Signs Point to Growing Economy

Author: Amanda

Today I have joined the exclusive designer club, as my computer was updated with the design software used by both Cheryl and Aaron (our designers). Now, I am not design artist, so I won’t be able to help with all the designs needed, but this will help speed up production as I will be able to design many of the signs we work with daily; magnets, yard signs, banners. And in the future, should we hire another employee with design experience, they shall be able to use the computer as well.

I’m happy to see the progress Next Day Signs LLC has been making. As many of us know, 2009 was a very hard year for all of us economically, and being in a sign business makes it easier for us to notice the swings in economy. Both by watching the amount of personal signs purchased and the types of business signs people buy: be it ‘liquidation sale’, ‘closing sale’, ‘coming soon’, ‘now hiring,’ and ‘now open’ signs.

It’s nice to see that three years later, not only are we catching up to where we use to be, but exceeding years prior. More new customers, more personal orders, and for the first time in a long time, ‘now hiring’ signs. Here’s to hoping we see more of these good signs.

Google Rating

Author: Amanda

Like many companies, every once in a while you have to sit down and take a look at your marketing strategy. Someone can claim to have the ‘one-for-all’ answer, and you can sit through their nice seminar and chances are you’ll walk away with a few ideas. Most often though, you’ll find that not everything fit to what you needed. That’s because we don’t all have the same target audience, and we don’t all have similar products that can fall into a cookie cutter marketing pattern. However, I think we can all agree that for the most part the internet is one marketing foreground we’re all trying to elbow our way in.

If the internet is our battlefield, than Google is the castle we wish to conquer. There are many tactical ways to try and achieve this dream, but as many of us are trying to save, so that we may survive through the next harsh winter, we try and do this the most economical way possible. And one such way to help show off your business has arrived. Recently, as in today, I heard from a person working in marketing who explained how Google has now put up a rating system for businesses. (It’s working right now, you can see for yourself). If you get 10 Google reviews, your company will earn a rating. The reviews are calculated and then your business is given a rating on a scale of 30, 0 being wouldn’t-be-caught-there and 30 being your go-to store.

These ratings appear in a regular Google search, as well as a mapped Google search, for those who look for stores, shops or restaurants closest to them. Quickly helping customers not only locate the closest Pizza store near them, but the one rated by their peers to have the best food, service and cleanliness. Next Day Signs would love to partake in this rating system, and do sign battle with the best of them, but we are shy by 4 ratings. If you have been a patron of our store we, as always, would love to hear your review of us. If you wish to leave a review on Google, please follow this link: https://plus.google.com/114078273834811365103/about?hl=en

The Trip Abroad

Author: Amanda

Dear Readers, Grandmother, I have returned from my trip abroad in which I traveled much of Germany and spent a few days in Austria. The trip was certainly an eye opener to the way our cultures differ, giving me a new perspective on my own. One of the things I loved in Germany was how common it was to take your dog with you wherever you went. Dogs could follow their owner into the train station, the mall, even restaurants, and the well behaved and trained dogs, as many of them were, didn’t require a leash. It made me miss our dog Casey very much who gets to come to work with us.

Another interesting aspect was how they handled their signage. In many of the villages trying to maintain their rustic appeal, banners were made out of a hemp material with their lettering dyed in. In other areas where they had old buildings, (200 or 500 years old) they used a sort of wallpaper material they would paste on the wall.  Regular banners or large scale advertisements were reserved for the train stations or more modern built sides of town.

Of course there are special occasions that would be exceptions to this. During my travels I happened to stumble across an open air concert held in Konigsplatz, Munich. Which is an open ground area between three roman looking buildings that date back to early 1800’s. The concert was brimming with people, but the grass was never disturbed as black tarp mats were set across the grounds first. Scaffold stages were erected on the steps of each building to help put on an amazing light show without blocking the view of the architecture of the building, and banners were hung along it’s sides. It was an amazing display of modern and ancient brought together, and by the end of the next day everything was restored to how it had looked before the show.

