Target Transfers has over 41 years of experience in producing high-quality prints for textiles. We speak to Andy Rogers, Marketing Manager at Target Transfers. He explains what that means in the real world. “We’re a garment materials and machine supplier for anyone who wants to decorate t-shirts, hoodies, and any kind of garment. You can send your logo or any graphic to us in any format you want. We use a heat press technique to ‘print’ your logo onto a hoodie or any garment.”
Target Transfers is the leading supplier of jeans materials in the UK. They’re part of the Stahls Group, one of the leading global suppliers of heat press machines and materials. We take a closer look at their B2B and B2C target markets and how they have shifted over the last couple of years.
B2B vs B2C target markets
“Until three years ago, we were mostly focussed on the offline B2B market in the UK, but things have changed radically. In 2019 we were mostly servicing big corporate customers and a small number of startups. In the last two years, we’ve onboarded more customers than in the last ten. There are plenty of people sitting at home starting clothing brands. It’s understandable because an entry-level machine starts at £700. And you can get a lot done with a little.”
Think before you exist
Conversations in the B2B and B2C spaces have also changed. Companies want to consume content as if they are consumers. Which, of course, they erm, are. They want communication to be more informal, informative and educational. People, in general, want to have conversations. They don’t just want to be marketed to or spoken at by brands and companies. That’s probably the most significant shift in marketing over the last decade. It is not good enough for brands to shout their benefits to anybody who wouldn’t listen. We’ve entered the age of brand talk, a share of voice and social listening. It’s a world where every piece of content has to think: “What problem am I solving? And what do the various target audiences want to learn about?” before it comes into existence.
Andy and host George Boot from Truevo talk further about LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram and the fine line between educating people to build your brand and giving away trade secrets (listen from 00:12:14:16 to 00:14:40:09)
Lights, camera, action!
Content production is slightly bi-polar in its essence. Sometimes nothing, or very little, happens for a while, and then all hell breaks loose. Andy explains that they produce two podcasts in a row, or they might record ten educational videos at a time. The edits and rest of the work happen over the following months to create a constant stream on all platforms. It makes sense to spend on production once and post-production over time.
Which channel when?
Andy’s approach makes a lot of sense. He talks about a core channel where the backbone of their content lies. For Target Transfers, it has been YouTube. “We publish our main live and recorded videos on our YouTube channel because it’s a stand-alone video platform. YouTube is also great for education and showing people how to do stuff. From YouTube, we cut down variations to publish to Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. The point of any video is to spark the interest of potential buyers. We try to get them over the line to come in and meet one-on-one where we can finalise the sale. They might buy fabric first, develop an interest in a press, investigate how heat presses work, and then watch a video… You get the picture?”
It’s important to take a customer by the hand and take them through their process. The fancy name for it is a customer journey. You don’t want to put all the effort into generating interest without developing and evolving it into something more meaningful. Ultimately you want to make a sale and gain a lifelong customer that grows with our products and business.
Andy and George further discuss CRM, checkout journeys, how products evolve, the importance of a payments provider like Truevo for business success, and much more. Have a listen to the whole podcast on Spotify.
