Are You Giving the Answer to a Problem?

Life is full of problems both big and small. Many of these are just little inconveniences in life that people get used to. You just don't really think about it anymore, and because of that, you can be given a pleasant surprise when you find a solution to it.

This should be the goal of any good marketing. The more you know about your customers the more of their problems you'll be able to pinpoint and provide potential solutions for.

One type of product I've noticed that seems to do this particularly well are various tools for home improvement. A trademark of most commercials for these kinds of products is that they go briefly through a number of different ways you can use their product around the house. Many of these are ways I would've never actually thought of myself, but once they mention it the light clicks on and I realize that it really could make things a lot easier.

This is exactly what your marketing needs to be able to do as well. Often this doesn't have to be something large, either. Even small conveniences can do wonders to sell a product.

Think about something like this the next time you do postcard printing. Try to find something your product can do to make a person's life easier, something you're sure that every one of your customers will want.

Now, you make this the focus of your postcard printing. Be sure that each postcard takes this message and focuses on it. The fact that people are going to be looking at your postcard while standing in their home can add a lot of weight to an approach like this. When they pick up your postcard and read through it you want them to then glance around their house and think to themselves that they really could use your product to make things easier.

Try out your postcards on some sample groups and ask them what the first thing is that comes to mind. This is one of the best ways to find out if your postcard is hitting on just the right kind of message. If people immediately think about the different ways your product can help them out than you know you're on the right track.

A format like this can work for just about any kind of advertising. Brochures give you a chance to list more than one way your product can help, just as posters can be put up in locations where people can then easily buy your product once you have their interest.

Just remember that if you can give people a good reason why their life would be better with your help, you've made the best first step towards ensuring their interest in the future.

Plumbers - Learn How to Test Your Yellow Pages Advertising

You need to test your Yellow Pages ad to evaluate if it is successful or not and to see if it is worth spending the money on continual advertising year in year out. Advertising in the Yellow Pages is a year long plan and you need see if your ad is working over that year.

A good method of assessing how many calls you are receiving from your advert in the Yellow Pages is by having a bespoke telephone number in the ad so you will know that any calls received to this number have come through as an upshot of someone looking at your Yellow Pages ad. These calls need to be accurately logged and the subsequent inquiries tracked so you know how many jobs actually come through as a result of your original advert.

When you have measured your results you will be in a position to judge how you want to progress with your advertising in the next year.

You will clearly put a stop to any advertising that is not a success but if your advertising is effective you can obviously test other aspects in the subsequent year. You could try having an additional advert in another category and you could try the unique phone number method of testing in each ad to measure how each advert is working.

Using this kind of testing is really a win/win situation. If you consider the fact that if you have an advert that is not working, but you know it is not working, you are obviously not going to waste money doing the same thing again and you can utilise the money saved on other types of advertising and marketing that are bringing in revenue.

LED Signs - How to Select the Best Size For Your Location

LED signs are available in an overwhelming number of sizes. How do you determine which size will be most effective in your location? Imagine the disappointment and frustration that occurs when a new sign is installed and it turns out that the letters are too small for viewers to read? Or the letters are big enough, but there isn't enough room on the display area for a complete message. So passers by only see part of what you want them to read. Understanding Viewing Distance, Character Height, Pixel Matrix and Resolution (or Pitch) will help you make an informed decision.

Viewing Distance is considered the number one factor in determining the size of LED sign you need. In addition to the actual distance between the sign and your target audience, it is important to consider how they will view the sign. Will they be walking/ standing or driving by? If driving, what is the speed of traffic? The answers to these questions will determine which Character Height will be most effective in your location.

The recommended rule of thumb is that the height of the characters/letters/text on your sign must be 1" for every 30 feet of viewing distance. The maximum acceptable distance is 50' per 1" of letter height. In other words, if you will be standing 150 feet away from a street level sign, the letters need to be 6" tall using the conservative recommended rule of thumb. Should your sign be located on a highway, 600 feet from vehicles passing at 55 mph, the letters would need to be 20" tall.

Beyond the height of the letters, it is important to consider the number of lines of text and the number of letters that will fit across the width of the display area. This will determine whether your audience will be able to read your entire message before passing by. Not to worry. The LED Pixel Matrix is designed to tell you what you need to know.

An LED Pixel Matrix indicates how many rows of text your sign will display and how many characters will fit across the display area. Pixel Matrix is determined by multiplying the number of pixels vertically by the number of pixels horizontally. For instance, a Pixel Matrix of 16x80 means the display area consists of 16 vertical rows of pixels and 80 horizontal rows.

