Summary
Today the marketing industry is growing beyond imagination, all thanks to the digital revolution.
You can market with methods like Social Media, Internet marketing, Email marketing, Google Ads, Amazon Listings, and whatnot!
However, all these methods may not always be appropriate for every type of business. For example, a chemical manufacturing company is not marketing effectively if their primary marketing medium is Instagram. Also, these methods demand investments and time for great results. On the other hand, Flyers are cost-effective and a suitable medium of marketing for all types of businesses. Whether it’s for a new shop opening or a big sale announcement, distributing flyers helps businesses easily fetch potential customers.
Hence, having a flyer business can be that one great idea to start your entrepreneur journey. Studies from DMA show that people revisit Leaflets and flyers six times, on average. 48% of consumers visited the shop, requested extra information, or made a purchase after receiving a leaflet.
So, if you want to know how to start a flyer printing business, this guide is everything you need to get things right, on time! Let’s get started!
Step1: Understand the Audience
To sell flyers online, the very first step is to understand your audience. The easiest way to do it is to start with broad assumptions and narrow down the focus. You can make groups based on gender, age, location to get started. This will help you eliminate the ones who aren’t your target users. For example, in your case, your major audience base would be small to medium businesses, shops like cafes and restaurants, general stores, event management companies, etc. Whether there’s a new salon opening or some event, they can easily and instantly spread the word using flyers.
Once you are done with finalizing your target audience, the next step is to understand their requirements. Flyers as the direct marketing are one tried and tested method for years now. Still, there are challenges that people may face like, not getting good design options, delayed deliveries, low-quality products, etc. As a part of your research, find out such gaps and see how you can feel that with your services.
For example, in the market right now, people’s choices are getting diversified. They want something different, and they get something else. Offering customized solutions as a solution can cater to each of your customers’ expectations. Because customization is not a “new normal,” it is becoming a necessity today.
You can now easily offer customized flyers to your customers by empowering them to design it on their own. Our user-friendly flyer design tool allows your customers to create unique, eye-catching flyers that perfectly reflect their brand identity and marketing goals, all while saving time and hassle for your business.
Step2: Choose the Business Model
Online business vs. offline business is a years-old debate. However, we’ve got the conclusion today.
If you think having a brick-and-mortar store will make the printing part easy, think twice. Because it not only demands great investments for physical space and amenities, but the maintenance costs also tend to get higher. Additionally, you need to offer data-driven marketing insights to elevate the customer experience more than just offering price matching.
On the other hand, selling flyers online will help you save costs for physical space and other miscellaneous things that come right behind. Going online means having a website where your users can come, browse and order products. If you have a limited budget to get started, you can tie up with printers and suppliers who can help you with printing and inventory. This way, initially, you can see how it goes, and later you can expand further based on the response you receive.
Also, did you know that by 2040, e-commerce is predicted to facilitate around 95% of all purchases? With such a huge shift towards online channels, it’s essential to have a strong online presence to stay competitive in the market.
All in all, having an online store also helps you go beyond boundaries and attract customers on a global level. There are successful online print shops like Custom Ink, Vistaprint that handle all the processes online. To conclude, having an online shop will help you set up your flyers printing business quickly, and it will not be too heavy on your pocket.
Starting a business online comes with a long check-list. A great looking website, hosting, security, marketing, and whatnot. To make your journey seamless, team PrintXpand can guide you here.
With our user-friendly, customizable solution, you can set up a professional online store quickly and easily.
Don’t wait any longer; visit our website to learn more and start your journey to success today!
Step 3: Market Research
It is the most important yet underrated part. It is like a sturdy foundation for any business to be built upon, ready for any threats or weaknesses that may arise as the flyers printing business grows. Here are three significant aspects to look forward to:
Decide Budget
This part cannot have a tutorial on planning a budget because each business has its different needs. You can get started with listing down all the major costs, including website development, product sourcing, shipping, etc. Once you have that, you list down all the unnecessary expenses you may need in the future. This will help you manage the cost crisis.
