Firing off whatever comes to mind across your snazzy new LED display probably isn’t the best marketing decision. It’s certainly easy to do, but it’s not effective.
But how can you tell the difference between a good message and a bad one?
It’s crucial that you know for sure, because bad advertising doesn’t just miss out on sales—it can irreparably damage your brand and your future success.
Answering that question involves, well, asking several more questions.
So here they are—5 questions to uncover whether your advertising content is helping or hurting your brand.
1. Is Your LED’s Message About Self-Promotion or Value?
People get a full day’s worth of self-promotion every time they log in to social media. They don’t want more from you, not even if you dress it up with pretty colors and slap it on your LED sign.
I’m willing to bet there’s never been a point in history where the cult of self has reigned supreme like it does today.
Of course, businesses get the short end of the stick thanks to our narcissism. Advertising, after all, is nothing but self-promotion…or is it?
Real talk:
Nobody wants to read about you or your offer or your new product UNLESS you can show them how that adds value to their life.
Solve their problems and make their life better, it’s that simple. Solve first and the selling will come.
2. What’s Really the Purpose of Your LED Sign?
Why did you buy an LED sign?
Was it because you think they’re cool?
(They are.)
Was it because your marketing guys said it’s the right thing to do?
That might have been true, but you can’t invest in an LED sign and expect it to generate a tidal wave of interest overnight. LEDs require an investment of time and effort, not just money.
Business owners have the power to become master advertisers or posers shooting blanks with their LEDs, and it all boils down to how serious you’re going to get.
There’s no magic bullet for lazy marketing efforts, but LED signs are darn close. You get what you put in.
3. Are You Targeting the People Who Matter?
“Everyone” is not a valid answer.
While “everyone” might matter to you, targeting “everyone” gets you no one. Just because your LED sign can reach a massive audience doesn’t mean you should target all of those people.
That’s because a broad message is an unfocused message, an unfocused message is an impersonal message, and an impersonal message can’t hit the right buttons for the people who matter the most to your business.
If you run an ice cream shop, you don’t advertise how humanely your dairy cows are treated. Vegans and animal rights activists aren’t going to eat at your place anyway, so why alienate your actual customers by beating around the bush?
If you discover that 95% of your customers are 18-21 video gamers, you’d better study up on all the latest Internet memes and market to them, HARD.
The 5% of non-gamers who patronize your business just aren’t as important. Sorry.
4. Are You Saying the Right Things?
Piggybacking off the last point, you’ve really got to get inside the head of your customers to market successfully.
Learn to think, act and talk like them. Get inside their world. Become them.
By doing so, you’ll learn to adapt your marketing messages to them using specific jargon, slang and colloquialisms—making them feel as if your LED sign is speaking directly to them, like one friend to another.
5. Is Your Advertising Congruent with Your Company Image?
Your marketing attempts, at the most basic level, are battles fought for precious space in your prospects’ minds.
You’re fighting not just with your other competitors, but with every single ad and idea that pops up into each prospect’s mind on a daily basis.
The end goal here is to carve out a permanent space of mental real estate, so that your prospect remembers you without needing to see your name or messages.
That’s why it’s so important for your LED messages to be congruent with the rest of your brand, whether you’re a refined luxury car dealership or a friendly neighborhood barber.
Because when your ad messages create an image contrary to the rest of your company, your prospects don’t have the time or energy to reconcile those differences. Instead, your entire brand gets tossed into their mental wastebasket.
Get to the core of what your business does, how you do it and why you do it. From there, craft a persuasive selling proposition that supports your brand, and win your slice of the market.
Junky Marketing Is Lazy Marketing
The common theme with all these questions is simple:
Put effort into your marketing. LED signs are a tool, but you need to get inside your customers’ brains to wield that tool effectively.
That being said, LED signs are far from cumbersome or difficult to use—they’re one of the best marketing mediums available.
So get out there and start making advertising masterpieces.
