Marketing Techniques to Make Your Storefront More Inviting

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Marketing Techniques to Make Your Storefront More Inviting

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Storefront businesses are in a world of change right now. The internet and social media have changed the way people shop and as a result, have drastically changed the way businesses market. Today we all hear about the benefits of marketing online, connecting over social media, and using reviews to boost your site. What isn’t as discussed are the physical aspects of marketing.

Marketing Techniques to Make Your Storefront More Inviting

It seems like they might be irrelevant, but having a physical way to connect and remind customers of who you are is the most effective way of gaining sales. When it comes to street-side or storefront advertisements, you’ll have to use better techniques than you did in the past to get people to walk in your doors. Even if you don’t have much foot traffic, setting up a newsletter or sending out coupons to targeted lists of consumers can help give you an edge over online competition. Don’t just let your sales keep dropping, use the tips below and get more traffic coming through your doors.

Open Doors

Having your doors open on a sunny day gives you more visual opportunities to entice shoppers inside. Provide an interesting sidewalk display that naturally leads inside or use signage to promote a sale or new product. If you are concerned about potential safety issues, use outdoor security cameras to keep merchandise safe, and to see when potential customers stop. When someone stops to check out your display, have an associate greet them or lead them to similar items inside the store if they show an interest.

Bold Colors

What is going to attract more people: a neutral tone or a bright, bold color? Obviously, the second one. Even if your logo or other store colors are subdued, don’t limit your ability to get attention with good signage or storefront colors. Use colors like orange, pink, or red that draw the eye to your store. You could find you get a lot more foot traffic than before. Then, work on your staff training to convert this traffic into additional sales for your top line revenue. Work with a good print system so your posters, advertisements, and window graphics are glossy, bright, and won’t fade overnight. Even if they don’t stay, you can hand out coupons or postcards with reminders of future sales, making your open door an easy “in” for future business.

Calls to Action

There is a concept in marketing called the “call to action”. Essentially, this means you use action words to prompt customers to purchase your product or sign up for something. They may be on the edge, but they need that final little push, which is what the call to action provides. Things like “come in and see our low prices”, or “sign up for a free t-shirt today!” are great examples of this. Go a step further and target your repeat customers or those that sign on with a mailing list with calls to action in the form of postcards that include sales or coupons. Directly contacting them provides a physical reminder of you and your products as well as markets to a more specific audience.

If you’re looking to stay competitive in today’s world with a brick and mortar store, you need to do more than open the doors in the morning. You need to find ways to make it more inviting than before. Today, consumers can shop online in minutes and find something that fits their needs. If you want them to use your store instead of your competition, you have to offer them something that makes it easy to shop with you. Follow the tips above and enjoy higher profits and sales. And make sure to hire and train the right staff that will execute the plan you come up with.

 


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Use the Luck o’ the Irish to Drive Sales!

Holidays are an excellent time for businesses to launch a direct marketing campaign, and St. Patrick’s Day is especially great since many are excited about the upcoming spring… and their tax returns!

St. Patrick’s Day is only a month away, so now is the perfect time to start planning and implementing a direct marketing campaign that will help drive in more business. A well-designed direct mail piece will motivate your customers and potential customers to buy from you and keep your products and services in mind during the rest of the year. Here are a few direct marketing ideas for St. Patrick’s Day success:

st patricks mailers direct mail sample

Invite people into your physical location.
If you’re offering some sort of sale on St. Patrick’s Day, this is a great reason to invite people to your company’s physical location. Through a festive direct mail piece, such as our Custom Shamrock Die Cut Mailer, you can offer an incentive to get people shopping in your store on St. Patrick’s Day.

Send a postcard.
Postcards are a simple and affordable way to inform your customers of your St. Patrick’s Day promotions. Think about what message you will send to get your customers motivated to purchase from you.

Offer a holiday-themed discount.
Tie in your offer to St. Patrick’s Day and make sure it expires sometime around the conclusion of the holiday. This will get your customers motivated to purchase from you right away if they know your offer won’t last very long.

St. Patrick’s Day is full of imagery that most consumers recognize. Make sure you

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Konica Minolta’s “Clean Planet” Program Proves Earth-Friendly Resource

Scott Sabelko direct mail MN blog image


Beginning in March of 2017, with the purchase of the Konica 2250, PrimeNet was able to gain access to a wonderful recycling resource: Konica Minolta’s Clean Planet Program. This is yet another step in keeping PrimeNet “green“.

