i finally had to snap a photo of the ol' rainbow car wash sign. it's one of the handful of slap-on-the-letters-with-a-ten-foot-pole signs remaining these days. everyone thinks they need a fancy schmancy, super duper expensive digital display to get their message across to folks. i have to say, especially since the family of a good friend of mine are founders of daktronics, pretty much the world leader in digital display boards, digital signage is no doubt flashy and attractive. only problem is, it's gonna all come back to creativity over time as more and more people will sadly realize "hey, now my digital display board isn't so novel".
but let's talk reality for most. and that's the reality that not all businesses have thirty grand or more at their disposal for outdoor digital signage/promotion. some businesses don't even have half of that for an annual marketing budget. thus surfaces the all-powerful-ever-so-loaded question, "so where and how should we spend our money?". ugggh is all i can say in answer. until we get to understanding all the realities of their business anyway. the basic who, what, when and how have to be analyzed before we start trying to discover the pot of marketing gold at the end of the strategic marketing plan rainbow.
to keep this simple, and to return to what inspired this post in the first place, let's consider the case of this car wash in a decent midwest college town. whether they have plans to invest in a daktronics digital display board i have no idea. but i'd tell 'em it's not necessary. because i look at their sign every time i go by it. why? because whoever is the creative wizard behind the phrases that are being manually changed at least once a week, has found a technique, a tactic, a marketing approach that works! the messaging i read on the rainbow marquis is always creative, always fun, and guess what? i always look to see what's new. so in this case, creativity and frequency (of a new message) seems to be the pot of gold we marketers strive to discover for our clients.
will it always work like this? will the blend of creative and "fresh" messaging always equal getting the attention of potential customers? absolutely not. it depends on mucho mucho variables. in this case, we're dealing with an outdoor sign on a heavily used street in the city. and it just so happens to work.
as a copywriter, however, i'd love to go out on a limb and say even if your sign was way out in timbuktu, if you have a solid creative message, it will get talked about. but then we could get into the longer discussion of "well that's great, but who's talking about it and most importantly is their talking converting to cha ching". the bottom line is just that. to go from "i need a brand" or "i need marketing" to finding marketing that actually gets attention...to finding marketing that ultimately converts to a sale...well, that's why we in the marketing world know it's not a perfect science. it's trial and error...and a blend of art and science in fact.
and at the risk of darting off in an entirely different direction than the theme (what was that again?) of this post, digital marketing is indeed allowing for much more science to determine what creative messaging is resonating with people and even where, why and how it's resonating, to the point they are deciding to invest (fancy word for buy!) in a product or service.
if it sounds complicated, that's why marketing is a profession. then again, you don't have to be a tried and true professional to pull off your everyday creative genius like i enjoy seeing over at rainbow now and again. so yes. be creative. that's a good start to finding your businesses pot of gold;-)
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