International Business Culture & Environment

Aerial Advertising

You have probably been to a sporting event or beach and seen a plane fly overhead pulling a banner. This is an aerial banner ad and is designed to convey the message randomly to thousands of people. Such banner ads are very popular and are used to remind people of established businesses, to tell of new stores or restaurants, to promote political candidates, even to convey proposals for marriage or birthday wishes.

Those effectively using airplane banners are not wasting their money. It has proven to be a relatively low cost high impact means of advertising. The message immediately grabs the attention of a large audience by its uniqueness and the drone of the plane, and is repeated many times as the plane flies over the crowd. It is a great way to get a message to a local audience.

Yes, the ad has a captured audience, no competition for the product, the sound factor of the plane overhead, and the repetition of multiple passes. All this is built into the service. Banner ads are, of course, brief. After all, the audience has just 17 seconds to read them. Yet some ads are more effective than others, and more persuasive in causing others to consider a certain product or service. What makes one banner ad better than another?

A good banner ad must have several factors. The brief message must reach the goal the advertiser has in mind. The message must be readable, it must be catchy, it must be attractive, and it must be easy to remember. Most banner ads are written in seven foot letters so readability is not a problem. The printers will have suggestions on making it attractive. Your job then is to plan a message that both conveys what you want, and is easy to remember.

Here is a poem that has helped many people plan: There are six honest serving men Who taught me all I knew. Their names are what and when and why And how and where and who. So first you should write down everything you feel is important enough to include in the ad. You must be concise. Notice that some of the six question words above will not need to be answered on the banner. For example, they don’t need to know how you operate. But the questions what, when, and where are needed to get people to visit you. Sometimes too much information is needed to include on a banner so the banner merely tells of a phone number or web address where more information is available.

Once you finish your list of must know information, then work on the wording until you are satisfied it is the best possible. Short messages are harder to write than long ones. It would be nice to tell the captivated audience all about yourself but the banner simply wouldn’t allow that, nor would the people remember it.  Perhaps best would be to tell them just enough to get them interested in learning more.

When you are satisfied that all you want said is expressed in the fewest words, ask yourself, “Will this message flying by a crowd be remembered?” That is important because the people at the event won’t be taking notes about your product. They are there for other purposes. Test your idea on others to see what they think. A well worded slogan or ad is worth all the effort you put into creating it.

Once you have followed these steps, it is time to get in touch with an aerial advertising company and get it printed and into the air. It won’t take long before your well planned message will be read by thousands and the result in sales will soon follow.

In a busy world, we’re always looking at how to easily have information just there; having it at hand when we most need it. Need was in search of a solution….

The information providers sought to get their message under consumer’s noses and consumers desired easy access to a solution to their problems – information providing those solutions.

Arrive the fridge magnet – a simple, low cost way to graphically display messages and images on the family fridge. Around the mid 1970’s a magnetic material of thin proportions was made allowing printing and placement of that message on the family fridge. This most prized piece of advertising real estate is now home to information on your local plumber, electrician, fast food pizza shop, takeaways, local politicians and so on and so on.

The might of a insignificant fridge magnet rests in the reality that an average fridge is visited – read viewed – some 17 times a day. That’s a lot of views. 

Hot on the heels of the fridge magnet is the fridge magnet marketing card. They have magnet only over a small section of the back of a printed card. For its size, the fridge magnet marketing card is cheaper for its initial outlay and cheaper to distribute. Both pluses, if you’re looking for a better advertising space to cost ratio. 

These are best suited to promotional products like calendars and large advertising messages.

The ease of message movability led to car magnets ideal for small business needs for flexible advertising solutions.  So these car magnets have given great flexibility, to businesses, to transform their vehicles as mobile billboard. 

A clever idea is to put fridge magnets over your company car, tell your message and invite people to take the fridge magnet. This is a use of fridge and car magnet to the benefit of company and consumer.  

Do you like to throw money down the drain? No way is your likely answer. Why ask such a daft question? The question is actually not that ridiculous as many many dollars are basically wasted each year on advertising projects that simply do not work. It is never good practice to waste your money but in a recession, like we are currently in, it could spell disaster. What is required is small business advertising projects that work.

