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MARKETING YOUR YARD GREETING BUSINESS
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Read the following questions and answer them to
yourself to the best of your ability.
In general, do people know about yard greeting
businesses?
Do people know about YOUR yard greetings business?
Are you being found?
How do you advertise?
I recently went on keyword tracker. It is an internet
site that gives your information about how many times a
certain keyword or keyword phrases are searched for
within a given period of time (usually a week), on a search engine.
Here is some relational keywords to give you an idea (as
of 4-21-09)
American Idol 22727
Balloon Delivery 25
Birthday Cards 2379
Birthday Flowers 61
Caterer 79
Ecards 3965
Local Florist 1237
Microsoft 9297
Party Rentals 108
Send Flowers 4333
So how many people are searching for yard greeting
businesses?
Yard Greetings 5
Lawn Greetings 12
Yard Cards 12
Yard Art 84 (Although I think this
term is too general and not directed toward the yard
greetings industry).
Stork Rental 0
Birth Announcements 297 (Again,
too general. But relevant)
Stork Announcements 0
Are these above numbers enlightening to you? They tell
me that individuals do NOT know about yard greeting
businesses. I was surprised to discover how few searches
were even for birth announcing storks. Which are
probably more known then other yard greetings.
So how are YOU letting your area know about your
business?
You could try the phone book, but that assists people
who already know about your business to retrieve your
phone number.
In short, you need to get promotional materials directly
to your possible customer by means of flyers, rack
cards, businesses cards, brochures, newspaper ads, etc.
Flyers, An 8 ½ x 11 piece of paper with your relevant
information on there. This size would definitely allow
you to place pictures of some of your displays on it.
Try to do them in color.
Rack Cards, A card made from stock paper (heavier)
approximately 3.75”
x 8 ½ (8 ½ x 11 cut in three pieces). Usually double
sided. The heavier stock paper would allow these to be
put into a rack card display or holder that they sell at
office supply places. Display holders aren’t necessary
if you’re going to set next to a register.
Business Cards, business cards are nice. However I
believe in the power of pictures. You really need larger
promotional materials that you can put pictures on.
Business cards are for individuals that already know
about your business and want to keep your number handy.
Brochures, An 8 ½ x 11 piece of paper with a double
fold. Brochures can hold lots of information since it is
double sided, and also nice because it does not take up
a lot of display area.
Newspaper Ads, I personally would probably not do these
since they are usually a little pricey. But it is an
option. I believe that color pictures work best and it
would be outrageously priced to print a newspaper ad in
color. I think dollar for dollar, you’ll get a better
ROI with other promotional materials.
Vehicle Magnets, I’ll say it again, color pictures sell
your business to a potential customer. Spend the extra
money and get the largest possible magnet that you can
for your vehicle. Put your business name and phone, and
your website address along with a yard display.
And also a brief description of what your offer:
yard greetings, stork rentals, graduation announcements,
etc.
No matter what form of advertising you do. Remember to
put your business name, phone number, a website
(hopefully you own one), a brief description of what
your business is (often your slogan), and some colored
pictures of yard greetings to give your potential
customer some ideas.
And then go out and disperse your promotional materials.
Put them on public message boards at grocery stores or
restaurants, see if you can place a few of your
promotional materials near the cash register. This is
where (in my humble opinion) rack cards, or brochures
come in best since they don’t take up too much room. If
they are in full color and made to catch a customers
eye, they’ll pick one up to look at while they are at
the register or waiting around for their food to come
up. And hopefully take one with.
If the law allows and parking lot owners have given you
permission, you could put them on car windshields.
Personally, I hate finding these on my windshields. I’d
rather put them where people will see them and if they
want one, they’ll take one. It isn’t money wasted when a
person takes one because they want one.
My last question in this article…. How is your business
going to be found?
4-21-09
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