Dear Traditional Advertising Agency:

Reference: See my previous post about the three key elements of a brand.

Leaving your client’s web site URL off of their print advertising does the following harm to your client and it wastes all of their money:

1. This mistake gives you nor your client any way to measure the value of the print advertising by tracking incoming traffic to the web site.

2. This mistake leaves the reader (and potential business prospect) with no real actionable place to go to learn more without making a phone call. (In 2010, we just need a URL. Period.)

3. Worst of all, this mistake leaves the impression that your client is behind the times and isn’t worth considering for important business.

Instead of allowing this sort of image torture to happen for your client, I would recommend that if you insist on pushing print advertising into your client’s budget that you at least implement the following strategies to give the ad spending the best shot at giving a return on investment:

1. Build a vanity URL (www.clientname.com/magazinename).

2. On this specific web page (within your main web site), put valuable, advertisement specific copy, images and links to a wealth of business information, testimonials, and include another call to action to the prospect into your sales funnel deeper. (How about asking them some information about them or providing them with a valuable tool for free to grow their loyalty towards your client’s business?)

3. Put a call to action in the print ad that answers the “What’s in it for me?” question for the prospect and lures them to the vanity URL you created earlier.

4. Collect the data about who visits the page including geography, what else they look at on the site, what information is working and not working and conversion to next step or other actions within your sales funnel.

5. Help your client make adjustments in their process based on this new business intelligence.

Sound simple? Well, it really is pretty simple. No matter how complex the business model, a simple strategy like this followed through to the end (with measurement and continuous improvement) will show your value to your customer as an advertising professional.

There are a million ways to kick that idea up another notch, but for now, let’s start with getting that URL onto the advertisement in the first place and having a web site that’s ready to accept traffic. That’s the first step to building credibility and brand legitimacy in 2010.

Thanks for listening.

Sincerely,
Marianna

It’s a proven fact: Great retail and restaurant displays SELL MORE STUFF! We’ve talked about how to create great displays before and we always love window designer Amy Meadows ideas that she shares with us.

This week, we especially love the displays at Charlotte Skelton’s latest small business venture, CRAVE, in Cleveland, Mississippi. Talk about packing a punch of delicious color, enticing presentation and straightforward customer education and alluring sales messages… CRAVE’s great displays make you, well, crave their goodies.

CRAVE is a small coffeeshop and café in a converted convenience store on the main drag in small town Cleveland, Mississippi. The owner is a veteran of the local food scene, but this time she’s pulled out a few new tricks…

Let’s analyze the visuals of this small biz:

1. Upon entry into the coffee shop, you are welcomed with a bold punch of name branding, brilliant colored candy jar displays as a focal point and a black board that gives you the must-know details of the day and some sales offers. Creative – but I’m guessing it wasn’t that expensive to create, making this display idea easily modified for your own purposes.

2. Point of sale. Well, let’s just say that having a mass display of amazing looking cupcakes, brilliantly elevated on multiple cake plates, creatively labeled with handwritten cards all behind a pristine glass case makes it difficult to resist taking 1 or a dozen of these goodies home for later enjoyment. The allure of this “bonus” item probably adds many dollars to her average ticket, an improvement that can pay big dividends on your small business’ annual bottom line.

What can we learn from CRAVE?

1. Educate your customers from the moment they walk in the front door. Never assume they know what to do with your products – even if your products are as simple as cupcakes and coffee!

2. Grab customers’ attention right from the start. Have a wow factor and focal point to your store displays, especially at the entry area.

3. Look for ways to use alluring visual elements to inspire the up-sell at the point of sale and increase your average sale / transaction amount.

4. Creative doesn’t mean expensive. Look for ways to repurpose ordinary objects and low-cost display elements like brightly colored candy, black boards, scrap fabric and ribbons, and old furniture to add new life to your displays.

P.S. We wish CRAVE had a web site and Facebook presence – but they don’t. We highly recommend that pack their bold punch online as well in the very near future!!

I’ve always said that we can learn a lot from the big boys. But then, we can do even better because, as locally owned small businesses, we can adapt and change rather quickly when we need to. Our recent travel to Oklahoma City, OK reminded me of the importance of signage in the small business marketing mix.

Bob's Lounge, Clare, Michigan

How many times have you given directions in a town, and said “Turn by the huge painted chicken” (a la Clare, Michigan)? Or “Look for the old time-y car, and hang a right.” We’ve all done it, and it’s cheaper than you may think to get a really memorable sign for your business – that will do more than spark conversation – but increase sales!

