As a signmaker, you’re in the business of generating business for your customers. From pull-up banners to light-up boards, you need to deliver exactly what your customers demand. But there’s a lot of competition in signage making business — and profit margins can be thin during leaner times. Here’s how you can make your signage business more effective for both yourself and your customers.
Keep Track of Your Customer Base
The primary responsibility of any signmaker is to deliver signages that give their customers exposure that they are looking for — and this can change based on trends.
A decade ago, pubs loved brightly-lit neon signs. Now pubs are shifting towards classier wooden or metal signs and a more “gastro-pub” aesthetic. As your customers evolve, signages evolve too; deliver what your core industry wants, and you’ll be selling more signages successfully. By specializing in certain types of signs or specific industries’ signs, you can distinguish yourself from the competitors.
Use Analytics to Determine the Best Products
Make use of Analytics Data. Analytics can show you what products are getting the most interest — and how much they’re actually selling.
You might find that your aluminum cut-out signs are garnering a lot of interest but they are not selling that much.
Some data might show you that your signs are priced much higher than your competitors; while you’re showing up during research phases, you’re not making the cut. You might also see that some of your signs just aren’t getting any interest at all; these signs may not be worth continuing in the future.
Advertise in the Right Places
For sign-making companies, business expos, seminars, and other trade shows are great ways to advertise. A flashy sign in the right place brings people in. Display your best signage and take orders on the spot. You’ll be able to bring in a good amount of orders for some time to come — just be careful not to overextend yourself. Even just connecting and networking can help someone, who might not need a sign today but may need one later, is a smart way to extend business.
Connect with Growing Businesses
You might think, most of your sales are going to be from the first customers, but that is not true. By maintaining relationships with existing customers, you can also acquire business through their expansion — when your customers’ business grows, they’ll come to you. Maintain friendly relationships with your existing customers through flyers, email, and social media. It will keep you in their consideration when they may need you.
Work to Develop Your Presence
In B2B sales today, it’s imperative to maintain a solid online presence and authority. The first thing most business owners do when getting a sign is to look up the company online. You should have your best work online and do proper search engine optimization for online visibility. You would want to appear in the search listings whenever someone is looking up signages in your area. And encourage them to follow or subscribe to you on social media, which will further help you develop your relationships with them. It is universal among many businesses but particularly helpful for B2B companies.
Streamline Your Operations
When you can outsource your operations, and it makes sense to outsource your operations, you generally should. Outsourcing your operations means, you’ll be able to increase the volume of your sales. As long as you have complete control over the quality of the final product, outsourcing processes such as manufacturing and assembly means that you can focus on revenue generation — and once you’ve built a reputation within the industry, you’ll be able to use this to expand. Look for areas in which your process could be automated or outsourced.
Keep Track of the Competition
If you’re starting to lose market share, the answer is almost always in what the competition is doing. While you don’t always need to be cutthroat, it’s a good idea to keep an eye on the tactics your competition is using.
If they’re starting to offer new technologies in signage, it may be time for you too to add them to your offerings — or branch into a different area altogether, where the competition is slacking. Keeping an eye on the competition can also help you identify trends that may not be obvious; if you see your competition moving in a certain direction, your should also explore that direction.
For a sign company, marketing can be a challenge. You need to know what attracts your customers — and what will work for them. But by using analytics, talking directly with your customers, and building better customer relationships, you can improve your sales and capture a larger percentage of your market.
And if you need the best quality material to deliver first-rate signages to your customers, Eurotech is here. We have been empowering sign makers by providing the industry best signage supplies and displays at the best rates.
