Get people to pay attention to your window displays. An attractive shop window display should draw passers by to look and come in to buy.

It is like an advert for your business that gives shoppers a taste of what they can expect inside. It is an opportunity to communicate your brand identity and stand out from neighbouring shops.

How to create an attractive window display

• Go out and take a walk around your local town with the purpose of studying window displays. Note down anything you see that has impact
• Make sure your shop facia is bold and reflective of your name and brand
• Co-ordinate your colours
• Make sure the sign and windows are always clean
• Use special offers and new popular products, to attract attention
• Organise your offers so that they can be seen and have impact
• Keep it simple – do not clutter the display
• Use vinyl window glass signage at the top, bottom or the side of the display
• Keep your messages simple and straight-forward
• Up-date displays every week – give your customers something new to look at
• You can use scrolling signs to attract the eye
• You can use lights after dark to make your window display stand out
• Don’t leave grills or grates up or windows that reflect poor or dark lighting it can make you look shut

Use Banners, Posters and Signs

Your marketing messages can be promoted in many different situations by using a variety of banners, posters and signs.

Depending on whether you want to enhance your window display, make the most of your vehicles on the road, create a new look shop front, provide direction inside and out-side of your business, promote special offers or simply catch peoples attention and communicate, good signage can help you do that. There are so many different types of promotional signage available to you on the market today. Here are just some of the products available: vinyl banners, vinyl lettering, rotating banners, vehicle graphics, poster displays, builder’s boards, rigid boards, swinging signs and more.

Good business signage is important where-ever you are located. Signs make it easy for people to see clearly where you are, what you do and what you are selling. A sign can be your business advertisement in the street. Signs, posters and banners can help you to increase your profile in your local area. Think about what you can do to enhance yours

Get some FREE press

There are many ways in which you can develop your own PR machine and in doing so get a lot of FREE positive publicity for your business.

Attract the press yourself

If you are creative you can think about a high profile stunt or competition you could run in your local market area that would attract some press attention. A hair salon that took part in a recent TV show called risking it all came up with the idea of running a high profile hair style competition for their team. Models promoted the styles and the stylist that created them in the centre of their city. The general public were asked to vote on the best style. Voters were entered into a draw to win a free make over at the salon. This activity attracted the public and the media as well as motivating the team and attracting a lot of new business. Think about what you could do to get some press and public attention for your business.

Use special offers and incentives

A special offer is an opportunity for the customer to gain a financial advantage that is ideally perceived as irresistible. A special offer should motivate purchasing decisions because of the perceived value in it.

Special offers are as important to customers as they are to you. They can help you to achieve a number of things for example, sell more, introduce customers to new products, speed up the buying cycle or move on old or unwanted stocks. Your customers also love a special offer. We are all motivated by an opportunity to get a good deal, something we want at a lower price than we would normally pay, a bargain!

Irresistible special offers are a great way to introduce new customers to your products or services and give existing customers a bonus. Think about what you could offer?

Design adverts and flyers that sell

Advertising is very expensive if you do not get a result from it. There are many businesses generating £1,000’s from advertising that works. They are the ones who have learnt how to design adverts that sell. They continually monitor and measure the return they get, fine-tuning as they go. This is important if you want to get the best return from your advertising spend.

Use the AIDCA formula

Whenever you create an advertisement there are 5 essential key elements that follow the way a person psychologically responds to advertising both logically and emotionally. If you follow this formula when designing your advertisement it will give you the best chance of motivating your reader to respond.

The formula is easy to remember and easy to apply.

Attention: Want blue widgets? Our blue widgets will help your business
Interest: Here are the benefits of using our blue widget for your business
Desire: This is why I believe you should have a blue widget
Conviction: If you’re worried that a red widget would be better – here’s some testimonials / a guarantee to reassure you our blue one is best for you.
Action: Here’s how you can get our blue widget – it’s easy!

These rules apply to any form of advertising that you do.

Hand deliver flyers

You could design a flyer for your retail out let offering something irresistible as a special incentive to visit your retail store and do a hand delivered mail drop in targeted local areas or get someone dressed up to catch attention hand deliver them out in the town.