Legal Procedures
Make sure to keep your legal part up to date so that you do not have any hurdles. Legal documents like Incorporation Certificate, Business License (or Business Tax Certificate), Fictitious Business Name (Doing Business as Statement), Employer Identification Number (EIN), etc., should be included.
Sourcing Products and Logistics
To sell flyers online, you will need to tie up with good suppliers who can make sure you never run out of stock. Before finalizing, make sure to check product quality as that is the most important aspect. You will also need to get your logistics partners for a smooth journey of storing your products and later transporting them to the final destination.
Another option for selling flyers online is through print-on-demand services. Using this model, you can offer a wide range of customizable designs without the need for any physical inventory.
All you have to do is to create and upload your designs to the print-on-demand platform. When a customer places an order, the print-on-demand provider will handle the printing and shipping of the product directly to the customer. You will receive a portion of the sale as commission.
Step 4: How to Start a Flyer Business Online
Starting your flyer business online includes different stages. To make it easier, we have divided this step into three sub-steps. Let’s go through them one by one.
Select Technology Platform
Once you have everything on your hand, it is time to venture into the online space to sell flyers online. And the very first step is to get your flyers printing business a unique name with a great website. Since you will have an eCommerce store, you select the right platform. Magento, WooCommerce, Shopify, Miva, Odoo, Bigcommerce, and whatnot! Platforms are many; however, these all are different from each other, and you need to choose the right one to enjoy longevity. Here are the major ones with a brief:
Magento Design Tool
With the most incredible functionality, it is one of the greatest and popular platforms. Leveraged by brands such as Ford, Coca-Cola, Nike, it offers a free version. In the year 2020, they improved their version Magento 2 with a completely new technology stack.
Magento is considered one of the most robust platforms when it comes to eCommerce. Many of our clients started their journey with the Magento Product Designer Tool. We offer a designer tool that we integrate with your Magento store so that you can enable product customization. Packed with powerful features, it can be a perfect solution for your customization needs. Plus, with Web to Print Solutions you can get a 3D configurator and Web to Print Software with Product Designer Tool. To know more, you can visit the live demo.
Shopify Design Tool
Shopify is certainly the first choice for most SMB companies going eCommerce. With an easy to use interface, growing community, it is less costly compared to other platforms. Additionally, you can handle all the major updates by yourself.
With Web to Print Solutions you can get a 3D configurator and Web to Print Software with Product Designer Tool. This will make your business stand out of the crowd and will make your business workflow efficient. To know more, you can visit the live demo.
WooCommerce Design Tool
It is a WordPress plugin, technically the most used on the internet by small businesses. It can be a good choice for simpler projects that also want to take advantage of great CMS WordPress.
With Web to Print Solutions you can get a 3D configurator and Web to Print Software with Product Designer Tool. This will make your business stand out of the crowd and will make your business workflow efficient. To know more, you can visit the live demo.
Essential Factors to Consider (while choosing the platform):
SEO Effectiveness:
Magento comes with advanced SEO features along with inbuilt analytics. Hence generating SEO-friendly URLs, Meta details becomes easy as they have auto-suggest. Shopify offers limited customization options; however, it is definitely SEO friendly. With plugins and extensions available in WooCommerce, you get good options for SEO.
Performance & Scalability:
With its powerful system, Magento is easy to accommodate thousands of products with high website users. When it comes to Shopify, it also offers great performance. In fact, page speed is an added advantage. For WooCommerce, if you do not have the coding background, then WooCommerce might not be scalable for you at all as the code is a bit difficult to manage.
Security
In Magento, with the right technology partner and hosting services, security will not be a problem for you. As an eCommerce first platform, it is made keeping security in mind. Shopify as well makes sure your store is secured and provides a free SSL certificate. On the other hand, WooCommerce helps you with a lot of security plugins that protect your website.
We would suggest you go with Magento as it offers a lot of features and flexibility. Apart from these features, it is important to make a website that is custom made as per the features you want. Often looking over the other technology options and features, you may get into a dilemma of choosing the right technology platform.