Upon signing up, we ordered the necessary tools to recycle the supplies that come out of our printers.

Any printing/imaging supply that can be replaced by the customer can be sent to recycle.
These are not limited to KM products and include:

• Toner cartridges
• Toner bottles
• Fusers
• Drums
• Waste Toner Collectors

This great program allows us to recycle materials from ANY printer we have, including the iGen and HLC180.
We can also recycle materials from the desktop and workstation office printers.

We’ve been keeping track from inception and the numbers from 2017 are inspiring:

The first chart is the number of pieces recycled, 688 pieces.
The second chart is the weight of items recycled and kept out of the trash. That’s 380.75 pounds of materials!

Click an image below to zoom in.

For more information on this program:  Please take a look at the Konica Minolta Clean Planet Program Page.


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Postage Rate Changes for 2018

UPS Envelope direct mail envelope blog
2018 Postal Rates Are Changing.

Postage prices increase on Sunday, January 21st.  According to the USPS website: ‘Mailing Services product prices will increase approximately 1.9%, and most Shipping Services products will average a 3.9% increase.’
The new 2018 Postage Rates Chart can be found here.

USPS announced the proposed price increases on October 6th and the PRC approved them on November 9th. Since then, marketing consultants and agencies, as well as marketing vendors have been suggesting ways for direct mailers, catalog mailers and publishers to save money while still using the postal service.

One of the most effective ways to save money and get the best value from direct mail is to keep an updated list.

Here are some more helpful suggestions to keep direct mail costs down and ensure that you’re getting the most value from your campaigns:

Size: For minimal postage rates, keep mail pieces at letter size: minimum of 3.5” high by 5” long / maximum 6” high by 10.5” long. Larger mail pieces fall into the “flat” category. Flats can cost more than double per piece as letters. Maximum allowed size is 12” high by 15” long.

Aspect Ratio: Letter size automation mail must be rectangular. Aspect ratio (length divided by height) must be from 1.3 to 2.5. Mail pieces that fall outside those ratios could potentially cost double the postage.

Address: Address and barcode block on letter size mail must fit into the USPS OCR read area. If it does not fit, additional postage will apply. We at PrimeNet are happy to provide clients who wish to provide their own designs with address area templates.

Folds: Self-mailers that fold: the final fold must be either below or to the right of the mailing address. Other fold configurations will cost additional postage.

Panels: Bear in mind when creating self mailers that tri-folded pieces must be addressed on the center panel to qualify for discounted automation postage.

Weight: Whenever possible, it’s most cost-efficient to keep the weight of a folded self-mailer under 1 ounce. Minimum 70# text paper and 1 inch tab closures can be used. When a mailer is over 1 ounce, 80# text paper and larger tabs must be used. Mailers over 3 ounces must go into an envelope.

Information obtained from USPS.

 


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Why Targeting Audiences is Crucial – The Direct Mail List

Direct Mail list blog image PamBy Pam Wellnitz, List Services

 


What is the most common use of a direct marketing/direct mail database?

Possibly the most common use of a direct marketing database is to generate a target list for a business’s direct mail campaigns.  Direct mail provides companies with the ability to target and define markets with customized offers for a demographic.

target market your direct mail list

 

Direct mail has a number of advantages, including:

Target recipients can be identified very precisely.

Because of targeting, only a desired audience will respond, enabling your business to provide service which will be of the most mutual benefit. On the contrary, let’s say you decided to run a great advertisement without any targeting. Though this may bring a lot of response, your business might not yet be prepared for a huge surge of customers at once. For a smaller company or franchise, a flood of response to an ad can potentially be more disastrous than zero response. Why? Because an

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Seamless Acceptance Automates Mail Verification Process

It’s now OFFICIAL!

“This email is to inform you that Primenet, a DMU mailer located in the Suncoast District is being on-boarded to Seamless Acceptance program effective 11/1/17.”   -USPS Mailing Standards Specialist|Suncoast District

It was a long approval process to officially begin the Seamless Acceptance process, but we did it!


PrimeNet has gone Seamless!

