Introduction:
Picking the Best Place For Graphic Advertisements in a Retail Store
If you are opening your first retail store, changing a promotion, starting a sale, launching a new product or service, or simply looking to communicate your marketing messages and advertisements to your customers better, this essay applies to you. Finding the right place withing your store to advertise your graphics at the right time can influence your customers to make the purchase you are aiming for. The key to getting purchases out of your customers is to maximize the exposure for your graphical advertisements in the right places located within your store. Customers are in your store to buy, and with the right placement of enticing advertisements, they will buy. To start the process you must evaluate you store and identify where your point of purchase spots are. These places are where advertisements should be placed to capture your customers attention, to increase their awareness and purchasing knowledge. The next step is to identify which styles of graphical advertising are available for the different places within your store, and what kind of advertising they should promote.
Step 1: Evaluating Your Store
Evaluating Your Store for Placement of Graphical Advertisements
The first step to finding the best areas to place your advertisements is to evaluate your current store setup and look for effective areas that can be used. Every retail store has an abundance of space to effectively place posters or signs that highlight a sale, a new product, a special event, an impulse puchase product, a new arrival, or even last seasons left over products. Below we cover the major areas to look for, and in Step 2: Picking Displays Appropriate for your Advertisements, we will outline and show examples of available frames, hangers, mats, stands, and displays that will match your placement needs. In evaluating your retail store to find places for graphical advertising, keep in mind:
- 1. Outdoor Store Front - this is the customers first impression of you, and enticing advertisements to draw them into your store are a must have.
- 2. Front Entrance Way - this is the customers second impression of you, and their first experience of your store atmosphere. Store sales, seasonal sales, and new product arrivals are typically seen in this area.
- 3. Open Floor Space, Aisles and Merchandise Displays - this is where the customers browse your product. Too much advertising here can be distracting, but poster stands, product sale signs, limited time offers, and new arrival signage keeps customers interested.
- 4. Store Wide Wall Space - this is the perfect for store wide announcements, seasonal sales, and posters that might inform customers of certian sections of the store. Given the space, larger frames can be used to that graphics can be seen from across the store.
- 5. The Ceiling - much like the available wall space, graphical advertisements can be hung from the ceiling to highlight sales, inform customers of certian sections of the store. The higher the ceiling, the larger the advertisements can be.
- 6. The Checkout Line, Counter, & Behind Counter Space - this is where your customer has committed to a purchase, and where "impulse buys" has made its name. Things to advertise here are typically cost little, are useful, but also keep the customer interested while waiting in line. This area is the perfect place to advertise future sales or product arrivals to get the customers to come back to the store.
After thinking about the appropriate areas for advertising in your retail store - the next decision is to pick the best displays for your graphics that fit within your retail store. It is important to still consider your customer and where they are in the purchasing decision because you do not want the messaging to turn them away, and you don't want the display itself to drastically change the atmosphere of your store. The goal is to make sure that the displays you pick blend in with the environment, look attractive, and commuinicate appropriate marketing messages.
Step 2: Where Your Graphic Advertisements Should Be Placed
Evaluating Your Placement of Graphical Advertisements
After you have evaluated your store set-up, and have figured out where you want communicate appropriate marketing messages to your customers through graphical advertising, you then need to decide what styles of displays will fit within your store (or outside). Below we will outline the same areas we evaluated in Step 1, and offer examples of graphic displays, frames, hangers, stands, and mats, that can communicate your advertising message in your retail store. Point of purchase advertising in retail stores can be overwhelming because of the amount of products available to store owners in the POP marketplace. View these examples to see how you can effectively advertise to your customers at all important places throughout your store.
