By the way, we’ll be closed for a few hours on Thursday morning. Austin Energy is upgrading our electrical, and we’ll be without power until Noon CST on Thursday February 28.

When we first moved into our really cool new 7500 square foot building, we felt like big shots. Then I turned the fan on in the bathroom (fart fan) and POOF! Blew a circuit. Uh Oh. Turned out I have more power in my shed at home that in this new building. Gary said, “can’t turn on a flashlight without tripping a circuit”!

Not all was lost however, the City of Austin quoted two or three weeks to upgrade our electrical service. Wasn’t thrilled but said ‘Make it Happen’ and started the ball rolling. That was in October 2007.

Like all great cities, there were inexplicable delays that were “nobody’s fault in particular”. One delay after another, then Thanksgiving then Christmas then I don’t know before it seemed that tomorrow (hopefully) all will be complete.

Anyways: Thursday’s upgrade should go smoothly and we’ll have better working conditions and better technology and equipment. Not to mention I can turn on the fart fan again! We are most thankful.

My cousin Doug and his wife have a blog they use to chronicle their personal lives. Their blog links to flickr.com to show pics they took and I thought that was cool. After loading up a few personal pics, I tried something else; I started putting a select group of proofed sign images on my flickr page.

It really works great and is easy to use and organize pics. And it’s really easy for customers to check out designs we’ve done before. I was talking to a customer who wanted a ‘hand written’ look for his sign. So I sent him this link: click here to see picture. He saw the picture, and made the order without hesitation!

1. Offer Tangible Deals
Believe it or not, time-honored retail wisdom states that people respond better to an offer for a dollar amount off of a purchase rather than a percentage off. The reason is that people can easily deduct x amount of dollars off of a price, whereas figuring out the percentage off actually requires a bit of brain power. This applies even if the percentage off would yield a bigger savings. My experience running the Super Cheap Signs website supports this premise.

2. Don’t Be All Things To All People
There are two types of shoppers in this world: Those who are always looking for the deal and those who are more than willing to pay full price. The customer who is willing to pay full price does so for one or many reasons, such as quality, (more…)

Putting out signs is hard, and getting them out on a Friday and then picking up Sunday is key.  The City of Austin doesn’t seem nearly as annoyed with those who put signs out just on the weekend.  Long time SUPER loyal customer Dan Buffington passed along the contact info of someone that will do exactly that for a good price:

Chris Rodarte

Manager/ Owner

Austin Direct Advertising

512-992-3022

Customer service is key.

One of the Customer Service Reps (CSR) was out on a vacation day today so I sat in to help. First thing I noticed: The phone never stops ringing! It’s not a bad thing, really! New orders, proofing updates, order changes, order status, can’t figure out how to send a file, and “I ordered UPS 2nd Day Air and it’s been 3 days so where are my signs?!?” with the response, “Sorry Sir, we have to make the signs first before we ship them 2nd Day Air”! Mostly I’m in awe of how cool (more…)

Curiosity works - think about Alice in Wonderland when Alice followed the rabbit down the hole? There’s a simple way to drive a lot of curious buyers to your property. Directional signs can be a great marketing tactic for real estate investors because they can create curiosity among people who are already looking for a house in the neighborhood of your property.

Directional signs are usually simple plastic yard signs with arrows on them that direct people toward an end point - usually an open house, new development, etc. For real estate investors a few well-placed signs can bring potential customers right to their doorstep. Arrow signs eliminate the need for memorizing phone numbers, getting directions, etc., and breaks your call to action down into the simplest terms - follow me.

Creating and placing Directional Signs

Sign content should describe the kind of property you are advertising and the address underneath in big, bold letters to catch the buyer’s attention, and (of course) arrows. Placement strategy for directional signs is pretty easy, as long as you do your homework on the neighborhood. Start by driving around and figuring out the best routes to get from Point A (busy intersections) to Point B (the property). Street corners should be key spots for your signs as they dictate where to turn. You may not need signs on a long stretch road, but it may be a good idea to place one there anyway to let your potential buyers know that they’re on the right track and to avoid any confusion. Signs can be placed at the corner of someone’s property as long as you ask for their permission first. Most people will agree to the sign if you agree not to disturb anything on their lawn such as sprinkler systems or anything else on their yard. It would also be nice to toss in a gift card for their troubles, if it is within your budget.

Directional arrow signs are inexpensive, no-hassle on your time, and easy to implement and manage. There you have it, an effective marketing tool that will drive people from their cars straight to your front door.

