Signs 101: An Introduction to a Tricky Medium

Since I own a sign shop now, I wanted to take the opportunity to educate the readers of my tiny blog about this tricky medium. I see a lot, a lot of bad signs daily so I wanted to discuss the good, the bad, the ugly and more in this three part series. Lets get started shall we?

What is a Sign?
 "A sign is an entity which signifies another entity."--Wikipedia. A sign can be as small as a flyer or as large as a billboard. Regardless of its size, signs should always have (1) an intended target (2) a decided goal  (3) a clear message.

Primary Goals of a Sign
Signs can inform. An informative sign can announce holiday hours, new management, a new location, a grand opening, basically anything you would like to tell another person. Signs can label. Using a sign as a label is a pretty common occurrence since they label a store front, an entrance, an exit, ect. Signs can solicit a response. We've all been traveling on the highway at one time or another and have seen the big "EXIT NOW" signs. These are they types of signs you'll be most likely to use, compelling your customers to call or visit or buy.

Diagram of a Good Sign

A good sign is composed of 3 good qualities. (1) Clear Title (2) Legible Instruction (3) Contact Information. Using the sign to the left as an example, lets go through the qualities one by one. A clear title refers to the headline of a sign. The headline should always be the main point you want to communicate to the reader. You can never fully count on the fact that a person will read everything you have to say so get to the point and get there as fast as you can. Looking at the sign to the left, you can figure out the gist of the sign without having to read the whole thing: "reserved parking" for customers only. Read on a bit and you get to the legible instruction. The sign tells you clearly when you may and may not park in this space. If you are not a customer and it is after business hours, you better get lost. Lastly, contact information is important. Never forget your contact information, especially if your sign is soliciting a response. Phone numbers are the most common and should be second biggest piece of info on the sign after the title.

Hallmarks of a Bad Sign

• Conflicting or distracting colors
• Illegible fonts
• No clear headline or title
• Too much information
• Too little information
• No contact information
• Confusing symbols or images
• Letters too small
• Poor arrangement
• Useless information or symbols (one of my biggest pet-peeves is when people start a sign with WOW! as an attention getter instead of getting to the point)

The next two installments will be about signs for advertisers and designers. Same bat time, same bat channel!

How to Use Craigslist Right, in My Opinion

My first foray into guerilla marketing started a few months ago when I picked up an awesome little book by Jay Conrad Levinson. I read a lot about his thoughts and practices but never actually put his good advice to use until I started my sign shop. Mr. Levinson is a big cheerleader for classified ads and acknowledges the growing popularity of online classified ads as a money saving alternative. By far, Craigslist is the most popular online classified site, but navigating the spam laden beast to get any true value from it takes some doing. This post is to share some of what I've experienced in hopes of saving you some time and effort.

Intro to Craigslist
"Craigslist is a centralized network of online communities, featuring free online classified advertisements – with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, services, community, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums."--Wikipedia
Its very similar to the Sunday classifieds that run in your local paper, only there is no cost for most listings and the viewer ship of craigslist pages is in the hundreds of thousands--even millions in some cases. Check out the Factsheet for more about Craigslist.org.

Writing Your Ad
Classified ads are meant to be brief by nature so get to the point. If you are a dog groomer, make "dog groomer" your post title not something like "Time to Love Fido Back". When looking through listings, people scan for pre-determined keywords in their brain. Make your title 7 words or less and frank.

The first line of your ad is where you engage. If some one is reading your ad, that means they clicked the link. If they clicked the link, you can be fairly sure that they are interested in what you're selling. Now you can talk to them:

• Briefly explain your business or service
• Pick three or fewer points to highlight (i.e. no minimum order, same day delivery, etc.)
• Provide contact information and business hours
• Make a call to action (i.e. call now for a free quote)

Choosing Your Category
Craigslist has 11 main categories. The ones you will be most likely to post in are "service offered" and "for sale." You have to choose your sub-categories wisely as Craigslist reminds its users to "Please post to a single geographic area and category only -- cross-posting to multiple cities or categories is not allowed." The categories are pretty self explanatory, but you can always use Craigslist Help if you have questions. However, the easiest way to determine if your ad belongs is to read some of the others in the category you're thinking about posting in. It will also help you to determine what makes a good ad and what makes a bad one.

Measuring Results
I post in 7 different categories on Craigslist. Since I've only been at this a month, I'm still in the process of collecting accurate measurements on which categories bring me the most real traffic (as opposed to SPAM). One of the most accurate ways to find out where you're ad is doing the most good is variation. I only post ads about banners in the "skilled trade services" category. Ads about coroplast yard signs are listed in "general", ect. When I check my messages I look at what the person is asking for. So far, my banner ad in "skilled trade services" is working the best. You can adapt this approach to fit your situation even if you don't have varying products to sell. If you offer a different incentive in each ad (i.e. free consultation, 5% first order, ect.) you can track the successfulness of your ad just as easily.