So you have a restaurant, we will use a restaurant as an example of a small business. The owner of this establishment wants to see the restaurant full but to do this he/she is needs to attract the customers. Before deciding on the best way of promoting the business the owners need to do their homework to ensure that they only choose restaurant advertising accessories that work, this sure helps with cost reduction.

In this particular industry a neon lighting menu board is becoming ever more popular and is an idea that has been bought to these shores after achieving high success in the Far East. The attitude here is “if it works over there then it could well work over here”. The quality is of utmost importance, anything that looks cheap is a real No No? Enough said!

In other businesses, small or large, doing your homework before going ahead with an advertising campaign is crucial. How much success have other small businesses within the relevant industry sector had? It would certainly be prudent to ask to speak with the relevant representative from the company itself to hear exactly how the advertising went etc.

In this day and age a large percentage of advertising spend goes into promoting a company website. A high quality and professional web promotion service does not come cheap but if the results stack up then it can easily be money well spent.

Certain areas of the internet are very competitive such as debt management, web design and companies offering cheap calls however if you are offering more of a niche product then this should not be so expensive as it would be far easier for the web promotion expert to obtain high search engine rankings for your site.

Have you heard or read aout the latest product that is taking the catering industry by storm? Are you aware of what an LED menu board is? I have to say I did not think you would have. This is where I come in by attempting to describe in this article all about these boards and what they offer.

As stated in the opening paragraph these menu boards are extremely popular in the Far East in countries such as China and Japan; they are also to be regularly seen with catering establishments in many of the Asian countries. Now some of the relevant companies and small businesses within European countries have cottoned on the product and they are flying off the shelves. This form of advertising enables a business to really stand out and especially of benefit to bars and restaurants.

So what is an LED menu board? Well this i what many believe is the future of advertising using stunning neon lights on such a menu board. It is all about the quality of the visual effects which enable your business to stand out from the crowd.

So how much does such a board cost? These menu boards range in price from £35 to £150. The most popular menu board is available at £99 and they can be purchased from the well respected catering equipment UK supplier write and shine, this could be one form of cost reduction that your business should benefit from.

How much difference will this make to my business?

Well all of the feedback from businesses across the globe has been positive and this is perhaps why it is becoming so popular now throughout the UK and Europe.

Steve Hill is the author of this article; he runs a specialist stuttering course to help people to achieve fluency. Steve is a person that had a stutter for eighteen years of his life before he finally managed to formulate his own “cure for stuttering” when he was aged 22. He has been offering his services as a speech coach ever since. He also offers online guitar lessons for beginners.

Write and shine; helping you to attract new customers and increase your overall profits.

NetSuite Login

I am always blown away by the significant proportion of individuals who are now moving toward the web to pay the bills and make money. I have built a small number of focused e-commerce companies which when added together earn me a substantially higher salary than it was possible to earn being a permanent employee. The number of hours I work are roughly the same but I do not have get up early and travel any longer, providing me with an increase in the amount of time I have to spend with my family. In just a few months time my wife and will have paid off all of our debts and we are really looking forward to retiring somewhere warmer.

Driving a multitude businesses is exciting, but I have had to work out ways of being more productive and improving the way I work. To keep an eye on my valued customers and the income and expenses of my companies, I use a range of useful Internet based applications – you should buy excellent small business management software to be efficient and let you focus getting and watching over customers. I purchased a Quickbooks login and a NetSuite login. I can get to these web applications from from my home or when I am travelling and they make it possible for me to monitor all of the businesses events as they happen.

Using my NetSuite login I am able to see all of the sales on my internet stores and see the impacts of my Google Adwords groups that send new clients to my checkouts. I no longer use Microsoft Office which substituted with a Google Account that comes with all of the applications I regularly use, including electronic mail, document creation and spreadsheets. I can make use of these software from on holiday or at home.

