Most of my clients are in the graphic arts industry. I typically have a long phone conversation with a prospect before we ever reach a contract stage.

For today’s post, I thought it would be helpful if I shared 6 of the questions I ask every printer prospect during our first phone call, when prospects want to gauge my credentials as a marketing writer, and I want to learn more about their companies and how they currently market themselves.

Of course, I spend time researching a company prior to that call. But there’s nothing like having that first conversation. So much is shared. I’m always fascinated.

In many ways, printers could benefit from asking their prospects some of these questions.

1. How did you come to contact me? Sometimes I know the answer, but sometimes I don’t and want to learn what triggered their contacting me (specifically) and, in general, why they decided that now is the time for new content.

2. What’s your specialty? As much as I can glean from a printer’s web site, I always ask this. General commercial printers are the trickiest category: there has to be a specialty or two that separates them from the competition, and it doesn’t have to be a product or service. (If you don’t know, ask your customers: they’ll tell you.) This conversation truly informs any work I may do for this printer.

3. How do you promote your company? I hear “word of mouth” a lot, but I always hope to hear things like, we send out regular emails, publish a newsletter, do a blog, send a series of postcards (etc.) throughout the year, participate in targeted events, host customers on site, and so on. Every example of self-promotion begets further questioning on my part, so we can chat about the effectiveness or success (and level of engagement) from each promotional effort. I also ask to see samples of recent marketing efforts to get a sense of what a printer’s used to doing. I look at four things: design, quality, content, and message.

4. Describe your customers. I want to know a few things about a printer’s customers, including whether they’re a broad mix of corporate titles or if they’re more likely to be a certain type, like print buyers, marketers, or designers. As important, I ask about the level of print sophistication (knowledge) of a printer’s typical customer.

5. What are your objectives? Some printers have specific goals for their content marketing, like broader exposure, better customer communication, or increased sales. It’s an important part of the conversation that helps me appreciate how realistic someone’s expectations are.

6. Do you have a marketing budget? Whether or not a dollar amount is shared with me (usually not), I get a sense of a prospect’s seriousness about outsourcing marketing content and consulting. Not having a budget is not necessarily a deal breaker, but it generally tells me that a company isn’t 100% sold on investing in professional help.

There are more questions asked and a lot more information that’s shared in these initial calls, but these 6 always give me major insights.

It seems to me that if you answer questions #2 – #6 about your own company, you’d establish a decent baseline for your own marketing strategy.

© 2016 Margie Dana