Tuesday at Shop.org; the session was led by Kelly Moore from www.resourceinteractive.com.  I am using the ‘*’ to denote what could work for SuperCheapSigns.com. I have included examples throughout and I encourage you to explore these on your own.  The same goes for any terms you don’t recognize…

Kelly from Resource Interactive wrote a book called ‘OPEN BRAND’.  It will be available in December 2007.  Her presentation was very well thought out and detailed.  I’ll just note areas that stood out for me, and include what I’m thinking www.supercheapsigns.com can utilize and how.

It’s all about being ‘OPEN’ vs closed.  The ‘Social Web’ and birth of the iCitizen is the theme, with the moral of the story being this: you need to not only allow, but encourage your customers to talk about your products/services with each other in a way that is easy.  This interaction will not only increase profits, it will move your brand in the way your customers want it to move.

‘Closed’ is a monologue that targets customers. ‘Open’ fosters communication and dialogue, allowing customer to create, edit, and share what’s already out there.  George Lucas was called ‘letigious Lucas’ because he wanted to lock up his brand from being used in any way outside of his intent.  He now has opened up star wars clips for editing by users online to share with others. OPEN is an acronym you can use in any order; On demand, Personal, Engaging, and Networked.  I see this as feeding the child instincts; I want it now, It’s just for me, its interesting, and everybody else can see what I have done.  On one hand we are recognizing and encouraging individual ego, while at the same time realizing that we live in a global world and no one person has all the answers (but together we have a lot of them)! For those of you who know what ‘open source’ coding refers to, this is credited to have influenced ‘open branding’.  Now the brand is being created by the consumer.  Truely, this is bottom up managing.

It starts with people having fun with delicious and flickr because its easy and anyone who tries it feels competent to use it regularly.  Bringing everyone and anyone into the mix makes it interesting (i.e. mugglenet, geriatrick1927, & Emmerson Sparcs).  Ebay & Amazon take it to the consumer level.  Beautydish.com shows what bad can happen when Marykay doesn’t support the social web that encourages more sales.  ZeFrank is a now celeb because of some youtube videos he launched (and now he has paid sponsors).  Starts out as one person with a passion for sharing a message, then  people like it and keep tuning in for more.

*How can SuperCheapSigns.com use this stuff?  Internally, first:  Training videos put into youtube.  Communication with blogs.  Allowing CSR’s to share experiences online, and if customers want to chime in, all the better (careful, this would not be for venting be it employee or customer).

*We now offer a brief survey in exchange for a $10 coupon on the next order.  Survey is sent few days after customer gets their order.  The customer needs to be able to offer input a multiple points along the buying path.  Each template could have a customer rating system, “I give this template the highest rating of 5 signs because I got 1 call for every sign I put out”.  Build in an email reply that encourages feedback about customer’s template selection; must be easy and give consumer reason to do it (examples of reasons are celebrity, competence, collectivism, maybe a coupon).

The Funnel is the web page path a consumer is suppose to follow through to the sale.  The social web funnel is different; Listen & learn by monitoring the buzz around your products, build awareness with consumers who want to contribute, facilitate participation with a follow up email or call out etc, support the purchase (this is the part we are use to), and then re-engage by using what has been created by other consumers to bring them back.

JayRuns from Nike is a great example of a segment oriented community site.  *supercheapsigns.com can do this with REI’s & our Partners like an affiliate site.  It can be separate like a “yousigns.com” or can be part of the main site.  You gotta have some cool tools to make the sites.  According to Kelly, 10% of consumers contribute the majority of all social media.  Those 10% have to be actively engaged to facilitate participation.  Netflix.com includes customer reviews and recommendations that other users can interact with.

Lot’s of great opportunities for consumer involvement that has to be encouraged!

I’m writing this post after finishing the last session at Shop.org. This was a 3 day event for Internet Retailers to learn how to increase business by working with the web.

What a great experience! Most of the attendees are from big e-retailers looking to improve everything online. The other big group is trying to sell to the previous. It was humbling for me, cause these sales people sort of smiled at the our web site name, SuperCheapSigns.com, and then moved on to bigger fish. Nobody was rude, and I understand: I’ve been in sales and nobody is getting paid by the hour. But so many people were very helpful: Laura Galante, Dana Todd, Elizabeth Bell, and lot’s more too. I’m going to be posting what I learned.  Hopefully, it will help things sink in, and through the process I’ll figure out what action steps to take from all this new knowledge.

I just have to remember not to try and implement too many things too fast!