Outside Your Store:
As mentioned in Step 1, this is your customers first impression of your business. You have a wealth of knowledge about your products, what you sell, what is "in season", what is on clearance, when new merchandise is arriving, if you have the lowest prices around, and/or if you offer special services that no one else around does. This is the place to advertise those specialties of your store. These are the things that will bring in old customers and new customers. There are many places to advertise with graphics outside your front door (and even on yuor front door). The most effective messaging to offer at this point is messaging that will draw in new customers. Advertisements should include messaging that separates you from your competition. If you own a clothing store, examples of marketing messages that you might want to use would include seasonal sales anouncements offering low prices, or new clothing line arrivals, or sales on the most popular brands that you sell, or an advertisement featuring the newest "hip and in" piece of clothing that you have have in-stock. There are several ways that this messging can be presented in the space available. For example, if you have an available sidewalk - a sidewalk sign would be appropriate. If you have glass windows in your store front, suction cup sign holders would fit your need. If there are restrictions on what you can hang on the window, hanging a large visible poster on the inside of your store might be an option. Kits available for hanging posters like this are often called "banner hanging kits". During nice weather, it might be appropriate to have a display easel setup right outside the front door with a poster advertisement. If your retail store is in a mall, a poster display sitting outside the front door is almost a must have to compete with neighboring stores. Additionally, if the complete store front is not made up of glass windows, a weather resistant lockable poster frame that you can attach to the wall on your store front might be a solution. This will keep your advertisement protected from vandalism, protected from weather, and visible to passersby. Any of these options will effectively work for graphical advertising on the outside of your store. The important thing to remember is that the messaging needs to be built around your sepecialties and what separates you from your competion, and why the customer should come into your store and not the one down the street.
Front Entrance Way:
Much like advertising your business on the outside, the front entrance way is also an important area. As mentioned above, this is where the customers get their first impression of your store and what your business is about. Once a customer steps through your door, they experience the atmosphere of your store and get a visual reference of your merchandise. At this point, you want your customers to like what they see, and feel comfortable in the environment. Through the use of floor mat advertising, signs hanging on the door, and/or an entrance way poster stand, this is the perfect spot to highlight new products, "in season" merchandise, limited time sales, or your biggest seller. The goal with placing advertisements in the entranceway is to keep your customers from turing away and walking out. If you own a candy store, examples of advertising in the front entrance way might include a door sign that advetises your "buy 5 lbs. of bulk candy, get an additional 1 lb. free". You might have a floor mat that features your biggest seller, like an advertisement for your Godiva chocolates. A poster stand inside, but near the front door might advertise your upcoming class on making candy apples. This will help customer stay in your store, but also make them think about coming back for the class (where they will probably buy more candy). It is important at the front entrance way to keep your customers attention and show them that your store has the product and prices they are looking for.
Open Floor Space, Aisles and Merchandise Displays:
One of the best uses of graphical advertising in retail stores, is the use of poster stands. The can be located near your merchandise, featuring the merchandise on your shelves. This enables customers to be drawn from across the store, directly to the product they are looking for. For example, if you own a retail store that sells entertainment equipment - you may place a poster stand featuring the newest Nintendo Wii game near the video game section. That way customers are aware that you have the game in store.
When a customer is browsing through your aisles and merchandising displays, this is where they get to touch and feel your products. With aisle store designs (much like a grocery store), customers will either browse up and down each aisle, or go straight for what they are looking for, cash out and leave. Aisle store setups offer many advertising options - the most popular being retail bins or poster displays placed at each end of aisle. If the retail store is setup more like a clothing store with merchandise racks and clothing hangers, this is where customers browse by the section you offer that they are interested in. The important thing to remember here is that too many advertisements in this particular spot of your store can distract your customer from getting what they actually came for, and in some cases can turn them away. Good ideas for advertising here include sale posters, and/or new product announcement signs. The goal with advertising in this section is to keep your customers interested in the products they are looking at, and inform them of product related sales that might entice them to buy that one extra item. Other examples of advertising with floor stands include more informational advertisements for products that might need some explaining. Take for example, Brookstone - they offer all kinds of interesting products and in some cases it takes some "figuring out" to realize exactly what the product does. In may cases, you'll see a poster display near the item, helping to define exactly what it does, the benefits of it, and why it should be bought in that store. Graphical advertisements in this section of the store can be more product specific because this is where customers are looking at the actual products. This is unlike the broader advertising featured in the store front or outside the store.
