Banner stands are one of the most cost effective ways to target a live audience.
If you have a store, restaurant, showroom, clinic, insurance agency, job fair, special event, trade show, mall location or anywhere groups of people congregate, there is an opportunity to attract business with a banner stand.
Who is your audience?
Sometimes the answer to this question is simple and other times, extremely difficult. For an easy example, a gift store in a mall has thousands of potential customers walking by it weekly and could make purchases for things like birthdays and holidays. It is easy to figure out where to place the banner stand in this case…outside the store’s location where the traffic is and inside to help draw people in. A harder example would be a general medical clinic that wants to attract more patients to their Optometry section. Yes, there is traffic inside the clinic, but where are some of the best places to show banner stands for the Optometrist? How about inside the Ophthalmologist’s office or near the clinic’s front door? Or how about where patients have to check in for office visits? Another example is the restaurant that is near a major thoroughfare. The owner has determined that many of their potential customers drive by them on this road. He could place several outdoor flying flag banners near this road to build awareness for the restaurant and it would probably work.
The idea is to locate where the traffic for your target audience is and place a banner stand where they will see it. This is the same basic advertising concept you see over and over again from marketers using radio, TV and print advertising. Place your message in front of as many people from your target group as possible.
What about the Message?
Of course, there are many reasons to use banner stands, but let’s assume the usage here is to attract new customers. It won’t matter how good of a job you did placing your banner in front of your prime audience if your message falls flat. Do some homework to help prevent this. Conduct a survey. Have impromptu focus groups. Ask you’re your sales people what they think. However you get your information, try to sift out the basic concept from your research and make that the focus of your banner. It may be you decide to offer “X” product at a discount or you just want to create product awareness for an item that is not very visible inside your store.
The Design
Use a professional graphic designer, but give direction. You know what is important for your business and a good designer can bring color, text and layout all together to make a persuasive piece. The design doesn’t have to be filled with gobs of information to get your point across. Sometimes a dominant image with equally dominant yet simple text placed strategically in the design is enough.
Sometimes you need more information for the offer to make sense, but try to keep it simple. Most people spend a fraction of a second looking at a banner stand and you have to grab them at the first glance. The harder it is to see your message in the design, the less chance it will be read.
