How will your customers find you?
When starting a
business finding customers and having your customers find you, is your top
priority.
 |
| Concept Signs.org |
To Be Seen-
Signage is the least
expensive but most effective form of advertising.
Signage can be
responsible for half of your customers.
Signage is so
important that without it you may not get a loan for your business.
Signage is an
investment that will pay a return many times over.
A well-designed,
well-placed sign can generate huge profits, especially when part of an overall
marketing strategy.
To Be Found-
When advertising you
will consider one or more of the
following: TV, radio, newspapers, Internet, direct mail, etc.
Here's an image from
Duck House Events that gives you a nice visual of the many options.
 |
| DuckHouse Events |
If your target
market is, say, people aged 55 or older, you may want to consider community
papers as older consumers still rely on them for information. Even the older
are heading to the web.
80% of buyers are
searching online first versus using the Yellow Pages (Pruitt,2014) Heck even
the Yellow Pages is online!
To tap into this
medium, your first step is to establish a Web presence if you don't have one
already. Then, depending on your target customer-consumers at large or other
businesses - pick your Web channel. LinkedIn, for instance, is a mainstay among
businesses, CEOs and other owners and entrepreneurs, while Facebook remains
wildly popular among consumers (Sugars,2014).
The most basic way
to evaluate the cost effectiveness of these or any marketing method is the cost
per 1,000 exposures.
Here's how business signs measure up to other media.
The price and life
expectancy of signage varies widely depending upon the type, but let's assume
you invested in signage costing $16,500 that should last seven years. If your
business is located on a street with 60,000 people passing each day, the cost per
1,000 exposures would be only 11 cents.
Once you've
established your business' presence both
physically and online, make sure you are measuring you ROI and
re-evaluate when needed.
Reference:
Sugars, B. (2014)
Starting a Business. Entrepreneur.com Retrieved
from <http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/219582
Pruitt, C. (2014)
Can Customers Find you Online? Retrieved from: http://www.amazon.com/Can-Your-Customers-Find-Online/dp/1456319086
This is a good post on the importance of business signage. From a small business and non-profit perspective, I can't stress how important I've discovered signage is for establishing the foundational business (or non-profit) brand. In working for the American Cancer Society Relay for Life, our banner signage at the event location and Survivor's lap helped returning participants feel "at home" while new anxious participants were relieved to see the event logo and color scheme so they knew they found "the right place." I've noticed that other non-profit participation events now also have large signage at event sites. It transforms our everyday City Park Trail into a special place for event participants for join together for their special interest. A blog would be a great place to share customer signage testimonials that can easily be linked to individual and business social media gathering spots.
ReplyDelete