Store Wide Wall Space
Graphical advertisements located on available wall space are a must have for any retail store. These types of posters allow you to advertise sections of your store, store wide sales, and "hot" items of the month. Given the space, these posters should be as large as possbile and able to be seen from anywhere in the store. The most common type of displays for this purpose are poster frames. Sizes are available for just about any size possible, and a list of common sizes can be found in the next section. As an examples, if you own a retail toy store, wall hanging poster can be used to advertise different sections of the store like toys of girls, boys, ages differences, and even specific toy types like Playschool, Tyco, Vtech, Play Doh, and many others! The frames could also include graphics that advertise this months best selling toy, or next months new arrival. A new arrival poster will entice the customer come back in the next month. Seasonal posters could also be displayed advertising toys for all the different seasons like popular summer time beach toys being used by children on the beach. A common use for wall hanging poster hangers is also to announce store wide sales and specials. This messaging is broad, but because it can be seen from anywhere in the store, it creates a good place to communicate those types of messages. Available types of frames for these kinds of posters include tradtitional wooden, metal, aluminum frames, less expensive frames that slide together, "quick clips" snap frames that makes poster changning very easy, and even curved frames that "pop out" from the wall.
The Ceiling
The style of messaging appropriate for ceiling hanging frames is identical to that of wall hanging frames. The messaging can be broad, like store wide announcements because your customer can see the frames from a distance. The reason ceiling hanging frames are popular is because they add a ney dynamic and visual appeal to any retail store, and are a great option is available wall space is limited. If you own a book store, all of your walls may be taken up by book shelves, and ceiling hanging frames might be the perfect solution to distinguish sections of the store, best sellers, employee favorite books, and other types of products that might be sold at the store like decorative gifts, gift cards, board games, and more! Ceiling hanging frames are many times also called "banner hangers" and are available in kits that fit all common poster and banner sizes. Many kits fit a range of sizes - so picking the right kit is not difficult. One consideration for hanging posters from the ceiling is you want to be conscious of head space. If the ceilings are low, hanging frames may not work - if you want to keep posters held higher in the air. Before you order any banner kits for your posters, consider how far down they will hang, and if you have enough space to move around them.
The Checkout Line, Counter, & Behind Counter Space
Perhaps one of the most important sections of advertising in your retail store, the checkout line, counter area, and behind the counter area is very important. At this point, you customers have committed to a purchase - and you want them to stick with that purchase. Advertising too many things they may have missed while they were looking in the store may convince them to get out of line, go look at more stuff, and second guess their original purchase. The checkout line and counter area is a great spot to advertise upcoming deals, sales, products that are coming in soon, and little "impulse" purchases. There are many displays that are designed for this particular spot in retail stores. Those include smaller frames to hang on the front of the counter, countertop mats with pockets for graphics to catch customers attention as they are cashing out, and even poster stands can be used as long as the advertisement is appropriate and informs them of a future deal that they can't have yet, and that they have to come back for. Poster frames are commonly used on the wall behind counters to advertise upcoming products and events that are happening in the future. For example if you own a country style furniture store, you may set up a small merchandise display with products that help maintain and take care of your furniture as "impluse" buys. With these products, you could include a poster stand that describes what the particular products are and how they will protect the furniture you just bought, or are in the process of buying. On the countertop, you might have a mat that lists an upcoming store wide 1 day sale that they must come back for. This will help your customer become aware that if they come back, they can get that deal on the other piece of furniture they were looking at, but decided not to buy. Behind the counter, poster frames could be hung with advertisements featuring a new line of hutches that will be in next month, or the complete bedroom set that is going on sale next month. In this particular case, your store might offer an insurance plan incase something is damaged - advertising this near the checkout is the perfect place. They have already bought the item, and maybe they want additional insurance on it.
The goal for advertising near and around the checkout line is to not distract the customer from the purchase they are about to make, but to entice them to come back again in the future. If they have already gotten in line, they have already committed to a purchase and you don't want to distract them or give them a chance to change their mind - but you can ask them to come back.
The examples seen and read about above are targeted towards showing your customers the right advertising messages to your customers at the right time through graphics. The different displays available serve different purposes, and the messages they inlcude might also serve different messages - but what is important to remember is that with outdoor and store front advertising, you want to entice your customers to come in the store with broad marketing messages informing of sales and uniuque marketing ideas that separate you from your competion. Once the customer is in your store, you want your advertisements to show them the deals they are looking for and make it easy for them to find their way around your store. Marketing messages can be more product specific because that is what your customers are looking at, your products. Advertise the deals, the unique features and the special things that make your products better than your competitors. Once your customer has decided to buy, and they get into the checkout line, you want your graphical advertisements to entice the mto come back for more. Maybe you can get them to add an impulse buy to their order, but the goal with the marketing and advertising is to get them to come back for more. With the displays featured in the examples and products found on PosterFrames.us.com - all of this advertising can happen.
