Are you looking to boost your business? From Google reviews to networking groups and partnerships, there are several ways to get your name out there.
1. Get Google reviews
In today’s digital market, reviews are more important than they’ve ever been. And it isn’t so much about how many reviews you have, but instead how often your customers leave you reviews. Google looks at reviews and automatically assigns greater importance to those businesses that are getting more on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
The kinds of reviews that matter to Google are those that provide actual feedback on your business and the experience the customer had shopping with you. Quality reviews should mention a company’s name, employees, staff, customer service, pricing, and more.
When Google sees this, it rewards the businesses that do everything right with higher rankings in local search results. Why are reviews important, then? It’s because they help your business’s organic marketing.
2. Be active in your community
Many sign shop owners are members of the communities where they work. The shops themselves are probably located in the middle of their communities. Getting involved in your community means doing everything you can to get your business’s name and your identity out there for people to see.
You can participate in local activities or sponsor events. You may also want to establish a rapport with your local building department. Your city’s building inspector, for instance, controls a lot of what happens to businesses in the municipality.
3. Be active on social media
When we talk about marketing your business on social media, we don’t actually mean creating social media ads (although that’s one great way to go, too!). We’re actually referring to creating and growing your brand presence on social media by posting frequently.
The logic here is that the public loves to get inside looks at what’s happening behind the scenes of your sign or print shop. What does this mean for your social posts? Take a photo or quick video when your printers are hard at work. Educate your customer base on what you do and how you work.
That insight helps people to engage with your brand story and become interested in who you are. This is why posting consistently every week can be so beneficial to you.
4. Participate in virtual networking groups
This marketing strategy might cost you some money, but virtual networking groups are there specifically to give you referrals every time you attend an event.
Networking can definitely be fun, but you’ll still always get something out of them and have the opportunity to give something back, too. That’s because other attendees will be looking for referrals from you. You can see how this is a fantastic way to build business relationships in your community.
Remember that there is often a cost to join these groups, but these connections could lead to all kinds of sales opportunities. There’s really no telling what kinds of successes you can have here, so be sure to try out some networking for yourself and see what happens.
5. Develop power partners
What are power partners? These are businesses that operate independently but still refer out vendors for their own benefit. These could include contractors, schools, commercial real estate agents and brokers, and general commercial builders.
For example, commercial builders who want construction jobs from property owners will include signage in their proposals. In those cases, most general contractors will seek bids for that signage, but if you have a healthy relationship with those builders, you have a chance to get consistent referrals from them.
For all these reasons, the business development manager at your sign shop should put some time into this kind of networking so your store can build these crucial relationships.
6. Consult your existing client base
Whether your sign shop has one year or ten years under its belt, you have a client base. However, ask yourself: how many of those customers are responsible for your total sales? How many are repeat customers?
If you have a client base of 100 people, and 10 of those have ordered from you more than once, this is something you can build on. Your existing client base will more than likely need your goods and services more than once, and in many businesses, this is something that gets overlooked. When you’re always trying to get new customers, you can tend to forget about your existing ones. Ask your customer base how else you can help them, and you may be surprised at where that leads you.
