,000 new customers in the next 12 months (plus a few hundred more as a safety net to my goal.)
My first three tasks are to open accounts with the big three names – twitter, facebook and linkedin.
I opened a twitter account in just a few minutes, and I chose the name socialprintexp to reflect the name of the Social Print Experiment. I customized the twitter landing page, adding my logo and gravatar image (my photo) to the page. I also added a subscriber link here from our website.
I also started a Linkedin group called Social Print Experiment to call attention to our project, and serve as a forum to share what we’re working on. There are a few members there now, maybe 25, but I expect that number to grow significantly as the experiment progresses.
I still need to start our Facebook page, and I’ll get that finished up this week.
Each of these initiatives still need to be managed – they won’t do anything on their own – and I’ll start working on those next week. Twitter is my favorite application to work with, and there are a lot of things you can do to build a quality following (rather than a quantity following, which isn’t as strong when it comes to marketing yourself) in a short time period.
However, I’m not going to be able to build my sales volume just on those three applications above; I’m also going to need to create a direct mail campaign with PURLs to reach customers on my prospect list.
I recently discovered a web-based PURL program called Purlem. This site allows me to create my PURLs easily, with landing pages using my domain name, and with the analytics that I need to track the responses from my direct mail. It’s also a great price. You can try it out for free for up to 500 PURLs. Within minutes of signing up for the free service, I had an email from Marty Thomas, CEO of Purlem, offering his help on how to use his service. After talking to him, I’m comfortable recommending Purlem. It’s easy to use and great for a startup company like ours, operating on a shoestring budget.
I’ll keep you updated on my progress next week for Week 2 of the Social Print Experiment.
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{ 3 comments }
Andrew, Fascinating project! By far the most innovative application of viral marketing I’ve come across in the printing industry. Best of luck. Let me know if you need a digital estimating program. I’ll have the Pixelblitz Edition of Morning Flight sent to you with my compliments.
Thanks, Hal, for your comments! Frankly, the interest has taken us by surprise, but it’s given us many more ideas on how we can provide even more insight into our project. We’d live to take a look at your software and see if it will fit into our business model. Contact us offline at 888-773-6355 and ask for me; we’ll work out the details.
Thanks
Andrew
Hi Andrew. Thanks for the recommending Purlem!
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