The number of vertical rows will determine the number of lines of text your sign will display. An LED display requires 7 pixels x 5 pixels to display Standard English characters. For multiple lines of text, an eighth row is required to separate the lines. Therefore, an LED sign with 16 pixel rows will display 2 lines of text, a sign with 24 pixel rows will display 3 lines of text, 32 pixel rows will display 4 lines, and so on.

Equally important are the number of characters that will be displayed across the sign at one time. Six pixel columns are required to display each Standard English character. A sign with 64 pixel columns will display 10 characters across, 80 pixel columns will display 13 characters, etc.

To sum it all up, KC McCay, a Senior Product Manager for a leading national LED sign distributor, states "I'd make one big recommendation...The most critical thing that people are not understanding is letters, lines, and the number of letters per line. The primary goal is to get messages out. One or two lines of 8 letters per line is not enough. You need a minimum of 3 lines of the most appropriate letter size...with a minimum of 14 characters per line. Most local and several national companies are selling 1 and 2 line limited LED signs...and people don't realize that they are getting ripped off."

Finally, don't overlook the Resolution, also referred to as Pitch, when determining the best type of LED sign for your location. Resolution is the degree of sharpness and clarity of a displayed image and it is a factor that will greatly affect the price of the sign. Higher Resolution means more diodes and more circuits, which usually means a higher cost. The total Resolution of a sign is determined by the Pitch: The measurement between pixels. A pixel can be composed of one single diode or a cluster of many diodes running off the same circuit. In such cases, the distance from the center of one diode to the center of another diode (usually stated in millimeters) determines the Pitch. The smaller the Pitch number, the higher the resolution. Longer viewing distances require less resolution while shorter viewing distances require higher resolution.

Beyond these tips, you can avoid disappointment and frustration, or as KC said, "getting ripped off", by consulting with an experienced sign professional to consider all of the variables effecting your unique situation. Be sure to ask for testimonials from satisfied customers and if possible, view some signs that they have provided in your area.

Christmas Signage With Vinyl Banner Printing

Christmas is the season for giving, hence the best time to put items on sale. But with everyone rushing to the stores, and every store offering discounted goods, it's a challenge to draw as many customers as possible.

You can tidy and vamp up your window displays but advertising reinforcement beyond the premises of your store could spell a significant difference. Vinyl banner printing presents a good collaborative tool that would easily complement your store's theme.

Outdoor display

Vinyl banners are rapidly dominating the outdoor marketing realm with its unique properties that easily overshadow traditional advertising means.

1. Inexpensive

Tough economic times call for cost-cutting. And this is precisely why banner printing is gaining popularity. You get sharp graphics and even images printed with vivid results. You see details clearly even from a certain distance. It is a bargain deal considering the quality you get for the price you pay.

With vinyl banners, you can also get something positive out of the Christmas rush and bumper to bumper traffic. Get good audience exposure in busy streets and areas heavily populated with shoppers. Maximum coverage at a small price is certainly a winning combination.

2. Durable

Vinyl banner is made using durable and resilient synthetic material which is many times studier than regular poster paper. With this quality, you can even reuse your vinyl banners the following Christmas season.

3. Water-resistant

Another advantageous property of vinyl banners is that it is water resistant. They have longer life than conventional materials such as paper and cloth streamers which easily absorb water when exposed to rain and other weather elements.

4. Fade-resistant

Texts, graphics and images can last better on vinyl banners even with prolonged contact with extreme light sources like the sun and direct spotlights.

5. Orientation options

Your banner ads can have a vertical or horizontal orientation so you can make a display that perfectly suits the location. If you have a long space on the exterior of a building that goes straight down, you can simply opt for a vertical ad. Should you need a regular-looking banner, you can request for one that has a horizontal orientation.

6. Easy to hang

You no longer have to worry about poking holes on the edges of your vinyl banner. Each piece comes with metal eyelets called grommets. These grommets are positioned on all four corners of your banner to make hanging fast and easy. They can help keep the banner suspended without cutting through the material, an unfortunate possibility with other materials when they can no longer hold the weight or when strong winds pass by.

For very long or very wide banner displays, you may request for additional grommets on the sides to support the weight of the banner.

If you are bent on getting posters, or using postcards for direct mailing this Christmas, go ahead. But do consider using vinyl banners as well. It is good to have a marketing material to addresses personal correspondence, another for large format indoor displays, and of course, one that would attract attention from outside your store - one that is perfect for outdoors.