Framing outside the photo

Author: Amanda

We all get a little lazy with our homes and make lists for things we’ll set aside to do later. On either the holidays or a rainy weekend, some excuse to keep us from doing it at the present moment. As for myself, I have gone living in my apartment for nine months without hanging anything on my walls. My excuse was that I wasn’t sure if I would move out at the end of the year or not, but regardless, I started to put a few things up this weekend.

The white blank walls of my Spartan living conditions had never bothered me before, but it was nice to give it a bit of color. Of course I lacked the foresight to see my coming mistake. My few pictures look incredibly small on my large white wall, now I need more.

I think I’ll use the digital photos on my computer and make a nice collage to print out at work. Thanks to our 5′ wide Mimaki printer, I could make the final design any reasonable living room size I desire. I can have my print be with either the glossy photo finish, or a matte finish to help keep off light glares. Now this service isn’t just reserved to employees, you can get this too if you wanted.

Of course, it’ll have to wait for some holiday or rainy weekend till I get around to it. I’m taking a trip to Europe this week, so there will be no blog updates from me for the next two Mondays. We’ll see if someone else from the store will give this a try. If they do you have my apology in advance 😉

QR Scan Codes Taking the Scene

Author: Amanda

Has everyone heard of the new recent fad of QR Scan codes? It looks like a pixilated box of white and black blocks, and acts a little similar to a UPC code that you can find on any store bought item. The difference is at a store when the register scans a UPC code it tells the computer what the item is and how much it costs. While, when the QR Scan code is ‘scanned’, by either a scanner or photographed by a smart phone, the QR Scan can either give you a list of information, photograph, or link you directly to a website.

QR Scan code was invented in 1994, in Japan by the Toyoto subsidiary company Denso Wave. The reason for its original invention, was to help the industrial company track manufactured cars. However, with more people using smart phones, the ability to scan a QR Scan code increased to the general population as rarely anyone goes anywhere with their phone. Thus the QR Scan code is increasingly seen being used in advertisement. On banners, real estate signs, magnets, magazines, posters and even highway billboards. (Although I don’t suggest trying to use your phone to take a picture while driving, leave that up to the navigator riding shot gun)

The perks of this is that it’s convenient for the person scanning, they can be linked directly to the information they seek and have it stored on their phone. As for the company using the QR Scan code, they can have a record of how many people scanned their codes, and using the phones GPS be able to track where they were when they scanned the code. Giving back precise measurements on which methods and areas targeted the most consumers. It is certainly a device that should be taken into consideration when ordering your next business sign.

Storm Saving Tips for Signs

Author: Amanda

I hope everyone is faring well after that rough storm that rolled by on Friday. Aaron spent his morning at work traveling to locations to fix and repair signs that were damaged by the high winds. We do have power here at the shop for all who are wondering and will be maintaining our regular work hours for the week except for being closed on Wednesday for the 4th of July.

It looks like we may be having a few more summer storms this week, here are a few tips to help keep your signs safe: If you have a banner, you can cut upside down crescent moon shapes into the fabric to help allow wind to flow through. Or, place your sign against a building wall out of the direction of the wind. If you have a yard sign that is coroplast, corrugated plastic, it’s very possible that the wire stake holding the sign might get bent. You’re always welcome to try bending it back into shape later, but if not, the wire stakes are very inexpensive and we are able to sell them separately here at the shop.

Enjoy the holiday and remember to stay safe. Happy Birthday America!

Casey

Author: Amanda

One of the perks of running a family owned business is the ability to bring your pets to work. For those that have stopped by our lobby, chances are you’ve seen our ‘shop dog’, a golden lab named Casey. My mother, and owner of Next Day Signs, almost every day loads Casey up into the car and brings her to work. She started coming to the shop a year and a half ago when our older dog passed away, With Casey being such a social individual, it didn’t seem right to leave her at home alone.