I’m often reminded of a business near my hometown that has great food, on a popular road. Yet, I’m constantly hearing from people that they didn’t know it was there. Why not?

I believe it’s because their little sign is just in the window, and it doesn’t really let you know that they serve amazing steaks and seafood. What could get them noticed by the 5000 cars a day that come through their town? Maybe a huge mounted cow, maybe subtle frosting on their upstairs windows, possibly painting their tin awning or a historic rendition of their sign. They often say (along with many other small businesses), “We can’t afford signage.”

Really? Well, I’d like to present a set of numbers.

If you spend $5000 on a sign and the sign has a life span of five years, your monthly “marketing cost” over the life of the sign is approximately $84 a month. For some GREAT marketing! If the sign lasts longer – your marketing per month just got MUCH cheaper!

Sure, you could spend a lot MORE than $5000, but you could also spend much less. Signage gets noticed. McDonald’s spends a fortune on real estate for location, but then they also spend buckets of cash on those famous Golden Arches we see so well from the interstate. Some of you have equally as valuable real estate with poor or no signage, and people don’t notice you.

I’ve priced billboards for clients along some of our Mississippi travel corridors, and billboards don’t come cheap. At best, you’ll pay a few hundred dollars a month for a billboard – much more than your own signage costs you!

Do you have the opportunity to put up a sign that is more cost effective and produces the same amount of visual traffic each day. Why haven’t you leveraged every bit of your real estate? Inside and out, vertical and horizontal…and roadway right-of-ways…you own it or your leasing it. Why not make your investment make you more money?

Signs Really Make a Difference

Is it hard to come up with the cash to get your sign looking great? Sure it is, but you know there’s a cost and reward on all of that. Get busy, and go make a great looking business sign that’s memorable and classy for your business.

Some clients have said “We don’t have people come through our downtown; they don’t know we are here.” Signage problem. Plain and simple. If you want people to know you are here, put a sign up. Get some of those travelers who come through your town every day or month and let them know your business is there – or that your entire downtown district is there. Partner with other businesses and get the traffic to your area.

Tell Us Your Sign Story

Mr. T's Pizza & Ice Cream, Chattanooga, TN

I’ve seen huge chickens, ice cream cones, trucks lifted up on top of poles and hundreds of others. Who has the coolest business sign you’ve ever seen? Leave a comment below or post a photo to our Facebook wall.

Domain Names & Signage

Finally, I’m going to tie in a couple of things Marianna talked about at the National Main Streets Conference this week in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

The three primary elements of your small business or community brand are your logo, color scheme and domain name. Think about how your business can incorporate your domain name in to the signage. You’d be amazed how many people will check out your business from a smart phone when they see your domain name. Use it often.

Disclaimer: Certain cities have sign ordinances and laws regulating these signs. Check with your local laws before taking implementing any sign endeavor.

This week, I had a great experience, but I’d be willing to have it again, refer folks to do the same, purchase from a distance and more… if only the store’s branding had included their domain name or web site address. Here’s what I mean…

I love to sell, I love to network, and I love the relationship side of business. But today, I saw the sales cycle for a small business in Texas work like a charm – without the pre-sale relationship building part of the equation.

Driving I-20 East, just outside of Dallas, Texas you’ll see a lot of things. Mostly a lot of grass and trees. But in one brief oasis, we saw a billboard for FRIED PIES.

My traveling companions were instantly alert and waiting for the exit to arrive. We stopped at the Fried Pie Shoppe (an outpost of the original in Davis, Oklahoma), and our noses were treated to a couple of delightful smells. Barbecue and fried pies.

I can be a sucker for a fried pie. I was impressed even more by their great menu and their total grasp on their concept. Really good food, well displayed but nothing fancy. Their signage and experience were a home run.

I walked out with a couple of happy companions and a sack full of fried pies.

I’d probably have to say the one thing they missed with me was a domain name in their branding. I’d love to be able to remember their business name a little better than I do, and I’d love to be able to easily link back to their business. I didn’t get to taste that barbecue, but it sure did smell great. If it had been a little closer to dinner, I’d probably have had to try it. But now, it’s going to be difficult for me to stay in touch, to send customers their way or even order their proprietary products (which they had, sitting on top of their buffet line – bottled sauces and such) on-line. The missing domain name or web site address on their signage, bags, branded 20 oz. cups, menus, point of sale, receipts, etc. left money on the table – my money – and certainly that of many other happy customers.

