Best way to advertise

[DeVinylDecal]

I am new to the sign making business. I have some leads from a motorcycle forum that I get some sales. I do small decals I don't have a color printer. But I know how to layer the vinyl. What I want to know is what is the best way to advertise and get my name out there. I have done the friends and family but what about the web. I have a web page on etsy with the decals but i what to get out there any help would be great. Thanks

 

[Malkin]

Welcome to the forum.

First I would consider whether you are making signs, or selling decals. Then, based on that decide if you want to run your business as online based, or as a real brick & mortar establishment serving people you meet face to face. Both directions have their pros & cons and I do not recommend trying both at the same time.

Good luck

 

[CheapVehicleWrap]

Wrap all your vehicles!

 

[Just Another Sign Guy]

there is no one best way. it is important to constantly and consistently use multiple means to promote yourself,

you should have business cards, brochures, post cards, etc that are all identifiable as being from the same company..pieces that work together.

you should have a website.

if you are going to sell business to business on a local level you need to get involved with your community especially in the early phases of starting your business. join the chamber and attend the functions and events that will give you the opportunities to meet other local small business owners. if you don't attend there will be very little value in this.

join a leads group or create your own.

include and encourage your clients to respond to a special sale by including an offer with your invoices. for example offer a banner at X amount of dollars if ordered within the next 10days. to encourage your clients to do repeat business with you while their buying experience is fresh in their minds.

you should be collecting and building a marketing list and working that list. emailing out tips on how your clients can advertise their businesses more effectively and then offering a product or service of yours that fulfills that goal for example.

anyone who has worked with me will probably tell you that i sound like a broken record in that i am constantly nagging my clients to implement referal programs. referal referal referal. if you do not have a referal program in place ... you should! you are missing the most effective way of generating quality leads in my opinion. i would much rather follow up on referal leads than cold calling.

look outside of our industry and see what other small businesses are doing to advertise their products and services. if you see something that catches your attention or looks like it is a successful advertising method try to find ways that you can duplicate it in your own business.

constantly educate yourself. i dont know anyone who is serious about advertising and marketing who is not constantly reading and looking for new ideas and strategies.

the trick is to implement as many good ideas as you can. no one is successful in every advertising promotion that they try to implement. you must constantly be tweaking your program if something is successful find ways to make it more effective, if something you are doing is not generating satisfactory results analyze what you are doing and try to idenity why it is not working, how you can change it and if it is a loser ditch the strategy.

the most common mistakes that i see in our industry in the advertising efforts of most companies is an inconsistent or unclear message, it should be crystal clear what you are offering your clients in addition every piece of communication from your company should be identifiable as coming from your company.

you need to communicate what you are offering quickly, you have a matter of seconds to capture the interest of your potential client before they lose interest and move on to other things.

be honest and dont make wild claims..we have all been subjected to SO much advertising that by nature our guard is up..don't make claims you can not deliver.

make sure that the advertising message you are sending out is appropriate for the demographic you are trying to attract. this seems like an obvious statement but it is amazing how often it is overlooked.

make sure you are easy to contact and that your contact information is easy to find.

the name of the game is constant exposure...for example think about the sign supply companies that give out those desk calendars that most of us keep all year long. their company name is in your face multiple times a day. do not miss an opportunity to expose your clients to your company. they most likely do not need your products and services today the trick is to make them recognize and assoiciate your company name with your products and services so that when they do need your offerings you are the first person that they think about..and then they need to be able to find your contact information.

 

[Sticker Dude]

Thats awesome stuff right there! I'll keep that in minda too Dan

 

[Craig Sjoquist]

Welcome to a outstanding forum and people.

Whooooa Dan you sure said alot ao good stuff, knows I'll be re-reading again thank you.

You stated your on a motorcycle forum, this being your interest start from there, you specialize in that area easy since you like motorcycle's & riding

 

[Just Another Sign Guy]

a couple of other things that i want to add..

another problem that i see constantly in our industry when i am hired by a sign company to come in and help them advertise their company more effectively is that it is very hard for a sign company to talk their clients into doing things that you are not doing yourself.

for example if you are located on a busy road and you put up a banner advertising a special sale and you leave that banner up for a year eventually people are going to tune out. it is much more effective to rotate that banner out regularly with a new offer and design. so if you are encouraging your clients to purchase an small inventory of banners so that they can rotate their promotions and keep it fresh but you have the same old ragged banner hanging outside your shop offering the same thing and it has been up for ages...you have most likely lost credibility with your client.

our own SignManiac (who is a very experienced smart businessman who everyone in our trade could learn a thing of two from) once posted an idea for a cold calling technique that sounded like it had the potential to be successful. it was exciting and intriguing and engaged the prospect. i am hoping that he will chime in and share it ..if not i will describe it later but i'd like to give him the opportunity to describe his own idea...in case he doesnt remember what in the world i am talking about..it is the idea you posted wth the envelopes full of dollar bills.

 

[Charlie J]

I like this thread.

 

[DeVinylDecal]

Thanks Dan and everyone else for the replies. There is a lot of great information on this forum and I will constantly be reading. And thank you everyone else for the in site. There is a lot to learn and that's what I'm here to do. Ive started with decals to hopefully be able to do more soon. I have to start somewhere.

 

[SignManiac]

Dan, why don't you tell them about it because I can't for the life of me remember what I might have said?? But then again, I have been diagnosed with CRS disease The problem with being in business so many years is I have forgotten half of what I use to know. I'd have forgotten far more if it wasn't for the computer!

