How to Increase Foot Traffic to Your Store with Low Cost Outdoor Advertising

If you're a small business owner or franchise owner, you not only dedicate your time into the company every day, but most likely your own capital too. You may feel like there's more that you could do to market and bring in new customers. Even if you have a product or service that provides tremendous value to your potential customers, you still need to get them through the door. A marketing campaign is a great start, but modern marketing can be an expensive undertaking:

• Radio advertisements can range from $500 to $5000 per week, depending on your market.
• Television spots cost between $500 and $1,500 per spot.
• Newspaper advertising costs anywhere between $600 and $45,000 for a ¼-page ad.
• Digital marketing can have astronomical costs, as much as $50-100 per click, depending on your company, plus any fees to service providers.

Add it all together, and that's a significant chunk of change. Marketing can be often over looked and underutilized. The average small business spends 1% of its revenue on marketing. That number might not sound like a lot, but it's important to consider this figure includes businesses that don't put a dime into advertising. For every hundred dollars you brought in, a minimum of 1 dollar goes right back out the door to newspapers, social media platforms, television and radio stations, but is this the best way to spend your money, especially if you are just starting out or have tight margins?

Get a Big Bang for Less

Traditional advertising methods and digital marketing are great for raising brand awareness, but how are you reaching out to the people who are already out and about and nearby your store's physical location? If your business has a great location with natural foot or car traffic, you can get a lot of mileage out of a small investment by simply increasing your company's visibility with eye catching advertising products. Here's a look at some low-cost advertising products you can use to bring people into your store.

1. Feather Flags

When a business sets up shop in an unassuming location, strip mall or office park, it's easy for it to fade into the surroundings. Feather flags allow you to break up the monotonous landscape by adding a splash of color that stands out to potential customers passing by. These vertical banners come in a variety of colors, and can even be customized to display your logo or whatever information you wish to convey. You can choose from smaller 5-foot feather banners, large 12-foot, or a combination of sizes. The hardware for the flags comes as either a x-stand or ground spike. The great thing about feather flags is that they are long lasting, can move locations from on-site or promotional events, and they are very cost efficient.

2. Inflatable Tube Man

Color can do a lot to help you stand out, but add erratic motion and a bit of silly to the equation and you have a winning combination. We all have seen them, the lovable inflatable wavy dancing man we usually associate with car dealerships. The inflatable tube man combines eye-popping colors with waving motion that draws serious attention. You can start small with a 6-foot model or tower over the competition by setting up a giant 20-footer. Even when you include the cost of a blower, many models can keep you under the $100 price tag.

3. Sidewalk Signs

If your business is located along a pedestrian walkway, an A-frame sidewalk sign is a great way to get people to stop and take a look. These durable products can stand up to a ton of abuse, and there's a wide range of designs to meet the needs of any company. Bars and restaurants can especially benefit from dry erase or chalkboard sidewalk signs, as they allow you to easily change the information to reflect daily specials or witty remarks.

4. Reusable Balloons

The balloon has long been used as a way to attract attention, but traditional latex and Mylar designs have extremely short shelf lives which ends up in the atmosphere and landfills. Instead of constantly replacing burst balloons, or depleted helium, invest in a sturdier product that's designed to stand the test of time. Indoor and outdoor vinyl  reusable balloons are made out of durable vinyl that can be inflated when you want to create a display, and then easily deflated when it's time for storage. As a bonus, this design doesn't rely on helium, so there's no need to rent or buy tanks of gas.

5. Banners

When permanent business signage isn't feasible or possible, custom vinyl banners are the perfect way to direct information at potential customers. With sturdy vinyl construction and complete customization, your vinyl banner can display details about a sale or promotional event, be a low-cost grand opening sign, and everything in-between. If your location regularly gets strong winds, you can even have the banner printed on a mesh material that lets the breeze pass through.

A Smart Investment

Now you know about the visual display products for advertising your business. You can purchase all of these options for less than $100 each. you buy print, radio or television advertisements, you might see increased foot traffic during the campaign, but it's difficult to sustain that growth without constantly renewing your contract. These methods also require a great deal of data analysis market research, as you wouldn't want to waste money advertising with a media outlet that doesn't cater to your target customer.

By dedicating a small fraction of your marketing budget to custom-printed advertising products designed to increase your company's visibility, your business can get years of advertising out of a one-time investment. Your customers are already out there, and by setting up feather flags, dancing tube men, and other types of business signage, you can help ensure they know you're there too.