Selling furniture at 80 miles per hour… different marketing for different locations

October 26, 2011 in Advertising, Corporate Identity, Small Business Advice | Leave a comment

There are two legitimate marketing uses of billboards.  One, getting drive by traffic immediately to your location and two, building name recognition that will eventually drive traffic to your business.  The tricky part comes into play when deciding where to place your billboards based on your company type as well as the purpose of your billboard.

I was recently driving home to Illinois from South Dakota and noticed a string of billboards along I-90 for a furniture store.  Not really that unique right?  I’m sure we’ve all seen furniture store billboards.  What struck me with these particular billboards though, was where they were.  For anyone who hasn’t driven across South Dakota, it is beautiful but relatively unpopulated, with 100 miles or more between “major” cities.  Most of the billboards are for services appealing to the people driving by (restaurants, hotels, tourist attractions, the occasional repair shop).  The billboards are meant to get people to come in once they hit that exit, because most of the people driving these somewhat desolate roads aren’t driving by on a regular basis.  In short, the billboards on this strech of road aren’t going to do a very good job at building name recognition since people won’t see them day after day like they would on a well traveled urban commuter route.  Since most people driving the 50 miles between the billboards and the town where the furniture store is located aren’t going to decide on the spur of the moment to buy furniture, these billboards also aren’t going to do a very good job at serving the other possible purpose of driving immediate traffic to the business.  Basically, these billboards are most likely an expensive waste of valuable marketing dollars.

Does this mean that furniture stores should never use billboards?  No.  It just means this business owner should reconsider where to place their billboards.  When customers do decide to buy furniture, the name recognition of the furniture store will play a key part.  Therefore, this furniture store should be advertising where people will repeatedly see it, not out in the middle of proverbial nowhere. 

All of our businesses need to consider carefully not just the type of advertising we are doing, but also where it is placed.  Do you have examples of advertising you’ve seen in an ineffectual place?

Fashion Advice That Applies to Marketing – Dress For the Position You Want

January 31, 2011 in Corporate Identity, Graphic Design, Marketing, Small Business Advice | 2 comments

There is an old adage for business dress – “Dress for the job you want, not the job you have”.  The idea is that if you are already looking the part, it is easier for people to take you seriously and perhaps help you move along that corporate ladder down the road.  Appearance plays a big part of how people in the business world are evaluated, and your dress goes a long ways towards how professional you appear and how seriously people take you.

The same basic principle applies to the look of your company’s marketing materials.  If you are a one person operation that wants to land larger, more lucrative clients (or increasingly even some of the smaller clients), you need to do what you can to look the part of a professional organization.  You don’t need to spend thousands on overly fancy corporate brochures, but the materials you do put out definitely need to be clean, well organized and professional in appearance.  Handing out something that looks like you put it together at home doesn’t help the appearance of your company and it can actually hurt when you’re trying to land that client.

Your marketing materials, just like your wardrobe, should reflect the company you want to be.

Funny? Not so much. Humor in marketing isn’t always a laughing matter.

October 26, 2010 in Marketing, Small Business Advice | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

I was recently driving from Howell, MI to Wheaton, IL and heard what has to be one of the worst radio ads I’ve heard in a while (and there are some bad radio ads out there).  The ad was for a job board, where companies could post their openings – in theory to get quality applicants.  The problem with the ad was that it was trying to be funny by using this annoying ditsy woman speaking in “likes” and “uhs” as the main speaker.  I’m sure someone thought it would be memorable or funny, but all it made me think was ditsy.  As a business person (who will hopefully one day be big enough to need to hire), I don’t associate ditsy with quality job applicants.

The moral?  Be careful with humor in  your advertising.  Even if you (or even someone else seeing the advertising) thinks it’s funny, does it make an association you don’t necessarily want to make.

What are some of the humorous, yet really ineffective ads you’ve seen or heard?

Sometimes a cloudy sky makes the prettiest picture – in life and graphics

October 13, 2010 in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

I was recently driving from Wheaton, IL to Rapid City, SD to visit family – a long but beautiful drive.  As you go west, the trees gradually become fewer and farther apart as you transition to “big sky” country.   On the drive out, we passed through a thunderstorm in Minnesota, and right before it started raining, the sky changed from brilliant blue to this incredible dark gray with a small rim of sky blue just on the horizon.  And something about that sky just made all of the other colors of the landscape “pop”.  White windmills stood out like they were glowing, the gold of the dried corn and hay fields became richer, while the green of the fields that were still growing became a brilliant jewel toned green.  Even a flock of birds flying by seemed to pop out at us.  It was so beautiful that even my 3 year old son noticed and commented on it.