I have acquired new skills and learnt new methods, I have found a huge volume of free and low cost online education which I have enthusiastically studied. One of the most life changing lessons I have taken onboard is how to discover and contract out tedious tasks, to companies who can do this quicker and cost effectively. I can precisely attribute the time at which I surpassed my earnings target to my discovery of the benefits of farming out some of the tasks consuming most of my time, to me increasing my earnings to above that of my income whilst in full time employment.

In Part 2, I cover the detail about how I work smarter.

Imagine this: the sun goes down and your business logo and ad is projected on the surface of a full moon for all the dark half of the world to see! Though no one can promise that, the next best option is to have your ad floating over the heads of a huge gathering, in full view of each person present. That is the promise of aerial advertising, a unique method of getting information about a product before a select group of people. A company hires a firm to design and print the huge ad. Then a plane is hired to pull the ad over a populated outdoor event. Statistics show over half of those present will remember what the banner said.

Aerial advertising has proven effective during fairs, firework shows, concerts, ball games, rush hour traffic, parades, water shows, races – just about anywhere an outside gathering of people may be found. It has been used by national companies and by local establishments to get more people to remember their company’s name. It has also been used to present birthday wishes and even as a way to propose!

The aerial advertising companies offer basically three different types of messages. First, aerial banners are long streamers with a message such as, “Special sale at Loretta’s this week,” or “Happy Birthday, Tom. We love you!” These can reach 100 feet or more in length. A second and most popular message is the flying billboard. This could be as large as 4000 square feet and often has the same content as a roadside billboard would have. The message is brief, informative, and catchy. Many contain websites and if the domain is easy to remember, people can learn more about the product when they get home. Third, some combine these two with a billboard followed by a trailer (short banner) that gives more information. For example, a restaurant may put its name and logo on the billboard with an address on the trailer.

Some might wonder about the danger of a low flying single engine plane over a populated area. The present Federal Aviation Regulations require operators of aerial advertising to avoid flying directly over stadiums, beaches and such like. A minimum separation of 1000 feet over land and 500 feet over water is required. This puts the aircraft parallel to the waterline on the offshore side of the beach or directly outside the perimeter of arenas, stadiums, and racetracks over land. In spite of these limits, in all cases the ads are still quite visible.

Airplane banner towing has been chosen by many companies to get their message to the public quickly and for a minimum of cost. Most of them are quite pleased with the results as shown by their satisfied testimonials. After all, for those thirty or so seconds while the plane passes, their message gets sole attention from the audience.

Unless your country doesn’t have them, you know what a billboard looks like. Some feel the number of billboards that don our US highways has become an eyesore. In places they may be right but often the billboards provide valuable information for travelers.

Though effective, two problems stand out with billboard advertising. First, the ad must wait for the motorist to come to it. It is stuck on the side of the road but if no one drives that way, it is a waste of money. Second, standard billboards can’t do anything to attract attention. They are totally stationary and, with the competition of other billboards, might well be ignored.

To retain the advantage of a billboard yet overcome these two obstacles, someone came up with the concept of a portable billboard. It has the size and colors found in a stationary billboard, but it actually moves to populous areas. This uniqueness almost demands it be read. All display a message on the side of a truck (referred to as truckside advertising) or trailer and then are driven into the target area to be read.

The simplest and least expensive way to do this is to rent the sides and back of a truck that will post your printed ad there. You can even share the truck with another company, posting a different ad on each side and on the back for a given period of time. Everywhere the truck goes, the ad is seen. If the ad is attractive, people waiting in traffic or noticing a parking area will read the ad.

For more money, you can rent a moving ad. One version of this is designed on the same principle as the vertical three sided changing billboards. The ad is attached to these vertical sticks and, as they rotate, an entirely different picture or message will appear, almost instantly. They are excellent for attracting attention. Trucks or trailers equipped with smaller versions of this display will travel through traffic, the message on the sides and back changing every ten or fifteen seconds. Of course, three messages at a time can be displayed this way on each of the three surfaces of the vehicle.

