What marketing tactics are working for you?

[GearboxGraphics 1]

Just curious to see what others are doing to market their business for very little cost right now in these times. Are there things that are working great and/or things that are not working well at all?

I have noticed a drop in business over the last 2-3 weeks and I have to ramp up some marketing efforts, which I have never really had to do in the past. So what is working for your business and what is not working?

--Cory

[Guest stunad, jr.]

start an online business or sell on ebay to recoup your losses. 

[john! 1]

Just curious to see what others are doing to market their business for very little cost right now in these times. Are there things that are working great and/or things that are not working well at all?

I have noticed a drop in business over the last 2-3 weeks and I have to ramp up some marketing efforts, which I have never really had to do in the past. So what is working for your business and what is not working?

--Cory

Very interested in this topic Cory. Things have been steady lately for me but as always I'm looking to market on top of steady business to keep it steady which i haven't done really before.

[GearboxGraphics 1]

Yeah, I am getting ready to ramp up my eBay sales again. I did it for a while a long time ago and made pretty good money, then quit because it became more trouble than it was worth with all of the other work we had.

--Cory

[HeroShirtShcak 0]

I service Firefighters. I am a firefighter so I understand them very well. Combine your business with a passion. If you are motorhead then you have great opportunities all around you. I used to have my truck windows covered in funny decals with prices right next to them. I had a binder full of decals ready to sell. I did sell a few this way. But I find that I pass out alot business cards when people see my truck now. Personalized decals are a hot seller. When the business got slow I scraped everything off the back of my wife's truck. I advertised full window lettering for $48.  That got alot of calls and business picked up quickly.

[john! 1]

Well Cory, i guess nobody's marketing really lol

[BannerJohn 1,324]

festival season is starting. Go to a few festivals and hand out cards to vendors.  Food Concession people as well. A lot of my business is temporary signage for events like this.

Flea markets too. My brother took a 30 minute walk through an indoor flea market once and sold 6 banner jobs.

[CherokeeDesign 0]

I got a good repeat customer recently as a walk-in.  I noticed a window that needed to be done, walked in, got the front window job, then called back to do the hours on the door, then called back for a sign on the outside of the building and a side window.

When I was finishing the job and cleaning up, I went to adjoining businesses with my cards saying how I had done the neighboring window, if they saw it and liked it, here's my card, etc, but no leads yet. 

Look into new services, I actually got into doing this stuff because my website business was slow.  Since I got the vinyl cutter I'm almost exclusively vinyl now, and not looking back.  Websites pay more, but much more time consuming/not as many people need them.  I love being able to knock out a job in a couple days vs. months.  Then recently I got the heat press to offer shirts.

Been doing a few freebies for friends/family.  HeroShirtShcak is right about using whatever network you have.  I used to train/fight Muay Thai, made my old trainer a shirt with the gym logo, gave it to him, one of his fighters was there and wants 10-15 similar for his next fight which will be on pay per view.  So that one free shirt turned into and order for 10-15. 

Back to the "network", my buddy owns a tattoo shop and also a silkscreening business.  We have a deal where he can offer vinyl/heat press shirts, where I'll actually do the work and we split profits, and in return I can offer silkscreening for the same deal.  I'm also doing a sign on his building, and some stickers with his shop logo (it's a small area and he's the popular place, so he sells a bunch of them).  He has customers that are loyal to him and trust him, so he can pitch vinyl as a package with his silkscreening, and I benefit from relationships he's already established (we work very closely to make sure we're both happy with the quality and results of each other's work).  Customers seem to have more confidence in that rather than "oh, call my buddy..."  He handles the work through his shop and subcontracts it to me.  I haven't got any silkscreening business yet to work it in reverse, but he does very good work.  I created/maintain his website so we have a lot of experience and trust in working together, which I definitely recommend if you attempt this.

I haven't actually tried these yet, so can't say "working for me", but food for thought.  Just some places I want to approach soon:

1.  I want to start hitting up real estate offices about banners.  The ones here I'm pretty sure have in-house graphics departments (I interviewed at one), but I bet they outsource the actual banner jobs.  I'd love to get finished artwork just to put on banners.

2.  There's also a lot of new commercial construction going on, I'm keeping an eye on the progress so I can go pitch "now open", "grand opening", etc banners. 

3.  Follow up with recent customers?  "Just wanted to see how the [whatever graphic] is holding up for you...anything else you need, let me know" type of calls?

4.  School is almost out for summer.  Think about the pools that will be opening, churches having summer bible school, etc.  All kinds of different activities and programs.

5.  It might be corny, but I might make a banner that I can magnet to the side of my truck when I do jobs, "another project by Cherokee Graphic Design" or something.  The last job I did was on a busy street, and had a lot of people stop and talk to me about what I was doing.  I made some Dickies work shirts with my name and logo on them to wear doing jobs, with business cards in the front pocket.  Don't go anywhere without your business cards.  Basically I just make a lot of noise, I have my business on Facebook, myspace, my own website, links to my site from sites I've made, my own shirts, graphics on my truck.  Other graphic/sign shops around here don't market/advertise very much.  I don't have much of a budget, but I find ways to get my name around town.  Making your own stuff is a good way to learn new things too, like I got the heat press, how was I going to practice and learn?  On customer's stuff? 

Again this list has not been proven effective yet, but maybe just some ideas for discussion.