Any business with a solid plan can be profitable. So, not only flex printing but with any industry, having a detailed well-prepared business plan is very important to embark on your journey.
Good news! Starting your flex printing business can really get you success in your way because flex banners are one of the most popular forms for outdoor advertising. Be it promotional advertising, exhibition stand printing, signage or banners for stages, you can make some good business out of it.
Hence, this is a step by step guide to help you kickstart your business.
- Market Scope for Flex Printing Business
- Estimate Your Budget and Investment
- Location
- Registration and Licensing
- Setup the store and infrastructure
- Required Manpower/Staff/Workforce
- Launch & Promote
- Ready to Kickstart Your Flex Printing Business?
There are two ways you can get started:
– Open a brick-and-mortar print shop and set up your entire business offline.
– Launch an online flex printing store with an online product design software product integrated.
Note: You can also run both an offline business and online business simultaneously if your budget allows. You can also take orders online and manufacture custom products offline.
The first method is much more suitable if you have a big capital reserve to invest; the second method is more ideal to start your business with less capital investment. Plus, you get to reach customers globally.
Market Scope for Flex Printing Business
Amid the ongoing pandemic crisis, opportunities for flex printing businesses have increased with people searching for more custom signages and labels. Here are a few flex banners that have grown popular of late.
Re-Opening Signages and Banners
Now that life has slowly started catching up, people are returning to their work. All the offline stores in almost all the areas except in containment zones are opening now. So, with people re-opening their offline stores in different countries across the globe, they want something to attract the customers again. For that, they would be willing to adopt an innovative way to inform customers about the reopening of their shops.
Offering them design custom display boards, posters, signages, banners, window stickers will help these shop owners to not only inform but also engage their customers.Want to know more about how you can do that?
Health and Safety Signages and Banners
COVID-19 may subside and go one day but will leave people across the globe aware of health and safety measures. Especially in government offices, corporates, and industries; they would need repetitive reminders for safety measures like washing hands, maintaining distance, wearing face masks, etc.
If you offer these custom health and safety signages or banners through an online product designer software/tool; it can be a profitable business idea for you. A number of government and non-government organizations may consider purchasing such custom signages for health warnings, safety precautions, and instructions, etc. from your store.
Besides, the demand for traditional flex banners for political rallies, sports events, charity programs, billboard advertising for companies and industries, etc. will also witness a huge rise after COVID-19.
Hence, you can see that the digital flex printing business has a great scope ahead and you can start it to earn profits.
Now that you know how the flex printing business can be a great business these days, let’s have a look at how to start it. Here is the step-by-step guide on starting a flex printing business.
Estimate Your Budget and Investment
If you start a flex printing business, there are several factors that you would need to consider to finalize the estimated cost and budget.
– For offline business – a large physical store, electricity and maintenance charges, manpower, raw materials, designing tools, packaging, and shipping, etc.
– For online business – an online website, a warehouse, or a third-party vendor, raw materials, shipping costs, online product designer tool, printer, etc.
In general, an online store with some of the minimum equipment needed requires you to invest less and earn fast. You can even cut down costs on manufacturing or shipping by tying up with a raw material supplier and a dropshipping provider who will handle your packaging, shipping, and return costs and grievances.
Once you have a clear idea of your expenses, you will be able to understand and manage your budget requirements better. If you think you can afford all expenses yourself, it is good. Otherwise, you can also apply for the fund for machinery or other expenses.
Location
If you are looking to open an online store, a physical location is a must. If you are thinking of opening your store only at a single location, choose the site carefully. The location must be such that it attracts a large number of audience. Additionally, you must have specific areas for customer desk, designing, and printing.
However, if you are thinking of launching your business online, you may need not search for a physical location immediately. Still, if you want to store your stock products somewhere or package your final products; you will need a small warehouse or a suitable small physical space. But you don’t need to consider the location so much as it is not for customers but just for your backend operations.
3. Registration and Licensing
No matter which business you consider – offline or online, licenses and permits are necessary. Therefore, always ensure that you have registered your business and obtained all the necessary licenses and permits required based on your business. You can get help from your state governor’s office or county clerk’s office.
You can also consider consulting a financial advisor to look into your business expenses and taxes you will have to pay.
4. Setup the store and infrastructure
For a print business, the main machine required is a flex printing machine. There are a number of flex printing machines out there. However, before you go for any printing machine, check your requirements and ensure that the printer you choose has all the specifications you need.
There are several printing machines that let you print on various surfaces like wood, MDF boards, etc. You should also have a computer along with a normal printer to look at the final design.
For your online print store, first you will need to set up your website. There are several platforms like Magento, Shopify, WooCommerce, OpenCart, etc. to choose from. Here, hosting your store online would give you the ability to set up a web-to-print store where you can offer personalized flex banners to your customers! Something new to win more customers!
There are numerous companies like Vistaprint, Flexprint, Printshop, One Printstore that offer personalized flex banners to let customers design the banners the way they want to.