A second method of changing the message on the truck or trailer is through roller banners. A timer activates a motor and, almost instantly, the roller moves the material vertically, displaying another message. This is similar to what is seen at the stats tables of a basketball game. A firm selling such 10′ by 10′ trailers claims ten messages can be stored on one roll, and, of course, a different roll can be on the back and other side. The message boards are covered with tempered glass for protection. Some also contain internal lighting, allowing for nighttime effectiveness.

The third method of changing messages on portable billboards is through electronics. You have probably seen one of the new billboards that can be programmed to display multi-colored messages. Portable billboards are trucks or trailers with the same ability. Nothing needs to be printed. The message is designed and the computer decides how to display it.

Each of these techniques has one thing in common, the great advantage of moving the billboard message to the populous. It is an effective way to reach a larger audience as well as to advertise goods or services that are not related to highway travelers.

AirSign is an aerial advertising company dedicated to maximizing the value of every dollar clients invest in them. Check out their mobile billboard advertising options today!

Advertising is usually a big budget item for many businesses. Most agree that word-of-mouth is the most effective method but it takes time to build up a good foundation of happy customers.

Alternative advertising methods include high cost radio or television ads, that might be targeted at a local community. However, too often people channel surf during the commercials and never even hear what is offered. Printed matter can be effective to reach a community but what percent ends up as wrapping for fish? Internet advertising is growing but may reach for a local business a much larger market than is useful.

To quickly and effectively inform a local population of a product or service, one novel plan is to use airplane advertising. This is the way it works. A firm is hired to make a large banner displaying a product or service message. Scheduled around a popular event such as a sporting event, beach, parade, or concert, it grabs the attention of the crowd, causing them to look up, read the ad which then sticks in their memory. How much does it cost? A lot less than you might think.

Though it costs less, aerial advertising reaches more people in a more effective way. One example is a beach in Miami that was advertised to and then, 30 minutes later, 2000 people were surveyed. The survey showed that 88% knew the ad had flown by, 79% could recall the product or service, and 67% could recall at least half of the exact message. Could the printed media or radio and TV ads match this effectiveness at a reasonable five dollars per thousand people targeted? Amazingly, you can reach the same number of people with less than half the budget required for traditional advertising by using aerial banners. Those spending significant amounts of their budget on traditional advertising would do well to consider this option.

The noise of the plane overhead attracts the attention of the crowd and they look up. There, behind the plane, is a banner flapping in the wind and displaying a large, readable message, product, logo, or website. This naturally raises their curiosity and they want to know what it’s all about. As the banner passes overhead, they are able to read it several times. Just the uniqueness of the delivery causes many to remember the product because it stands out from everything else that is fighting for their attention.

Environmentalists might balk at the air pollution caused by the plane as it delivers the message. Yet, consider the amount of landfill that results from discarded printed matter, or visual pollution from the plethora of billboards blocking the landscape!

Companies interested in reaching a large number of people in a short period of time with their product or service should consider looking into banner towing as a means to this end.

Customers are demanding. They are extremely media aware and increasingly cynical and it is a clever marketeer who can get through to them. Online surveys breath new life into the traditional survey format and offer a unique way of interaction – providing you with all the benefits of the Internet without the programming. Here are ten reasons why they may be the silver bullet marketeers’ need, complete with examples supplied by Martin Day, managing director of Survey Galaxy – one of a new breed of websites making online surveys quicker and cheaper

1. It’s cheap
Select the right survey website and creating surveys can be free of any charge and the cost to publish very reasonable.
Information harvested from surveys can be reused and repackaged in other marketing and PR for use in press outlets making it a very efficient form of information gathering.

2. It’s very easy
Anyone can create, design and publish an online survey. Create professional looking online surveys in a matter of minutes, no programming skills are required and when published the surveys are simple to complete.

3. Canvas the world
Once the survey is online it is a simple step to promote it the most popular methods being either through email (with a link enclosed) or via a link from a website. Anyone who has the URL can be connected instantly to the survey, at a time that’s convenient to them, 24×7.

4. We’ve all got an opinion – and we like to give it
Customers do not associate surveys as spam and most welcome the opportunity to make their voice heard and a chance to have an impact on a brand. They provide a good method for broaching sensitive subjects with concerned employees; a survey asking a workforce on their opinion of change allows the key issues to be raised in a positive manner and encourages employee participation. Online surveys allow the message to reach each individual and invite feedback in a manageable form.