In most verification environments, mail is currently verified manually by a USPS acceptance associate before entry and finalization. The acceptance associate performs a cursory review, collects full service initial verification mail samples, conducts requested in-depth verifications, and finalizes a postage statement. Mail can be released only after this process is complete, and it takes time – but with Seamless Acceptance, that crucial time gap is greatly reduced.seamless acceptance diagram image

What does Seamless Acceptance mean for my company?

Seamless Acceptance will automate the verification process – streamlining and speeding up entry verifications. This results in a standardized acceptance and verification process for all mail preparers, regardless of their production process, and eliminates the need for Special Postage Payment Systems. There is a single streamlined standard operating procedure for acceptance employees to follow for verification. Manual scans will still be collected to capture weight, postage payment, and content eligibility. All gathered scans will be compared to the electronic documentation (eDoc) submitted and results will be displayed on the Mailer Scorecard.

The Seamless Acceptance process does not require in depth up-front manual verification at either the Detached Mail Unit (DMU) or the Business Mail Entry Unit (BMEU). This allows PrimeNet to have a longer production cycle as only random sampling is performed at the DMU or BMEU pre-induction. Current time-consuming manual verifications, such as the Mail Piece Count Verification (MPCV), will no longer be required under Seamless Acceptance. In fact, most verifications are fully automated based on eDoc and mail processing equipment (MPE) scans. Acceptance associates will manually capture data including weight, postage payment type and content eligibility during the sampling process which will be compared to the eDoc to determine discrepancies.

With Seamless Acceptance, PrimeNet will also be able to perform our own Drop Shipment Management System (DSMS) releases and clearances alleviating the need to wait for an acceptance associate to release mailings.

All of this means that your mail will enter the postal system more quickly, which is especially important for time sensitive mailings.

For more information on how our adoption of the Seamless Acceptance process can benefit your business, give us a call at 1-800-826-2869.

 

 


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We’re Proud to Support MOCA’s Cause

As a major direct mail provider in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, PrimeNet is proud to support MOCA, the Minnesota Ovarian Cancer Alliance. We hope you will too.

Formed in 1999 by a group of ovarian cancer survivors, MOCA now counts more than 1,000 survivors as members.  To find out more about MOCA, follow this link.

MOCA 2017 Minnesota Ovarian Cancer Alliance Fund Raiser Mailing

 

Since the Minnesota Ovarian Cancer Alliance was founded in 1999, their mission has been to:

  • Create an awareness regarding early warning signs that may be indicative of ovarian cancer.
  • Create and promote resources for support, networking and education for women diagnosed with ovarian cancer and their families.
  • Unite and educate individuals, the medical community and organizations to achieve earlier diagnosis, better treatment and a cure for ovarian cancer.
  • Advance ovarian cancer research toward earlier diagnosis, better treatment, and a cure.

We at PrimeNet feel strongly that MOCA is an Alliance that can provide help and support resources to those who seek assistance, and we are proud to support their cause.

If you wish to support MOCA, please visit their donation page here.


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USPS Finance News: 2017 Year-End Results Reported

fl direct mail blog image


November 14, 2017

USPS Finances:  2017 Year-End Results Reported

“The U.S. Postal Service reported revenue of $69.6 billion for fiscal year 2017 (October 1, 2016 – September 30, 2017), a decrease of $1.8 billion compared to the prior year. The lower revenues were driven largely by accelerated declines in First-Class and Marketing Mail volumes.

“Our financial situation is serious, though solvable,” said Postmaster General and CEO Megan J. Brennan. “There is a path to profitability and long-term financial stability. We are taking actions to control costs and compete effectively for revenues in addition to legislative and regulatory reform. We continue to optimize our network, enhance our products and services, and invest to better serve the American public.”

Brennan stressed that the path forward for a financially stable future must also include urgent actions needed outside of the Postal Service’s control. They include advancement and passage of the postal reform provisions contained in H.R. 756 in the 115th Congress and the adoption by the Postal Regulatory Commission of a new pricing system as part of its 10-year pricing review, enabling the Postal Service to generate sufficient revenues to cover our costs.
CLICK HERE for the complete financial report.”

Quoted from USPS.COM

 

usps news for direct mail

 


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In Memory of Mark Keefe

mkeefe


July 18, 1959 - March 15, 2018

Friend, mentor and leader whose legacy will be remembered. Time will never erase the work you have accomplished here or the positive impact you have had on our lives.

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