Defined: Standard Sizes
Standard Poster Frames Sizes Defined
With so many sizes of frames and graphics out there - we have put together this list of common sizes to help people decide which is best for them. There is not a fine line that distinguishes the difference between what is considered a photograph, a picture, a sign, a poster, are a banner. For our purposes, we will include 8½" x 11" frames, but nothing smaller. The most common poster frame sizes include:
- 8½" x 11" - Smaller Signage
- 11" x 14" - Typically for "signage" or Small Advertisments
- 11" x 17" - Typically for "signage" or Small Advertisments
- 16" x 20" - Typically for smaller Posters and Advertisments
- 18" x 24" - Typically for smaller Posters and Advertisments
- 22" x 28" - Typically for Posters & Advertisements, & Small Movie Posters
- 24" x 36" - Small Standard Movie Poster Frames Size
- 27" x 40" - Standard Movie Poster Frames Size after mid 1980's
- 27" x 41" - Standard Movie Poster Frames Size before mid 1980's
- 30" x 40" - Standard Large Poster Frame Size
- 36" x 48" - Standard Large Poster Frame Size
- 12" x 22" - Designed for Newspapers
- & Adjustable Frames/Banner Rails That Fit Diffferent Sizes
Stores use different poster frame sizes for different purposes. Typically the smaller frame sizes seen above are uses for smaller ads, informational signage like directions or identifiers, or even lobby signage at the entrance of a business. Frames that are a bit bigger, but too small for true standard movie posters, are again used for advertisements of products and services. Popular frames that fit this size of poster, include these snap frames (also referred to as "quick clip"). Standard movie poster frames are designed to just that, movie posters - a collection of these frames include curved frames that stand out from the wall, attracting more attention. Frames can also be found for posters much larger, and at adjustable sizes. So if you have a unique frame size, there is no need to worry, a frame can be found. In-fact, many local custom framing shops can build a frame just the size you might need. Lastly, one other common size that many retail stores use, are the size for newspapers. Many book stores use newspaper frames to post up the front page of the days paper, so that customers can view the front page, without having to pick the newspaper up (...and put it down with all the sections out of order...) Some establishments even place a newspaper frame in the restrooms above urinals with popular articles or the sports section locked inside.
Conclusion:
Choose the Right Frame for Your Business
So how does one pick the right frame for their business? Good question. There are two considerations to think about. First, what are your goals, what kind of message, product, service, or sale do you want to promote? Is it a short term promotion, or a long term promotion? Is it your service you want to promote, or someone else's? Is the poster selling a physical item, or a service, an idea, or even an upcoming event? Is it more of an informational poster rather than a marketing poster? Answering all of these questions can help you pick the type of frame that might be the most effective. Secondly, when customers come into your store, what are they looking for? Is their purchase a simple purchase decision, or a complex purchase decision? Do they have a lot of choices to make, or products to choose from? Does it matter if they get distracted while they are trying to make up their mind, or would you rather advertise to them after they have made up their mind? Putting yourself in your customers shoes will help you figure out where your poster advertisements might be most effective when your customer sees them. For example, if you would rather advertise to your customer after they have made their mind to buy, perhaps focusing your efforts on advertising around the checkout line and cash register with messaging enticing them to come back in the future is the answer.
In conclusion, poster frames are an important way to spread marketing messages for in store advertising, but also at trade shows, in office lobbies, public events, and more! If you run a business, and are looking to increase your customer base, incorporate poster frames into your marketing strategy so that people and potential customers are aware of your services/products/sales/ and specials. Typically affordable and very much beneficial, poster hangers and frames are a must have for communicating marketing messages to customers, clients, visitors, and prospects. Not only do they create an awareness by informing, with the right advertisment, these frames can also create a word of mouth "buzz" around your community about your business. Don't take the chance on missing out of having your customers promote your business for you, and it might all start with a simple poster frame.
Copyrighted © images have been provided courtesy of George
Patton Associates - A leading national manufacturer and
distributer of displays.