Advertising/Marketing Ideas for New Customers

[Townsend]

I plan to take a small ad in the Professional Services section of a new full colour local magazine. It will be dropped in the door of 2800 houses and a balance of 700 copies will be left in shops in outlying villages. I hope to give the basic information about my business in a couple of lines, and to keep interest in the ad I want to give a different 'Tip' or 'Point of Framing Information' in each issue. The magazine will be published every fortnight and the cost for a full year is 400 Euro.

So here's the challenge.....what few words would you put in this space?

By way of example:

..........If the bevel of a mount on any of your artwork is brown, you should bring in for a free check to see if it poses a threat by way of acidic damage to you art.

Or.......Check the hanger fittings on the back of all your frames to make sure they are not about to fall off the wall....if you need advice come in for a free consultation.

Or......Check the reverse of your frames for mould or insect infestation and bring your frame in if it needs to be repaired or if you need some free professional advice.

Or.......Have you got childrens' artwork which you thought too wrinkled and/or small to be worth framing? Bring it in and we will dry mount it flat, or scan and blow it up, and frame it like a modern masterpiece.

I hope you get my drift. I just want to prompt people in a different way each issue in a way that might encourage them to cross my threshold, even if it is for something free like advice or mountboard offcuts. My main agenda is to get new customers, and people who might never have used a bespoke framer, to come in and meet me and see the range of products and services I have to offer.

If enough of you reply with any kind of suggestion at all (consider it brainstorming, and that no suggestion is too outlandish or ridiculous) then I think this might form a useful database of advertising copy and marketing ideas for all of us to draw on. I would love it if there were some humorous suggestions, as I would hope that regular readers might actually read my ad in each issue, rather than just scan the page without reading the ad, in the hope of being entertained or informed. Sorry for the length of this, but having got this far I hope that you will share any ideas you have for getting latent and potential customers to appreciate the wonderful work we all do.........and without spending a fortune in the process!

Thank you all for the entertainment and advice I get from reading your submissions. Visiting this site serves as a constant reminder that although I work by myself, I am not alone. And that the challenges I meet from time to time have already been met and resolved by another framer, in another workshop on some toher part of the planet.

[Not your average framer]

Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't think that offering tips will help you make much impact, or generate any major amount of new business.

The only time that customers want to know the technical stuff is when they are deciding how their job should be framed. If they are not in the process of getting a job framed, then it all goes over their heads.

Your message should be about you and your business!

Where can they find you and how can they contact you.

What is your unique selling position, or what makes you different from your competitors?

Consider mentioning your strengths, specialities, or anything that you are really good at, which your competitors are not able to offer or compete with?

Keep it simple, focussed and straight to the point!

Do not include any infomation which distracts from your key information. It needs to short, easy to take in and to pack a punch in every line.

[Townsend]

You may be missing my point. I did say "I hope to give the basic information about my business in a couple of lines". Perhaps I should have stated "I WILL give the basic etc etc..." So that takes care of that. This is the direction I intend to pursue and I will let you know if it works or not but if you have any ideas I would love to hear them. The layout of the ad will take care of all that I wish to convey and the 'Tips' are just a means of trying to get regular readers to actually read the ad each week because it is slightly different. You have to realise that in this small town there are people who read all the classified ads just to see what is going on and who is offering what! I'm not selling Mars bars, but a personal service in a small town and I thought the forum members might have a few ideas I hadn't thought of which could be included. I know what I suggest does not conform the the usual advertising schtick but over 20 years I have found the best value in advertising here to be a very long running cheap small ad in the classified section of our local newspaper, and the worst value to be big flat screen ads in the local supermarkets which were very expensive and conformed exactly to the suggestions you made above. So, any more ideas guys and gals....?

[danchip1]

hello Townsend

as an observation, all of the tips that you put forward were erring on the negative, ur trying to hook people in with things they know little about and wont want to spend the money on...