5. Get inside their heads
With traditional advertising you can lead a customer to an advertisement but you can’t make them think. Surveys have the advantage of engaging each respondent, who thinks about the question before giving their response.

6. Building relationships
It needn’t all end at the end of the survey – while you have their attention and are in the mood you can ask if they want to sign up for more information or a regular newsletter – making the most of the window when you have their interest.

7. Link your survey to other online information
One of the most important benefits of a survey is the ability to make inspired or useful connections instantly to other areas. By including links within the survey to websites that offer detailed information you are able to reinforce the marketing message.

8. The soft sell
In the mind of the respondent a surveys can help associate a product with a number of positive attributes. By listing the many features of a product and asking the respondent how important they are, regardless of their response, the product will be associated with the features; if they are rated as important the positive impact is endorsed by the customer.

9. Not just selling
A survey is an effective, quick and easy method to help promote and gain acceptance for a difficult proposal; such as a public body trying to gain acceptance and support for a particular scheme.
For example take a city trying to gain support from the general public for their bid to host a future Olympic Games. Being able to explain each benefit will put a respondent in a much better position to appreciate your argument and that may be enough to combat any negative aspects. Your primary goal may be to promote a cause but you will automatically receive useful feedback that can then be used to fine tune the overall marketing strategy.

10. Engage interest
Thinking laterally a lively and imaginative approach to surveys can provide the ‘hook’ to engage respondents. The survey subject can be targeted at a particular group on a subject close to theirs hearts. The survey’s marketing message can take the form of a simple brand awareness message by stating that ‘this survey was sponsored by brand name’, or by finding a link from the subject matter to the product – something that is surprisingly easy and highly effective.

Attract more people to your website by providing a Public Survey section as many people who enjoy completing crosswords and doing word puzzles enjoy completing surveys. Having a public survey notice board as part of a website is a cost effective and automated method that will help increase traffic and establish a loyal and returning following. Unlike forums there is no opportunity for people to disrupt the site by inappropriate remarks as survey results can be displayed in summary form enabling them to dispense with moderators and maintenance.

Customers do not associate surveys as spam and most welcome the opportunity to make their voice heard and a chance to have an impact on a brand.

Many of the techniques and a few more are contained in the following Sample Marketing Survey.

Business has only a single sole drive – sales and income. It’s obvious that higher sales will certainly lead to higher profits. Every businessman makes certain that the team works hard to earn huge incomes so that the annual return goes up day by day. For each businessman profit is the sole aim. They work hard to endorse their business. Endorsing business basically means hiking up the sales figures. For the promotion of sales one needs to be very tactful because that comprises a lot of popularity. Popularity can be only accomplished through advertisements and publicity. Advertisement not only means being popular, it generally means making an impact on the people so that they want to please themselves from your service. This arise of interest, in people, for your service will not only lust people to be your customers but will also create goodwill of your name in the market. The proper utilization of the advertisement should be definitely learnt from the Mc Lean Electricians (Need one? click here!). In case customers face any crisis with their electrical appliances, these electricians offer complimentary doorstep service to all its customers. The people coming at home will also tell you about contemporary appliances along with repairing the defected ones. In short they will do advertisements along with rectification. Their practice will certainly attract huge number of customers. The same diplomacy I noticed when I called few plumbers to rectify faucets of my home. I interrogated the problem on phone from them. Mc Lean Plumbers were quick in their response to our inquiry. Within no time, they were on our doorsteps buzzing the bell. The first thing they brought to our notice was the bolts, which had totally damaged out due to lack of protection. They quickly installed new bolts and sealed the valve to stop the leaking water. It is being heard that the Mc Lean Roofers too have started adopting the same technique of advertisement except that instead of coming themselves they send their sponsors, who are no else than the labors, who build homes. While constructing home when the need to fix the roof arises, the labors recommend the roofers from whom they get commission. Smart way that is!