How can you extend your experience after every sale and after the customer has “moved on down the interstate”? Probably using that URL with your logo (as part of your overall branding) on EVERYTHING would be a decent start. ALWAYS get that domain out there, extend your business past your front door and onto the web.

This week, I spoke to a lot of downtown redevelopment types at the National Main Streets Conference in Oklahoma City. We talked about how to tell your story in this modern world (whether community, business district or small business). Social media plays a big part in that. But it’s not the central element…

In my presentation, I pointed out that to tell your story well, you must play by four basic rules. Without repeating my speech here, I do want to share the first rule and most important rule with you, because strategically, everything else will crumble if this rule isn’t followed:

Rule #1: You Must Have a Strong Home Base for Your Business or Community

That home base should most likely be your web site. In nearly all marketing models, it works for the web site to be the epicenter of the marketing universe. (It doesn’t HAVE to be that way, and I’m more than open to creative thinking on this subject depending on goals and budgets. But in most cases, it works for it to be the web site.)

Is your web site working as the epicenter? Are all roads leading back to your domain name…to your web site?

How can you make your HOMEBASE stronger?

1. Make sure it’s easy and quick to update. If you can’t update your own web site, you’ve got a big problem in today’s fast paced world. We love the WordPress platform because it takes me moments to make major updates to my own web site. It’s as simple as sending an e-mail.

2. If it’s easy to update…are you updating it? Are you adding new and interesting photos, educational content, employee and owner profiles, product and vendor information, demonstration videos and how-to lists… Are you making your web site and interesting and valuable resource for your customers and prospects?

3. Is your domain name appearing everywhere, even if your logo can’t? This includes audio communications (like radio, word of mouth, etc.), store signage (yes, including the front door and front window of your store), shopping bags (you never can tell where those bags will go), t-shirts, postcards, advertisements of every sort and at every opportunity.

4. Are you actively seeking to create traffic TO your web site through interesting posts on social media, links from vendor or organizational web sites, etc.? Remember that valuable content you created? Now it’s time to tell folks about it through Facebook wall posts, encouraging folks to share that information on Facebook, Facebook advertising, Twitter posts, LinkedIn posts, e-mail marketing and many more new media traffic drivers.

5. How does your site appear on search engine results? Does it even appear at all? Keep an eye on this, and ask your web guy for help if necessary.

6. Do you have Google Analytics and other robust web site analytics packages installed on your web site that are set to send you daily or weekly reports? Are those reports summarizing how much web traffic you are getting and from where (both geographically and by keyword topics)? Do you know who and why your customers are visiting your web site (keywords, inbound links, etc.)? Are they finding what they’re looking for – and so much more (bounce rate, number of actions per visit, time per visit). You might be surprised at what you learn, but you certainly need to know. And you need to correct course with the web site if it’s not delivering the desired results.

P.S. Interestingly enough, on my trip home, I was catching up on some reading and found that Chris Brogan had an interesting post on this same subject. His post has cool screen shots demonstrating how confusing it can be to customers if you do NOT have a strong home base. I hope you’ll enjoy his post as well.

Also, if you’re also just home from the National Main Streets Conference, you might enjoy our conference wrap-up of conference tweeters to follow and other good resources.

What say you? What results is your home base providing for your business?

When thinking about every single aspect of your small business marketing, make sure that your “brand” never disappears or is weakened through the loss of one or more elements. Make sure that every single marketing piece – whether signage, business cards, advertisements or your Facebook Page – sticks to your brand:

1. Logo. (Use in the same ratio and clear resolution, no matter what.)
2. Color Scheme. (Make sure you know the exact Pantone color or process color formula for your exact brand color or colors. If you don’t know what this means, sound off in the comments, and we’ll be happy to collectively answer your questions!)
3. Domain Name. This is your URL or www.mycompanyname.com. Yes, every single business needs a web site because 63% of ALL consumers across all demographics visit a web site before making a brick and mortar buying decision (USA Today/Neilson study, April 2009). This is not optional. Neither is the inclusion of your domain name of every single communication or brand presence that you make public. Put your URL EVERYWHERE.

Use all three of these elements consistently and constantly. You will be surprised at the improved effectiveness of your marketing overall when you take care of this seemingly small and sideline piece of your overall marketing puzzle.