How to Use Posters for Promoting Your Local Business – Marketing on a tight budget isn’t an easy job, especially if you must wear several hats and do it all by yourself. With that being said, it’s crucial for home businesses to get the word out and build a strong local presence.
If you were looking for an inexpensive way to promote your business that doesn’t require much prior experience, commitment, or investment, then you have come to the right page. In this article, we will have a look at some essential tips on using printed posters for marketing your business. But first, let’s get familiar with what posters are and in what ways you can use them.
What are posters and how to use them for marketing your home business?
A poster is typically a single-page printed sheet that contains both text and graphical elements, designed to be informative and interesting at the same time. An ad poster, used for promotional purposes, makes use of a well-designed ad copy for advertising a business, an event, product, or local services. You may also use them for promoting an offer or a freebie giveaway. In fact, there are countless ways to use a poster in your home business marketing plan.
Why use posters for promoting your business?
From designing to printing, posters can be produced in almost no time and they’re easy to distribute. Given their high visibility amongst the local audience, they deliver quick results too. What’s more, distributing posters is an economical way of marketing your business than running a promotion or paying for ad space. No wonder why most home business owners find posters helpful in gaining visibility and recognition in the shortest amount of time possible.
How to get the best results from your poster campaign
Get the basics right
Here are some things to keep in mind when designing your poster:
- The ideal size for a poster should be somewhere between A4 size and bus stop size (here’s a poster sizing guide for your reference)
- The text content should be easy to understand for your target audience.
- The font size for each section has been chosen appropriately, to make sure the text is highly readable.
- Everything, including the content and messaging, should appear in the right order and flow well. For example, it’s ideal to place the images below the heading and subheadings and share your contact details towards the end.
Incorporate an eye-catching design
To ensure your poster design really stands out and catches the eye of your audience, it needs to have an attractive design. The layout should use high-quality graphics and look professional. Make sure you choose the kind of imagery, fonts, and colours that will resonate better with the audience you’re planning to target (check out some additional tips here). If you’re unfamiliar with online designing tools like Canva and lack the skills for designing a poster, find a printing services company or a professional graphic designer that can help you with the poster design.
Make the written copy as persuasive as possible
Without writing a persuasive copy, it may be hard to get decent results from your poster campaign. The written content should include:
- A headline that grabs the attention of a broader audience
- The main message body, sharing with the readers more about your offering(s)
- A clear call-to-action that encourages the readers to act
Share your contact details
It’s important that you share your contact details in the poster so that your potential customers can reach you if they are interested in what you’re offering. If you have an outlet they can visit, share its physical address. Consider sharing your phone number, email address, website, and links to any of your relevant social media profiles (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.).
Find appropriate locations to place your printed posters
Starting from the entrance of your shop or office, place the posters in an area where your potential clients or customers can easily notice them. Next, you can put them through the doors in your locality, place them inside popular print publications (such as newspapers and magazines), or put them on the billboards or somewhere in your local community, or any nearby supermarket, shop, nursery, school, post office, or church, depending on where you can reach your audience. You may also hand out the posters at public events or even on the street.
BONUS TIP: For reducing your poster printing costs and reaching a wider audience, it’s best to place a bulk order of at least 50-100 posters, if not more.
In the age of social media, it may seem as if using print media is pointless and distributing posters is an old hat marketing technique. However, it can go a long way in spreading the word about your business, making the local audience aware of your offerings, and generating those extra sales, for just a fraction of the cost you’d pay for ad space in a local newspaper or billboard.
Poppy Watt