Spreading the word about your small business doesn’t have to be expensive. Promotional marketing material ideas and products such as signage, flyers and posters are cost-effective ways of finding new customers and standing out from the crowd. It’s all about choosing the right materials for you, so here’s a few things to keep in mind when deciding on your marketing strategy.
How to Choose Which Marketing Materials to Use
Is your business online or does it have a shopfront? This is the number-one question that should guide the kinds of marketing materials you create, says Giovanna Lever, business mentor and managing director of business consultants Sparrowly Group.
If you sell products online, you might want to focus on your packaging material and thank you notes, which can be posted out with orders. For bricks-and-mortar stores, consider banners, flyers and posters. Physical marketing materials can tangibly increase sales – studies have found that the presence of ‘sale’ signs does influence consumers to buy.
Try to be sharp and snappy with your signage. “When creating your marketing and promotion materials, it’s important to speak to your customers, not at them,” says Lever. “Be relatable. Be clear, concise and proofread your copy.”
Keeping a consistent design across all your marketing materials – such as using the same colour palette, fonts and visual elements such as logos – will help customers come to know your brand. Using a template with these elements, as well, can make it easier for you to DIY each piece of collateral, as you have a starting point to work from each time.
Key Marketing Materials and Signage
Banners
By positioning banners in busy areas, you can drive awareness of your store or café and direct foot traffic that might otherwise miss you. When choosing the best type of banner for your small business, consider where you want to display it. Flag banners are perfect for outdoors because they grab attention when they move with the breeze, while pull up banners or x-Banners are suited to conferences or markets, as they’re bigger and give you the opportunity to display more information.
A-Frames
A-Frames are freestanding, double-sided frames that are placed outdoors. You can easily swap out the signs inside the frame, making them perfect for advertising limited-time promotions. Position them on the footpath outside your business, where they can catch attention and direct customers inside.
Signage
Signs are a simple way of ensuring your business is seen. You could put a temporary sign outside your store to advertise a sale, or opt for a permanent corflute sign to display information such as your opening hours. are freestanding, double-sided frames that are placed outdoors. You can easily swap out the signs inside the frame, making them perfect for advertising limited-time promotions. Position them on the footpath outside your business, where they can catch attention and direct customers inside.
SEE ALSO: How to Write and Create a Business Brochure to Drive Sales
Colour Posters
Colour posters are a vibrant way of grabbing attention. Plus, they’re low cost and available in a range of different sizes, so they offer a lot of creative flexibility – you can easily try out different designs to see what generates the most engagement with your customers. If your small business relies on local consumers, you could put up posters in areas where they’ll be highly visible to passers-by. Online businesses can also use posters to direct customers to their website.
Decals
A decal is a type of sticker frequently used inside shopping centres, placed on a shop front window. Unlike an opaque poster, which blocks the view from inside to the outside of the store, these one-way vision signs have tiny perforations to allow visibility and light through. They can be a non-permanent way for you to experiment with new designs for your business’s brand identity or be particularly useful during sale time, or when advertising a special promotion.
With Compliments Slips
For a professional way of communicating with your customers or clients, try With Compliments slips often used as a small thank you note. If you run an ecommerce business, you could include one with the purchase you ship to show customers you appreciate their order. You might like to print your logo and contact details on the slip and then handwrite a short message for an added personal touch.
Packaging Materials
Packaging materials can include everything from the boxes or shrink-wraps that products are sold in to what they’re posted out in. As well as serving the practical purpose of keeping your product safe and secure, good packaging can drive sales. Eye-catching packaging material can be the difference between a customer picking an item off the shelf and walking past it.
Packaging materials are also important when you’re selling online. Thoughtfully packaging the items you post out can show customers who your brand is and what you’re all about. For instance, you could use a branded sticker on the tissue paper your product is wrapped in or include messaging about how a box can be recycled.
Flyers
As they can easily be dropped in letterboxes, flyers can work particularly well for launching local businesses such as hairdressers or plumbers or to raise awareness of a special sale, promotion or event. Your flyer should include practical information about your business. If you’re opening a café, you could print a takeaway menu. You might consider adding a QR code so that customers can easily find you online – they’re back in a big way now!
Email Marketing
If you run an online business, you might benefit from email marketing. Done well, email marketing can create loyalty and brand awareness and drive sales. And, as consumers tend to hang onto their email addresses for a long time, it can allow you to reach them for years to come (provided you have their permission, of course!).