Seven Steps to Signs That Pay

1. SIGNS YOU CAN'T AFFORD

Often business people buy signs as an afterthought. They wait until their budget is nearly cleaned out and attempt to get away with buying the cheapest sign they can get away with. These are signs you can't afford. If you are not confident that your new sign will pay for itself then your are about to waste your money.

The purpose of a sign is to attract new customers, brand your site in the minds of consumers and create impulse sales. A sign is often the only visible cue that a business exists! Therefore, it should be the predominant feature of your building.

Consider the case of Frenchy's Bistro opened by a husband and wife in the mid-1990's. It is located on a four-lane road with lots of traffic in Southern California. After healthy growth, revenues leveled off at $250 thousand and wouldn't budge. They attracted a local clientele from the immediate neighborhood and were known as "that restaurant next to the paint store." Their signage was so poor that they were not bringing in hungry passing motorists.

A friend suggested a better sign. They selected a V-shaped sign, internally illuminated, to mount to the side of their building. The result? Their sales grew 16% in the first year. Sales in the second increased 32%. By the forth year, they expanded into a space next door and grew a total of 322% or over $823,000.

TIP # 1 Spend time and money to ensure you have a sign that makes a positive impression on your marketplace. Your sign should be conspicuous, reflective of your company's look and feel, and remain easy for your customer to recall.

2. MARKETING 101

Your signage should be your first consideration in your marketing and promotion plan. Why? Consider these facts: since 1997, a group of 488 Southern California businesses collectively polled their 7,200 first-time customers asking how they found out about them. Here are the results:

Your Sign 46%
Word of Mouth 38%
Newpaper Ads 7%
Yellow Pages 6%
Radio Commercial 2%
Television Commercial 1

• Signtronix Survey, 2003

Clearly two conclusions jump out: their signs were effectively speaking to potential customers and signs are the most effective form of advertising for the small and independent business person.

TIP #2 Don't be so concerned about how much you can save on a sign, but how you can bring in more paying customers.

3. WHAT'S YOUR SIGN?

Your sign should be sufficient height and size without being obscured by objects such as trees, lampposts and so on. Its content, both text and logo, must be legible. It must stand out from its background. Keep this chart in mind when selecting the size of your sign(s):

Speed of traffic Legibility Distance Size of Letters Needed
(height)
55 mph 440' 12"
50 mph 400' 10"
45 mph 360' 9"
40 mph 320' 8"
35 mph 280' 6"
30 mph 240 4"
25 mph 200' 3"

TIP #3 A sign has less than two seconds to capture a consumer's attention.
Consider simple and direct messages, highly visible letters, easy to read type styles, illumination and contrasting colors. Most readable background colors are white and yellow. Most readable letters are black, dark blue and red. Use of a border can help your viewer absorb your information 26% faster.

4. AVOID TMI AND TMM.

That's "too much information" and "too many messages." We are barraged by thousands of messages daily. Not only have we become good at absorbing lots of data, we are good at tuning out obnoxious messages. Often a good, crisp presentation is best. You don't need to inform your clientele of everything you can do, you just want to capture their interest to the point that they come in. Maximum should be three to five words. Leave 30 - 40% of your sign area blank.

TIP #4 Distill your message to where you make your point with as few words as possible. If you can't fit your message on a bumper sticker, you have too many words.

5. SIGNS AND THEIR SETTING

A well-placed and attractive sign communicates to your ideal clientele the true flavor of your business. Well designed indoor signage reinforces your image. Sure you want to stand out from the crowd, but be sure to temper the information above by maintaining harmony with your setting. You don't want to look like a pair of brown shoes in a tuxedo store! Consider the other signs near your business. Some of the beach communities prefer sand-blasted wood signs. Some areas featuring lots of restaurants will be predominated by lighted dimensional signs. Often you can stand out by having a simple but elegant sign, a great design or materials no one else is using.

TIP #5 Select a design that reflects the key strength of your company that your customers most value. Use an outside designer or good sign company to help you achieve this.

6. SIGNS AND THE CITY

Now that you are ready to have your masterpiece produced, there is just one more gating factor: municipal code. It is always wise to find out what is required before going for that sign permit or charging ahead with manufacturing your new sign.

There are at least two sets of criteria to be aware of. Often business parks, historical areas and other developments will have their own sign criteria that are stricter than the city's. Be sure to check with your property manager or the city itself to find out if there is a sign criteria or "architectural overlay" before relying strictly on the city's requirements. Part of the approval exercise may include sign off by your landlord or property manager.