This gives you the freedom to offer personalized products. With pre-defined designs, clipart, social media image creativity, your customers can create the products they want to.
To buy this web-to-print tool, you can integrate your eCommerce store with it. If you still feel there could be issues during configuration, there are companies like Brush Your Ideas that can provide services to help you set up your entire online flex printing store:
Some essential features to look for in a flex design software:
– Pre-defined templates, clipart, images, text, fonts, libraries.
– Should provide options for visual effects, filters, masking effects, and more.
– 2D/3D previews.
– SEO friendliness.
5. Required Manpower/Staff/Workforce
While an offline store would need more manpower, an online print store may also require you to hire a minimum of employees to take care of various operations.
For instance, you may need:
– A website developer or a web-to-print solution provider
– A marketing expert to track print orders and sales, fulfill them, and form strategies to boost conversions and sales.
– An expert graphic designer to take care of customers’ requirements and design custom products exactly as they want.
– A team of delivery men if you are thinking of delivering your products yourselves or a dropshipping manager if you collaborate with a dropshipping solution provider.
– A technical expert to help solve any glitches in your machinery or your web-to-print software solution even if you let your customer design products themselves on your W2P storefront solution.
– A technical support team to address customers’ grievances and resolve their issues in the minimum time possible.
So, make sure that you have a well-organized workforce to carry out your business operations smoothly.
6. Launch & Promote
Once everything is in place, it is time to start promoting your online flex printing business. Here are a few marketing tips to follow to market your printing business.
Promote Your Designs
No matter how artistic and innovative your banner designs are, customers won’t buy them unless they see them. It is imperative for you to showcase your best specimens and promote them across all the possible platforms – your site, social media channels, other sites, and more you can think of.
Strengthen Your Bonding with Existing Customers
Every business must have the means to connect with its customers on a deeper level. A CRM software product is the need of the hour to have all your existing customers’ data at your disposal.
With all this data at your fingertips, you can create your marketing strategies easily. Whether it is email marketing, webinars, or push notifications (in case you offer a store app); you can use one or more depending on your requirements.
You can also start loyalty programs once your business takes off to engage your existing customers and attract new customers through good word-of-mouth. These loyalty programs can include offering gift cards, additional hidden discounts, bonus points, and rewards, etc.
Make Social Media Your Power
There is no denying the fact that social media forms an important part of everyone’s life today. People spend a lot of time on social media platforms daily. If you also want to expand your business and let your customers notice your business, social media marketing is indispensable. Choose one or more social media platforms out of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. that suit your business plan the best and start promoting your brand on them. You can go live, share blogs, showcase your latest products, announce sales, etc. to keep customers engaged throughout. Not only your existing customers but also the new audience will notice your offerings on a larger scale and can show interest in buying them.
One of the few ideas is to encourage your customers to display their banners and post their pics on social media and tag their friends and acquaintances. With more people noticing these pics, several of them may show interest in your brand and enquire about your offerings. And they may eventually turn into your customers too!
On-Site Optimization
For an online business, a website is like the heart and soul. If you don’t have a proper website properly designed and optimized for keywords, it won’t be of no avail. A slow-loading site can also prove to be a big put-off for customers.
So, make sure that you run routine audits to ensure that loading speed, keyword optimization, and several other ranking factors.
There are also several other ways that you can consider to ensure high ranking in search results that
that are as follows:
Resources
Keep a ‘Resources’ section on your website that can include blogs, white papers, case studies, etc. This section will help attract the audience who want to know what more you have on your site besides your products. If they find this ‘Resources’ section really interesting, they may want to read more. By optimizing these blogs and articles for keywords, you can also help rank your site higher at the same time apart from informing the audience to gain traction.
Website Design
Your website is your ‘first face’. If you want your visitors to get attracted to your store, ensuring; its look-and-feel of your site must be really immersive. Make sure that your site has all blocks and content neatly arranged and CTAs are distinct and clearly visible.
Also, keep in mind that a large number of audience opens a site on a smartphone or tablet which makes it essential for your site to be mobile-friendly. A responsive screen will open on all screens properly irrespective of their sizes. If your website stays undistorted across all the screens, it will help your customers access the site easily and enhance their on-site experience.
Especially when you have a mobile-friendly site, see to it that you have:
– Proper and clear CTAs that customers can easily notice and click on.
– Use Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) if required.
– Try avoiding text-blocking ads and pop-ups.
– Perform mobile testing regularly to find out any run-time glitches and solve them instantly.
Write Compelling Product Descriptions
Catch product descriptions are a great way to grab your audience’s attention. Keep your product descriptions eye-catching, relevant and unique, and optimize them from proper keywords as well.
Similarly, there are many other on-site optimization techniques you can use to drive high traffic and sales based on your targets.
Ready to Kickstart Your Flex Printing Business?
While the flex printing business is always a blooming business, it has unlocked even more opportunities since the onset of this pandemic. If you too want to start a flex printing business, you can do that by following the proper steps as mentioned above.
Looking for a web-to-print storefront solution or an online product designer software tool?
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