Just Say No To Heat Press Vinyl
You might have noticed that a lot of my latest posts have been about cad-cut materials that can be cut with a vinyl cutter and applied with a heat press. Since there are a lot of readers interested in this product it is important to discuss how to relate cad-cut to your customer or retail terminology.
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When marketing and promoting Cad-cut materials it is important to understand how your customer perceives the product they are purchasing. History relates negative connotations with Cad-Cut film in its generic terms. Utilizing nomenclature that contains the word ‘vinyl’ is not recommended. When being presented with the word t-shirt vinyl or heat press vinyl an average consumer conjures up terms such as thick, plastic like, cheap and not durable. After all – we are or were probably guilty of that ourselves at one point, and for good reason. But things have changed. In today’s market, most Cad-Cut film is durable, soft and looks great on a garment, so how do we reverse the negative connotation? My answer is we can’t:) At least not when someone is just looking to purchase some shirts for a ball team or their business. So instead of trying to change the world, let’s just change our terminology.
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Here are a few ideas on how to alter your terminology to translate to more business:
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Invent Your Name: Consider breaking our of the ‘industry’ box and classifying the cad-cut product you use as your own copyrighted term.
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Sell the Product in Generic Terms: Market your product as custom lettering or name id embellishment and the like. Be sure to refer to the product in a way that relates to the solution that you are delivering to your customer.
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Directly Relate it to Screen Printing: I think everyone will agree that a customer is familiar with terminology like screenprinting. A good question is whether or not there is a need to differentiate between screen printing and cad-cut? If you do need to differentiate, consider selling the technology as an imaging solution with quality as good as screen printing.
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Create a Variation: Call it Heat applied film, Thermoweldable film or Urethane Imaging, anything that identifies the product in a unique way. Some may even consider to call it by brand name – such as Eco-Film.
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When researching top volume decorators it is commonplace not to reveal an exact name at all, but rather sell it as a solution.
For instance, one decorator finds the only thing they need to list is “Team Sales.”
Another company simply puts “Personalized Apparel.”
Or how about “any name, any number” or “your design here.”
In conclusion, whether you choose to implement any of these suggestions or not, it is important to be aware that the way we name a product can change the way it is perceived and ultimately dictate the price at which we are able to sell it for.
Thanks for reading and please leave a comment.