The second item is the city itself. You can avoid a lot of time and frustration by calling their planning department in advance to find out what is required. You do have the option of appealing the local sign code, called a "variance," but be prepared for long waits and lots of work and frustration.

TIP #6 If there is one best area to plan ahead, this is it. Cities are getting stricter about what sort of sign they will allow outside. It is best to find out what they will accept early.

7. AS SIGNS GO BY

Time and nature is the great enemy of outdoor signs. Imagine going to a restaurant and noticing that their sign is full of bird nests. Makes you wonder what else they are not maintaining doesn't it? There are many new materials coming on the market today that exceed at weatherability. Some manufacturers today are guaranteeing for life their plastics against fading or cracking. LEDs are much more lasting than neon and use less power.

TIP #7 While a great sign will bring customers, a poorly maintained one will drive them away. Make sure the materials to be used in your new sign will last as long as you need them to. Inspect your sign(s) regularly for cleanliness, aging and operability.

And remember: If they don't see your sign, they won't spend a dime!

Marketing Techniques - Strong Presence

Not all marketing is about actually pushing one product or another. You don't have to have a sale to talk about, a new product to mention, or even existing products to boost up. Simply telling people that you exist and that you're there is often all you need for creating a strong presence in the marketplace.

I've come across quite a few people who don't realize that this is just as much a form of marketing as anything else. They'll lament that they don't have any upcoming sale and so they don't know what they're supposed to put on their advertisements.

Take some times to go someplace where you know there are a lot of posters around. I say posters because these are often used as a very effective and strong form of presence marketing.

I'm sure that if you take the time to really look at a lot of these posters you'll begin to notice that many of them aren't talking about anything but the company in general. They might mention some issue people might have to deal with in life, and then say how the company can help them out, or improve their situation.

The point of poster printing like this is just to let people know the company exists. That is a very important part of marketing as well because quite often you aren't going to get a sale until a person needs to buy something from you.

I'm not going to bother with a store unless I actually need to shop there. A sale might be enough to get me to come, but even the best sale won't make me buy something I don't actually need.

When the time does come when I need something I then have to be able to think of a certain place to shop. If I don't know much about a place then I'm not going to think of them.

The more poster printing you get done that focuses on just letting people know about your store the more people there will be that will think of your company when they need something.

Your job is to find some good locations you can use to put up your posters in. Find spots where you know your customers are going to frequent. That means every time they go there they'll see your company name over and over again.

They might not need to buy anything from you the first few times but that doesn't mean you aren't effectively advertising to them. As time continues they'll reach a point when they do need your services, and because you had a strong presence, you'll be the first company they think of.

Sometimes the greatest challenge of marketing is just getting someone to think of you first. The stronger your presence is, the greater the chances are that company will be you.

Advertising Marketing Online

There are many ways to market and advertise your products, both online and offline. Newspaper, radio, magazines, flyers, ezines, banners, internet marketing, business cards, The websites below offer the best in advertising marketing online, marketing, advertising, internet marketing and advertising, email marketing, online advertising, free advertising and more you can visit www.sales-letters-creator.com You can have the greatest product in the world, but if no one knows about it who cares.search engines, word of mouth, leads, opt-in leads and more. Right now there are two very effective ways for advertising and marketing online.

Article marketing with pay per click advertising, you can get a first page placement for targeted keywords relating back to the theme of your website.

Depending on the type of product or service you offer you can place small ads and only get billed as low as 0.05 cents for every time someone clicks on that ad. This is a very quick and cheap way to advertise and market online. A very good place to advertise online with pay per click advertising is Search Feed. You can learn more about them another way is to write or pay someone to write articles for you around keywords that people are searching for. This is particularly effective for niche products. For example if you have a product and website for picky eaters you will get more targeted traffic to your site then you will for a website built around food. Advertising and marketing your product online thru articles works great if you write a good quality article filled with keywords relating back to the theme of your product;

By submitting articles to directories you can develop traffic back to your website by putting a link in the article. This is good for your prospect as well as search engines will give you credit for a back link or go to www.sales-letter-secret.com The more back links you have, the higher you rank with a search engine and the closer to page one you will be placed for specific keywords. This is called organic traffic and it is free traffic that costs you nothing when someone clicks on a link pointing back to your site. To learn more about marketing with articles visit Idea Marketers.

This is the premiere website for marketing your article online. Once you master the techniques of advertising marketing online with articles and pay per click advertising you will really start getting targeted traffic to your site. Of course another important step is how your website or sales letter is designed for converting that traffic into sales. We will leave that for another article. For now just get started right away with your own advertising marketing online program.