PrintXpand offers a web-to-print solutions for flyer printing businesses that streamlines the entire printing operation.
With customizable design templates, product personalization tools, and automation features, you can focus on growing your business instead of doing manual tasks.
Plus, our solution includes online payment integration, multi-currency support, and multi-language support for global sales.
Experience the value of an end-to-end solution today.
Customizable Flyers: Your USP
As mentioned before, customization is not a luxury today. With 12 million – 24 million eCommerce sites across the entire globe, how would you mark your presence? To be honest, in the starting phase, it may seem difficult. Your store needs to have a unique selling point that sets you apart from other competitors.
Customized Flyers are certainly one great way to offer unique products. And with flyers, it is critical to design carefully. One missing thing and your clients will send it back to you or request to change the entire design. This, in turn, comes with a lot of back and forth that also hampers user experience. Hence, with customizable flyers, it becomes easier for you to cater to your customers’ requirements. Plus, not many businesses offer these types of products, so it is your chance to stand out as one of the major players in this industry to sell flyers online.
If you think that offering customizable flyers may increase your back-stage work, let me tell you that using the right tool will make your job easier. Product Design Tool is one innovative product that you integrate into your e-store. The best part? Customers themselves design the entire flyer and place the order. As a result, they get the product they want, and you receive orders, print, and send it for delivery!
Your customers don’t have to be expert designers in order to design the flyers. For example, a product designer from PrintXpand comes with an easy-to-use interface that even naive users can leverage. All they have to do is, select the product and start designing from the available options.
As you can see in the image above, the user can design all the pages, change the background fonts’ colors, apply filters, etc., from available panels. There’s also an option to use ready-made templates that make the user’s journey easier. In short, it can be one epic idea to center your flyers printing business in the customization industry.
Before choosing one tool for your flyers printing business, make sure it is:
- Fully Mobile Responsive: Because your customers may design it from literally anywhere. Hence, an excellent mobile experience is important.
- Filled with Great Templates: It is important to have ready-made temples that give inspiration to your users. If needed, spend some extra time but make sure you have great designs for your store.
- Loaded with Great Clipart & Fonts: The most crucial part of designing a flyer is great fonts & designs. Hence, make sure to give your tool a rich library of these!
- Adaptable with Pricing: Pricing becomes one important factor when the user is applying customizations in real-time. The designer tool from PrintXpand offers dynamics pricing that helps you calculate pricing in real-time.
There are other vital features like product previews, CMYK Color Support with RGB, Image effects/Editing, Social Media Sharing, etc. Check out the link below to know more about the features.
Some Marketing Tips
This is the essential part. Once you have launched your store, make sure to market it well among your audience. Since you are doing business through your website, promote it on the internet so fetch the targeted audience to your website for maximum sales.
Search Engine Optimization
It is the very first step towards getting your website rank higher in the search engine page results. It is imperative that your website follows all the guidelines from Google. It includes having SEO optimized URL structure, Meta details, Sitemaps & robots file. Also, make sure to add schema markups to achieve higher CTR in the SERPs.
Other than the technical SEO part, you need to plan targeted link building activities that help you get higher domain ratings to elevate your rankings. As per the latest updates, Guest Posting Content Targeted Marketing works best for your website.
Social Media
In the last two years, social media grew to another level, and today it is more than just sharing posts and making friends. Make sure you have your company page on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn connect with your users on a deeper level. The key part here is to interact with your users. If you receive a good or bad review, make sure you reply to that customer and improve upon it.
If you keep practicing like that, you will have a good amount of business coming from these platforms. You can also plan live streams where you can plan how your users can use the website to create products on YouTube.
Over to You
Starting any business is never easy. However, if you have that one great idea, then all you need is the right direction, great products, and equipment to put it all together. We have helped many successful businesses with a great start.
With over 10+ years in the web-to-print industry, it is time we help you to set your business up. Our process is simple; you come with your requirements, we suggest the best solution that suits your needs.
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