Signage and Website
Sean Kelley
I was in business some time ago. It takes a lot of work and a good amount of capital. One of the things you need, we were in the retail sector, was a sign. We wanted a combination box and neon sign that everyone could see. It would look cool and light up in the dark, a beacon for everyone to come in and buy stuff from our store. It was going to make us legit. Being a new company, we had to weigh cost. Signage can go for $5000.00 easy. That was over ten years ago, and that dollar amount was on the low end. You want it to be professional. Sure you can easily get a vinyl banner and paint your own info on it, but who would want to shop there? It’s a retail business, a store, we wanted to be legit. It’s not a vegetable cart on the side of the highway. Our store was visible from a major state highway. You could see the sign at night when it was all lit up. We’d get a lot of traffic seeing that sign, but it was indirect. It was passers by. They were on their way to a Green Bay Packer game and probably never really cared that we were located where we were unless they actually needed, or wanted, our products.
Then there’s a website. It can be as pretty as you want. It can provide more information than your signage. A lot more information. A good web vendor can make the site look like a vision of your company. It can portray your company’s image. It can provide visitors information that a yellow pages ad, newspaper or magazine can’t. Restricted by a 1×2 inline ad? Not on your website. Can you provide a tutorial or display all your product images in a magazine or newspaper? You can, if you have the money to throw at it. My guess is that it won’t be very cost effective. Don’t take my word for it, go ahead and check into it yourself.
Back to signage and your website. How many people are able to see your website? A publication will tell you that their circulation is ‘x’ amount of subscribers in ‘z’ and ‘y’ demographics. The Yellow Pages will tell you about their circulation and provide you a extra little bonus by putting a little entry in their online version of the mighty book. How many people that find your company found it using the Yellow Pages? Can Yellow Pages provide this info for you? A website can provide you with statistics. You can find out how people are finding your company website. You can find out how long they’re spending on your site, how they’re entering your site and where they are right before they leave. You can find out what keywords they use to find your site and when they visit the site-this may be good to know when you want to run specials. You’ll be able to determine what sections of your site they’re going through and much more. Anyone in the world with an Internet connection could find your business at any time. How powerful is that? Do you see why a great website is worth the investment? Lights don’t burnout on a website. It stays up 24×7. Instead of cars passing along a highway and seeing your beacon of light off in the distance anyone in the world can see your website. It can offer more to visitors in 30 seconds than a sign can in 10 minutes. Visitors can really learn about your company. This saves you time by catering to customers that actually need your product or service. Web visitors can also look at their leisure, they don’t have to wait until 9am to call you and ask for information about your company because they can find it on your awesome website.
You’ve spent the money on the sign. It does the job. Just remember how much money you spent on it and what your return is on that sign. Now imagine the return from a website. We often work with clients that know the value of their website. Imagine if you sold one item, or landed one more client, through your website. We have clients that could pay for the site from just that one sale. Would that justify the cost of the website as a marketing tool? You do the math.