Beware... SPAM!
SPAM is still a big part of the internet and, unfortunately, a big part of Craigslist. While the site does take precautions to help cut down on fake posts and web bot solicitations of posters it does still happen. I get around 5-7 SPAM emails per post. The most common are people emailing me links to other sites where I can "post my item for sale" or scammers trying to get me to agree to bad money order transactions. I never click any link sent in a Craigslist email, it could be a Pandora's box. I also spot scammers with a few easy flags:

1. Misspellings
2. Poor grammar like the writer is not a native English speaker
3. False greetings like "hello ma'am/sir"
4. Short messages saying they are "interested in my item" but give no other detail or information

The good news is you won't get a lot of these messages. They normally only message you once and when you don't respond, they go looking for another patsy. I only post 3 ads a day once a week. That's 15-21 fake messages and most of them are caught by my junk mail folder before I even get them. For around every 5 fakes, I get 1real inquiry. That inquiry is worth it.

Making Your Winners Work
Now that you've written a great ad and measured the results from your posting schedule, you need to ramp it up. Right now I post once a week. Once I weed out less successful categories I can post more often in the categories that work for me. Be aware though, that a once a day post is the most you can do for a single ad, so have two or three versions written up. It will keep your message fresh and help cut down on redundancy on Craigslist.

Client Databases: Your Support Network

Its been a while since my last post. Starting a small business venture while juggling clients is hard work, so my blog has been on the back burner. I couldn't for the life of me think of an appropriate topic. It came to me today while doing some client follow ups--Client Database=Good.

Back in the good old days of paper and ink, a client database was nothing more than the big Rolodex on a businessman's desk. It held every name, phone number, address, and note about each contact that its owner would need to conduct business effectively.

Fast forward to 2010 and the age of the "2.0" everything. Most small business owners don't own a Rolodex, or even believe in their power. Quickbooks holds client info. That's just as good right? Microsoft Outlook keeps track of my contacts, what more do I need? Both very valid statements, now let me take the time to prove you wrong.

What's So Wrong with Quickbooks?
Short answer: nothing. Quickbooks is a great way to keep track of orders, invoicing, income and expenditures. It is accounting software for the everyman, and everywoman, in business for themselves. But its just that, accounting software. While it may keep track of basic contact information and orders, it is not set up to relate non-accounting information in a useful way. When you construct a client database, specifically for the purpose of housing client information, you have control over the way your information is displayed. Control is good. Example: You run a sign shop. You want to promote plastic yard signs as your monthly special with a direct mailing campaign and personal phone call to all clients who have purchased signs in the last year. Using Quickbooks, you can look up the orders of each business by their name only. With a client database, you can sort by date and type of purchase, then just print a list of names and contact info. The information is available to you electronically in both scenarios, but which uses less time?


Misplaced Expectations & Outlook
Outlook is awesome, but it can't do everything. Yes it makes managing contact information easy and because its a Microsoft product, things like mail merge are a breeze. But its functionality stops there. Outlook manages mail. Conversations. Not products. Not orders. Not your client relationships. A client database can hold more detailed information than an Outlook contact page--information that may come in handy. Example: You own an upscale full service beauty salon. You offer specials for holidays and clients' birthdays. One of the employees suggests a mother daughter manicure pedicure deal for the month of May, because of graduations. With a client database, you could gather and store information tailored to your marketing needs because it is constructed by you for your own use. In this situation, you could search your client list for Women >with daughters 17-18 and prepare a nice mailer explaining your offer. Alternatively, with Outlook as your contact manager, the best you could do is mail merge all the addresses on to address labels and direct mail everyone on your list.

The 5 Truths about Client Databases
The title of this post talks about a "support network." Your clients are your support network. They support your business. You should support them and a database will help you do that. Its all about After Care, a practice that isn't just for hospitals anymore.

1. Not every database is a useful database. Databases that are poorly maintained, missing information, out of date and/or have too much or too little information, are all just a big waste of time.
2. Planning and maintenance are a must. Before you start on your database adventure, sit down with a blank piece of paper and think. You need to decide (1) what the database will be used for and (2) who will use it. Plan out your fields of data and how you will collect them (i.e. will the clerk ask the customer, or will the customer be given a form, ect.). Create your database and set a schedule for updates, in addition to making changes as they occur. The scheduled review will allow you to identify problems or trends within your database, that you might not notice when popping in to make an address change.
3. Databases can enhance relationships. Small businesses have the advantage of "face-to-face loyalty"--you see your customers regularly, you know their buying habits and may even be on a first name basis with them. You've built a relationship. Because of that relationship, any communication you have with them will not be seen as spam or unwanted solicitation (as long as you don't get crazy with it). So look them up once in a while and call them, or write them--handwritten letters are best--and say something like "Hey Sue, it's Margret over at the Tea Cup cafe. I wanted to send you some early birthday wishes and let you know about the great menu the restaurant will be having the weekend of your special day..."
4. Databases can help you provide better service. A properly constructed database will give you the tools you need to understand your clients, their wants and needs. It can also help you identify habits so you can anticipate requests.
5. One database may not be enough.  Databases with too much information are useless because you can never find what you need. If you run a very detail oriented business or have thousands of clients, you may need several databases that cross-reference each other for enhanced functionality.

I'm writing this on the verge of starting my own customer database. I'm sure going through that process will afford me some valuable information to share with all of you. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.