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Several Shops Discuss Shop-Promotion Methods

Ways to build awareness and engagement abound

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The sign industry constantly wages a battle to prevent the perception that signs are mere commodities for end users. We know signs provide the most cost-effective form of advertising available –and are particularly vital to independent-business-owners that want their premises to function as sales tools.
Although signshops provide unique products that deliver effective solutions for their customers, capabilities are often redundant between shops. You and/or your staff likely use the same or similar software, printers, finishing equipment, consumables, etc. And, even if you have verifiable proof that you offer superior products versus your competition, it’s still challenging to distinguish yourself.
And, presenting your skillsets this way could be construed as a hard sell – and a definite turn-off for many customers. Thus, the soft sell works best to win new customers. Attentive service, and transparency regarding your capabilities and lead times, generally persuade your customers to invest in you. Remember, they may be buying from you, but they must have confidence in you before they perceive they need your products.
And, doing good should be part and parcel of doing well. You probably care deeply about an organization or cause; consider how in-kind donations of your design or fabrication talents could benefit
their own promotional needs. And, while generosity is its own reward, potential clients will likely remember your benevolence when their own business or organization requires signage.
Three signshop owners and employees have offered their insights for effective signshop promotion. I hope you’ll read the entire article, but if you don’t, remember this: an online and social-media presence is important for building awareness, but to close the deal, promotion should involve effective, personalized promotion of your skill and dedication.

azpro
If this Avondale, AZ-based shop’s name sounds familiar, it’s likely because it provided the judges for the ST’s 2015 Vehicle Graphics Contest (see ST, November 2015, page 64). What began as a 10 x 10-ft. operation in a spare bedroom in 2004 has exploded into a 30,000-sq.-ft. facility that employs a staff of approximately 65. The shop plies its trade primarily with vehicle graphics, and POP and retail signage.
It operates a series of HP flatbed and latex-ink printers, as well as a pair of Zund G3 digital cutters.
According to Star Padilla, azpro’s brand and marketing manager, it still earns most of its customers the old-fashioned way: “Word of mouth and referrals drive most of our new business. We do leverage social media to promote recently completed projects and community involvement, but we attribute our growth and success to the relationships we’ve built.”
The shop boldly promotes its process through an approximately 10,000-sq.-ft. wall graphic installed within azpro’s office and production space. Padilla said the interior-branding design represents the process, and inspires its team, while also telling azpro’s story to clients and making an engaging impression.
The graphics fittingly start at the design department, and flow somewhat linearly through the production and installation areas. Padilla said, “The design starts with a chaotic look, and gradually transforms into a thing of beauty, as represented by the two-face woman, ugly and beautiful.”
She also noted the shop wants the graphics to convey its professionalism, but also its light-hearted culture. For example, she notes the walls are filled with quotes from famous people – including such unexpected sources as Madonna and legendary boxing trainer Cus D’Amato (the graphics feature a boxer’s silhouette).
The graphics comprise several materials: the wrap backdrop features 3M™’s Controltac™ IJ180-10Cv3 air-release media, with several cut graphics, such as for the honeycomb design, fabricated from Orafol’s 631 cut vinyl. To provide depth, azpro used its Zund cutter to process
½-in.-thick, PVC letters, which spell out such words as “Imagination” and “Communication”. They were subsequently coated with a “mud” finish and painted to make the wall color seamlessly flow into them.
The lobby serves as a showpiece, with several mounted prints that highlight azpro clients. The shop direct-printed on Fome-Cor® canvas material cut and formed to shape. The company’s tagline, “Going Beyond”, is wrapped in brushed-aluminum vinyl.
The company recently executed an aggressive, guerrilla-marketing campaign. Padilla said, “The perception around Phoenix is that its west side is ‘ghetto’, and we used it to our advantage. Late one night, we ‘tagged’ the buildings of various, local ad agencies with removable vinyl graphics that looked like graffiti, but were an invitation to an open house at our place. We even left a wrapped spraypaint can, bandanas and temporary tattoos. The tattoos include a web address specific to the invited agency. This created a huge buzz. The day of the open house, we hired a party bus, picked up the attendees and, while having food and a DJ inhouse, showed them our capabilities.”