On the way back to Illinois, we passed through the same area in bright sunshine with what would usually be a very pretty blue sky, but it didn’t compare to what we had seen a week before.  That cloudy sky had made the landscape so much more interesting and beautiful that an otherwise perfect blue sky day seemed dull in comparison. 

What does this have to do with business or graphics?  Well whether it is your life, or your business, remember when those “cloudy skies” come, both literally or figuratively, to take the time to notice how it changes the landscape.  Does it make the colors pop? Does it make you realize something you hadn’t otherwise noticed about either the scenery or your life?  In your business, when those cloudy skies come, make the most of them.  Learn from them.  Is there a new marketing tactic that you can come up with to go along with the rain?

Smooth moves, just like a real otter…

August 23, 2010 in Uncategorized | 3 comments

Some of my faithful Michigan readers and clients may have already heard that Green Otter Graphics is moving to a new location.  For those who have not, Green Otter Graphics is moving to Wheaton, IL.  I will continue to post regular tips and marketing advice for small businesses, and hope many of you will continue to read and benefit from what I have to say.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Michigan and have made great friends and business connections that I hope to maintain.  The exciting part of this (other than moving to the outskirts of Chicago – which is arguably one of the coolest cities in the US) is that my business is flexible and virtual enough that I am able to take it with me, without interupting the work and relationships I’ve developed with my clients.

For example, I have one client for whom I’ve designed a logo, business cards, webpage, blog page, an ad and for whom I am doing regular marketing duties – and I’ve met him once, after doing most of this work.  And the face to face meeting wasn’t technically necessary, but more of an it would be nice to put a face to the name type thing.

So… I look forward to continuing to grow Green Otter, and continuing to get to know all of you even as I meet new people from Illinois.  And maybe I should figure out what you call people from Illinois…

So what do you do? It’s not just a pick up line.

July 12, 2010 in Marketing, Marketing Plan, Small Business Advice | Tags: | Leave a comment

What do you do?  What do you sell?  Seems like an easy question, but really it’s more complicated than it would seem.  If you sell widgets, you might say, “I sell widgets”.  But that’s not really what you are providing. 

One of the sections of my “Down and Dirty Marketing Plan” involves spelling out what  good or service you provide your customers.  And when it comes to answering this question, you need to dig a little deeper.  You have to know not only what literal good or service you provide, you need to know what your customers actually get.  Do your customers get a widget, or do they get what the widget does?

Once you can frame what you do in terms of what your clients actually get, it becomes a lot easier to market yourself.  Once you know what your clients get from you, you can better speak to the benefits of your product or service, rather than the features.  Because when you’re marketing, discussing benefits always has a better impact on your potential clients than features.  Example… which would you be more interested in… a widget with 3 splurgity gurgs and 200 whatchamacallits, or a widget that makes it easier to clean your bathroom?

So what do you do?

Don’t let the color of your text cause a car accident

July 8, 2010 in Graphic Design, Marketing, Small Business Advice | Tags: , , , | 1 comment

There’s a billboard I regularly drive by that is virtually unreadable.  There are a few reasons, including the fact that there is too much text for a billboard you’re passing at… well let’s just say a bit over 70.  But beyond that, an even larger problem is that you literally can’t see some of the text.  The reason – the color.  It’s got a tanish background, with a bunch of pale yellow or cream text on it.  Were this a print piece, you might be able to work at it and read it, but in this large-scale, it’s not realistically doable.  And in any case, who wants to have to work to read your message?

The moral… pay attention to the color of your text in relation to the background.  If you’re using a light color for your text, make sure there’s enough contrast between it and your background.  If there’s not, change the color.  Or add an effect such as drop shadow (in moderation) or an outline.  The same applies to dark text.  If your text is dark, don’t put it on a dark background without some sort of highlight or outline.

While most of the ads or print pieces you put out won’t have the ability to cause car accidents as speeding motorists squint to try to decipher your text, you still don’t want to make it any harder for your potential customers to read your message.

What are some problems you’ve seen with billboards or other materials making them hard to read?

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