IMPRINT CANADA THE

Inside This Issue

How To Move Customers Past Price

Customer Service guru Je Mowatt explains how to move your clients beyond the price and competing on value-add. 9

New Product Spotlights 22

We showcase the newest product o erings for 2023 courtesy of the industry’s leading suppliers of imprintable apparel, hard goods, decorating supplies and equipment. 21

Building Lead Magnets & Sales Funnels

What is a Sales Funnel & How To Build A Successful One? Part 2 of 2

By Adriano Aldini, Imprint Canada

Did you just miss out on a sale that you think you could have (and should have) closed? Rest assured you are not alone.

Every small business owner has experienced the pain of cold calling, pitching, and demonstrating products only for a prospect to drop out of a sale.

To help boost your conversion rates, you’ll need a strategic sales funnel.

What is a sales funnel?

A sales funnel is the journey potential buyers go through when they take an interest in a speci c product or service. is journey consists of a funnel of steps that sales teams use to convert prospects into customers (aka prospecting). Every interaction with your customers should follow the strategic framework of your funnel, especially if you want to convert more targeted leads.

Sales Funnels, continued on Page 12

Marketing & Content Trends for 2023

See what trends leading global marketers are adopting for this year

By Christian Brome, Imprint Canada

ere’s a saying that the best way to maintain relevance with your audience is to always stay ahead of them.

HubSpot, the Marketing and CRM developer, recently surveyed more than 1,000 global marketing professionals to determine what marketing trends to expect for 2023.

Here’s what the results of the survey showed:

1. Social media will become a de facto customer service tool Leveraging social media as a customer service tool is relatively new, but this trend is quickly gaining steam. More than a quarter of marketers use direct messages (DM’s) to o er customer support, and 15 per cent of marketers plan to try it for the rst time in 2023.

It’s no coincidence that this trend is emerging at a time when many social media platforms — namely Instagram and Facebook — are expanding its e-commerce capabilities. For this reason, providing customer service on these

2023 Trends, continued on Page 14

PRODUCT – DECORATION – BRANDING

Entitled to A Free Pass?

I recently began dealing with the next generation of a local family owned business that I have been a client of for many years.

I placed the same order with them that I do every year, only this time I dealt with a family member of the owner. A few days a er I placed the order, my new contact called to ask me if I had changed my mind on ordering (which was a rst to be asked of me given my order history).

In the past, the order has taken approximately one to two business days to ful ll. I recon rmed my original order and was given a date in which I was scheduled to pick it up.

e night before my order was scheduled to be ready, my new contact called to advise me that the order would not be ready the next day as they had no resources (labour) to even start to process the order.

I tried to politely inform them that I had moved my schedule around in order to be there for the original pick up time, and that calling me the night before was leaving it to the last minute, and was a grave inconvenience to me instead. A simple courtesy call at least a day prior to let me know that the order would not be ready is considered standard customer service.

To my surprise, the vendor doubled down on their approach by asking me to consider that they were short on resources and overwhelmed with same day orders; in other words, not only should I ignore that my order wasn’t ready but I should understand as to why I wasn’t given ample notice of the delay.

In essence, I was being told that I should know the nature of their business’ challenges. It was as though they felt they were entitled - not only to the order - but also to a “free pass” on the communication asco with a customer.

Cancelling the order is not an option for this product/ vendor. But what this person has either failed to learnor forgotten to apply - will be part of the discussion once my order is in-hand.

Not all things must pass.