Since then she has made friends with many of our vendor delivery people, our postal workers, UPS deliverer, and even our business neighbors who come out to see her on her quick afternoon walk. She knows the work rules about where she can be during the day and when she can go “visit” with customers.  I have seen many a patron light up upon seeing her. And she’s helped us here at work, there are few quicker bad day relievers than a game of tug with a dog.

So many work environments are filled with stress.  We enjoy having our stress-reliever here with us and hope she brings a bright spot to many others each day as well.

The Wave of May

Author: Amanda

I must first apologize to any readers out there for my lack of blogs. May is always the busiest time of the year for us at the shop. It’s the ‘Grad Banner Season’ mixed in with; everyone seeing that the weather is getting nicer outside and perhaps it’s time to buy that outdoor sign they’ve been tinkering about during the winter months season. This May in particular was incredibly busy and one of our best months ever! Woohoo!

We were glad to see that many people liked our online ordering system for graduation banners. We are hoping to touch up the system a little more before the next year and would love to hear your thoughts on how we can improve. If you have any suggestions or ideas please feel free to leave a comment below.

Now that May is over I’m preparing for the Combined Chambers Business Expo that will be held June 14th at the Bridgewater Conference Center from 4:30 to 7pm. Admission is free to all chamber members and area business people. Please come by and see me at my booth, we’ll have samples of our work, materials, and of course, a trade show display cleverly hidden as our booth.

The Importance of Being Enthralling, The Sequel

Author: Amanda

In continuation of the last blog of The Importance of Being Enthralling, I wanted to also bring to attention the importance of a good, inviting, user friendly website. Our website was created with the combined efforts of Site Motif, Evidia and the staff of Next Day Signs.

Site Motif was the company that helped create our new logo in 2007, and when we decided to upgrade our website they were one of the first people we thought to contact. They created a layout design to give our website a nice professional feel while keeping in mind other factors such as; which design would be best for our customers to navigate through, which layout would be the easiest for us to work with for updating our gallery or text and give us an edge over our competitors.

Evidia helped with the expansion of the website, creating for us a unique online ordering system. Our customers now could not only place orders for graduation banners, general banners and real estate riders, but they could also design it themselves.  An expansion that proved successful in increasing our sales and saving time. Evidia also helped us to create this wonderful blog, which I know you and my grandmother wait ever so patiently for me to update every Monday. She’s awesome like that, hi grandma.

If you are interested in the creation of a website for your business or the expansion of an existing one, I strongly recommend these two fine companies:

SiteMotif.com

Evidia.com

 

The Importance of Being Enthralling

Author: Amanda

I found out today that one of the restaurants I enjoy eating at is undergoing financial problems, due to a lack of customers. I know what you’re thinking, not much of a surprise with this economy. Well, it wasn’t that much of a surprise to me either, but it wasn’t in relation to the economy. The restaurant is great, and absolutely stunning inside, the menu prices are more than reasonable for the large food portion you get, and the service is good and quick. Still, it wasn’t a surprise to me, because the outside of the building did not reflect the status of the inside of the restaurant.

The restaurant was originally built for another nationality of food than the one it serves now, and when it was bought by the new owners they did little to change the exterior. They removed the old restaurants dimensional lettering from the wall, but did not repair the wall. When they ordered a new outdoor acrylic lit panel, all they had was their restaurant name in a black font. There was nothing to express the quality of the restaurant to enthrall customers to give it a try. Especially when the outside demeanor would remind them of a different nationality of food than what was being served.

We’re told never to judge a book by its cover, but most often when it comes to money and food (in this day) we’re less willing to take a risk. Especially when we’re bringing along a date, significant other or our families. There’s an importance to setting an impression that shouldn’t be underestimated. Not saying that we should all go flashing neon lights, but a certain personality and style shouldn’t be absent from our outdoor advertisements.