Maybe better to come from a posative pespective, and to sell your strong points, u could do a different thing in each issue, keep the bones of the ad the same, change content, ie - CROSS STITCH A SPECIALITY!, and next issue, PHOTOGRAPHIC WORK CATERED FOR!, next issue, SPORTS SHIRTS FRAMED!... etc etc

A service I offer is scanning, copying, enlarging old family / marriage etc photos, say from the 30's, 40's etc. They make great gifts and are greatly appreciated when framed sympathetically and of the era.

See if you can find memorabilia related to ur town / village. I buy old stuff related to where i am and it always sells as someone will walk by who was in that school photo / rugby team/ bowls match / etc or they know someone who was, ie grandparent etc

I quite enjoy thinking innovatively about all this stuff

Good luck

[Roboframer]

I..........If the bevel of a mount on any of your artwork is brown, you should bring in for a free check to see if it poses a threat by way of acidic damage to you art. .

Most people won't know what a bevel is - and some won't know what a mount is - plus it could be cream or yellow, but still standard board that will end up brown.

However, how about a press release? They're free (as long as they're accepted) I got a double page spread in one paper on just this subject - they sent round a photographer and a journalist, and it brought some nice work in.

Just make it newsworthy/informative (without getting to technical) and not an advert - hardly mention yourself at all.

[Bill Henry]

If I truly knew how to market and advertise well, I’d be rich … which I ain’t.

Especially with frequent repetition I believe the most effective thing you can do is try to imprint you logo and ‘catch phrase’ into people’s minds as often as you can. Picture framing is usually something for which most people don’t have an immediate need; so, you want them to consider you when they finally do have a need.

A couple of questions: how much ad space do you have? Can you fit in your logo as well as some snazzy, eye catching graphics, or are you limited to text only? Can you design your own ad copy or will the magazine do it for you? How much control will you have? Do you have a web site that you can direct people to?

We’ve used something like this in direct mail with some success. I would suspect that it would translate well into a magazine as well.

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[sim.on]

First let me say a friendly hello to everyone on the forum. I registered a little while back but this is my first post. I'm starting up from home and will also be putting an ad in the local town magazine as well as thousands of (professionally done [by someone else] with images) double sided A5 leaflets delivered locally by myself (need to lose the weight). I don't wish my ads to smack of desperation but I intend offering free local collection/delivery. This may also allow me to view the environment in to which the frame will be hung and offer advice accordingly. People will also be able to email me images to be printed and framed. Townsend, if I saw a line such as 'Framing can seriously damage your art' from an ad for framing it would definately catch my attention and immediately below this explain why in short sentences in a way a layman can understand. Just a thought (you did say no suggestion is too outlandish or ridiculous!).

[Townsend]

Thanks for that guys. It's great to be able to knock an idea off a few people and see what comes up. Bill, your ad gives me the idea that I might keep the wording the same, but change the image each issue. I just hadn't thought of that. Danchip, I will take your suggestions on board also. You should offer your copying and enlarging service to parents of young children. Some of the kids art work looks really good when framed up properly. I've had my own kids do water colour paintings on big sheets of paper, dry mounted them and heat sealed them with full gloss laminate which makes the colours more vivid. They love them! I also offer to dry mount and heatseal A4 images as place mats. Again, the kids love to see their own artwork on the table each day and their parents are very proud! Robo, you are right re. the PR end too. I will probably use elements of the Arqadia Toolkit as a basis for that side of things.

Welcome on board Simon, and thanks for replying in such a positive way. That's the spirit! I love your tag line....."Framing can seriously damage your art". How true. May I use it please? I wish you luck with your enterprise, and feel sure your creative mind and sense of humour will be a huge asset!

[sim.on]

Thanks for the welcome Townsend. Use it? Definitely! Flattered. Just thought it up on reading your post. It should keep people interested especially when 99.9% of readers expect framing something will always protect it. I suppose ideas that don't take a lot of thought work better?