 

[Just Another Sign Guy]

lol u crack me up.

it was quite a while ago and if i remember correctly it was an idea that you had and nothing that you have done...i can't imagine you are out making too many cold calls at this point in your career.

what you posted was a way to overcome rejection and engage the small business owner when making cold calls. you suggested walking in with i believe it was twenty envelopes each with a one dollar bill and one of them containing a twenty dollar bill and allowing the business owner the opportunity to pick an envelope as a token of appreciation and compensation for his time...now obviously the dollar isnt going to be enough compensation but the chance at picking that twenty for putting up with a salesman for 5 minutes....heck i'd take the opportunity just to break up the monotony of the day and i would simply have to give the salesman a minute of my time for such a unique idea.

we all know cold calling is the pits, no body that i know enjoys it..you have to make a game out of it and i assure you the people you are calling on dont enjoy it either...this is a way that if pulled off correctly could make it enjoyable and engaging.

there is an old story that goes around in the advertising world and in short it goes like this. an ad executive is telling his client that the trick is to make your prospective clients remember you and he stands up and hawks a looogie on the table and says ' i guarantee all of you will remember me forever'...well he is right they most likely will but not in a good way...and we see this technique used in a tremendous amount of advertising, think of all of the ridiculous commercials that we all see...the only way we remember them anymore is if they are so off the wall because we are subjected to SO much advertising. i would much rather engage my client and get them involved in a positive way than to remember me because i was so ridiculous.

there is a sign supply salesman who wears suits that are absolutely ridiculous (think of the goof ball peddling the books on tv late at night wiht question marks all over his suit) he has them with the money symbol sewn on them, he has them in bright pink (3 piece bright pink suits)...it is ridiculous but he is remembered. he isnt known for his knowledge, he isnt known for a good product, he is known because he is ridiculous...and people remember him .. so i've got to give him credit he has overcome a major hurdle we all face in the marketing game and that is to have your clients remember and think of you when they need your products and services.

 

[webguru]

Another Idea

Many moons ago, my father taught me a little trick to keeping my name in front of a potential client.

With all the sales literature I sent out, I included a word puzzle,mind bender or the like. On the page that had the puzzle or mind bender, I included my contact information. I would offer a percentage of with all correct answers. If you give them something to take their mind off work for a few, most people will hang on to it instead of trashing it right away.

It didn't always work, but it did enough to make it worth my while.

 

[SignManiac]

Wow Dan, Thanks for bringing that back to my memory I completely did forget about that. That was one of my better ideas. And yes you are right, I haven't been out on a cold call for many, many years.

My brain really has forgotten a lot over the years, and what is really amazing is when I need to solve a problem, the solution usually comes right back to me as if I had done it yesterday. The brain is an incredible tool

 

[Just Another Sign Guy]

i've got the same problem..can't remember 'stuff'..but when i am faced with a challenge, need to figure out where toget something , who to call..somehow the answer comes to mind.

you had given more details on this idea originally but i can't remember all of them so if you care to elaborate on your idea by all means the stage is yours

 

[Craig Sjoquist]

Wow Signmaniac and Dan that was a great Idea ... I'm not that rich but maybe I can make use of it, since I do alot of cold calling here ..a business does not last here, very long..

I read sales books and try to put them in practice as much as I remember,

Right now people remember me cause I run my dog and always on my bicycle pulling a trailer to job, but thats getting old lol

Anyway I tell my customers that window splashes need to be changed 3-4 times a year to be most effective and they are.
I once had a jewelry customer that changed his main branding and signage every so often depended on what people liked in jewelry, that worked very well and was in a high end shopping mall too.

 

[SignManiac]

Ok, just had another epiphany... Since you're in the sticker/decal business, plaster your vehicle with contour cut peel and stick decals with your company logo, information etc. on it. In larger letters "Please feel free to steal a custom decal from my car"

The idea that you are giving them permission to do something they would never do normally, in this case steal, well that's not true of all people, can be exciting to some people.

Sure you can leave a business card laying around and hope somebody picks one up, but in this case you're saying it's ok to be bad. Who can't resist that? Everyone lives with the devil whispering in their ear all the time

Cheap way to get your name out.

 

[SignManiac]

Imagine that, Search function works!

Here was my original idea from the way back machine...

Buy thirty plain white envelopes. In twenty nine of those envelopes, insert a single dollar bill. In the thirtieth envelope put a $20.00 bill.

Walk into every place of business and apologize if you might be wasting their time but explain that you have an offer they can't refuse. Tell them you would like ten minutes of their time and that you would be willing to pay them for their valuable time.

Show them the stack of envelopes, especially the one containing the twenty and tell them the others envelopes contain a dollar bill. Shuffle them up and after you spend your ten minutes introducing yourself and showing them your wares, have them pick any one envelopes from the stack. If they pick the twenty its theirs. Otherwise they are guaranteed at least a buck for a few minutes.

A buck for ten minutes face to face time with a potential new client is still cheaper and better than direct mail or yellow page ads.

Don't ask me if it works but I think its a creative outside the box approach to cold calling.

 

[Just Another Sign Guy]

with a little thought that could be pulled off in an entertaining and memorable way..i would have window envelopes or better yet the envelopes that have the circle cut for the face of the denomination...who couldnt use a little entertainment and opportunity to break up their day?

i've got more to add but feel like i am dominating this thread...so let us hear some of your ideas? some questions? what has worked for you? what has not..and do you know why what you have done has not worked?

i notice many people are reading this thread..this is a challenge for all businesses lets hear what you have to say on the topic...

 

[vinylbarry]

Great Thread!!!!!

 

[iceracer]

Great thread, thanks for the input.

I joined a local BNI chapter and although it has been slow to start I think in time it will bear fruit.

Terry

 

[Jon Aston]

Lots of terrific suggestions above, but the most important thing you can do is start with a clear objective, a strategy, a plan, and system for tracking and analyzing results. Otherwise, you risk wasting alot of time and money.