Creative Sign Designs
Tampa-based Creative Sign Designs rose from humble beginnings in 1986 as a mailbox-fabrication company. Until the late 2000s, mailboxes remained a significant portion of its business. However, as Florida’s housing market tanked following a double whammy of repeated, devastating hurricanes and The Great Recession, Jamie Harden, Creative’s CEO, decided the company needed to shift its focus to custom-sign fabrication.
Even amidst nationwide economic challenges, the company has enjoyed tremendous growth since the transition – it now maintains a staff of more than 100 employees, with 45,000 sq. ft. of production space in Tampa, and an 11,000-sq.-ft. facility in Longwood, FL that handles sales, installation and project management.
“We treated the changeover as if we were unveiling a start-up company,” Harden said. “We wanted to convey that the signage market occupied our entire focus. Our new direction required a new logo, a modern website, visually appealing promotional literature and collateral branding, and a revamping of our sales approach.”
For the company’s direct promotion, it maintains a 14-member, outside-sales staff. Although all sales employees are cross-trained in all facets, Harden said each maintains a specific market focus, such as healthcare, financial institutions or public-sector projects. Each market is treated as a turnkey, design-build approach – a standard essential to the company’s success, Harden said.
“Most of our business stems from what I’d call ‘warm’ leads,” Harden said. “We have many existing relationships with general contractors, architects and property managers. We’re involved in numerous professional organizations, and we exhibit at tradeshows held by associations in which we’re members, such as the Intl. Council of Shopping Centers’ annual tradeshow and the Florida Healthcare Engineering Assn.”
Although Harden concedes that social media “by itself doesn’t lead to many direct sales,” the company imperatively maintains consistent, promotional communications to build its brand, showcase accomplishments and invite customers and other involved parties to connect with Creative’s culture.
Stephanie Navarro, the company’s marketing director, maintains a schedule for each media platform. The company publishes a monthly newsletter that reaches more than 8,000 contacts, with other announcement sent to targeted groups as necessary. She implements approximately 15 tweets per month, three Facebook posts per week and a LinkedIn company profile that’s updated monthly.
Navarro said, “On Facebook, we like to portray the warmer, more fun side of our company. For instance, we’ll provide an inside look at our shop and a new piece of equipment, or we’ll feature our community involvement, such as volunteering with Habitat for Humanity.”
She says its social-media content helps employees and their families to feel more connected to the company, and provides a company perspective customers won’t see during the typical sales process.
Creative Sign Designs has provided in-kind donations and volunteer hours for a local children’s cancer center, NephCure Kidney Intl. and Voices for Children, among others.
“We want all of our executives and outside salespeople to be involved in some type of professional association,” Harden said. “For example, we have one employee on the board of our local YMCA, another involved in the Southern States Sign Assn., and I’m involved with the CEO Council of Tampa Bay and the Young Presidents organization.”
Strategically, the company has procured national sign accounts – including RaceTrac gas stations and Coast Dental, a chain of nearly 200 dental- and orthodontic-care providers. Harden says keys to earning such clients include demonstrating project-management and permitting expertise, product consistency and efficient turnaround capabilities.
A connection through its Chamber of Commerce membership yielded the shop a unique, high-profile opportunity. Harden had a chance encounter with the producer of the Discovery Channel show How It’s Made, who expressed interest in featuring the shop. As a result, on December 17, Creative’s channel-letter-fabrication methods will be demonstrated.
“The segment was filmed way back in March, and we’re obviously looking forward to the air date and excited about the exposure,” Harden said.

Sign Effectz
Sign Effectz (Milwaukee) owner Adam Brown says the key to effective marketing is transparency: “If you don’t have good values, it will be evident when you deliver your marketing message. It will come across as canned or insincere. Good values make transparency easy.”
To promote his shop, Brown and his staff implemented a program that “makes us active, breathing, moving and talking where they get their sign-company information,” he said. It includes the following:
• A broad social-media complement: Facebook, LinkedIN, twitter, Google Plus and Pinterest. Brown added, “If you’re transparent, social platforms are a great way to communicate your values. People are drawn to honesty. Although transparency is being given a bad name by reality TV, I still think it should be a defining principle for any business.”
• A monthly “Lunch and Learn” series, to which Brown invites strategic audiences to learn about Sign Effectz’ capabilities, and, he noted, “showcase our ability to solve their problems through value engineering and design.”
• Press releases aimed at a broad swath of local, regional and national media, which range from ST to the Ozaukee (WI) Press, through both direct contact and posting releases via PRWeb.
• An active blog via the shop’s electronic newsletter, which reaches approximately 3,000 customers, prospects, partners and suppliers.
• Using isqft.com, which provides his sales staff with commercial-construction leads, as well as advertising in The Daily Reporter, which provides construction news for the upper Midwest.
• And, coordinated postcard mailings that are produced by Vista Print and mailed to executives at key-account companies.

Brown has also been appointed to the United States Sign Council (USSC) board of directors, where he hopes to provide technical and artistic insights “to increase industry passion, to become better visionaries and then share how to develop the visions through manufacturing methods not typical to the sign industry.
Brown offers additional words of wisdom to signshop owners and managers:
• “To promote your business, videos provide better engagement than photos.”
• “Sign companies don’t have to put big money into search-engine optimization (SEO), but they must be aware of its potential importance. Understanding the ROI can be a challenge. Google is important, but is it worth the time, cost and effort to spend so much on a small potential group?”
• “The rules are the same for everybody – you have to put in preparation, time and effort. ‘Set it and forget it’ marketing won’t work. Make it a habit!”
• “Use marketing to support your employee culture and morale. Media coverage is a pat on the back, and reminds employees of gratification they receive from just doing a good job. Share marketing with your team; give them the credit!”
 

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