So the good news is that when you identify yourself as an embroidery business owner, everyone will know exactly what you mean. They will instinctively know that you are someone that can help their business grow.
Let’s say that 80% of custom t-shirt or custom embroidery businesses do all their business locally. That means they mostly get new customers through word of mouth.
That’s a great model as long as:
But waiting for referrals and watching the phone until it rings is a hard way to GROW your business.
And if you’re just starting out, it might be a while before you develop a regular clientele. So you’ll need some tools, some language, some ideas to generate sales to get started.
a) there’s a lot of mouths where you are and
b) there’s not too much good quality local competition
Finding Customers for an Embroidery Services Business
Everyone knows what embroidery services are, and people identify it with business branding for all the usual items, including:
- Company logo polos
- Custom caps with logos
- Jackets and other outerwear
- Promotional products (yes, there are some that are embroidered!)
So the good news is that when you identify yourself as an embroidery business owner, everyone will know exactly what you mean. They will instinctively know that you are someone that can help their business grow.
All you have to do is FIND those businesses!
Luckily, it’s essentially the entire job of the internet to help you find customers.
Googling New Businesses
One great place to start is doing a “______ near me” search.
Google has been perfecting local search for years, so it’s easy to get good results if you know what to ask for.
“New businesses near me” is probably the ideal place to start looking for embroidery services customers.
Why NEW businesses?
Because if you contact them early enough, you can cement a lifelong relationship. Everyone working there needs new uniforms, hats, aprons, polos – whatever fits that new businesses brand.
When you do a “near me” search, the first thing you’ll usually see is a combination of Ads and the Maps listings. In this case, the Maps listings are probably for new business consultants, etc. The ads are for listing services you don’t need to pay for.
Ignore The Ads!
The gold for an embroidery services business comes AFTER the maps listings – as you can see from the search example here —-
National-Local Listings
Yelp is a ripe field full of prospects for your embroidery business! So let’s put that at the top of our list when you want to sell embroidery to a local business.
Their job is to market review and location services to new businesses, so every time a new business opens, their sales team does their best to get it listed on the Yelp app. Probably 9 times out of 10, those new businesses are going to be restaurants.
Restaurant employees wear uniforms. You embroider logos onto uniforms. They are also often involved in selling merchandise. So, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to sell embroidery to a new restaurant. Be creative and suggest new things to the restaurant owners or managers.
But Yelp isn’t restricted to just restaurants.
Just visiting Yelp.com recently, there were new listings for car detailing, a salon, and a few local spas.
Also on that “New businesses near me” search we found several local listings that you may find in your area too.
For example, 813area.com is a local site that publishes new business listings on the home page. And 83DegreesMedia runs articles like this one on businesses that opened during the pandemic on a regular basis.
Near me and niche markets
You’re in even better shape for selling embroidery services to local businesses is you specialize. And the “near me” searches can definitely help.
For example, if your niche is hair salons you can simply type in “hair salons near me”. When we did this in Tampa there were 18 within a 10-minute drive. If you’re not in a quite as densely populated area you can start typing in the names of towns, areas or zip codes.
You would use the same pattern of searching for any niche. If you’re looking for NEW markets for selling embroidery services to then check out this article on embroidery business ideas for inspiration.
Now that we have how to find embroidery customers down, let’s look at how to sell embroidery to those local businesses.
The Process of Selling Custom Embroidery Services to Local Businesses
There are a few classic ways to introduce yourself to those businesses you found.