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Ramp up Your Fall Promotions

October 5, 2017 By 360GS Leave a Comment

Fall PromotionsFall has two major holidays to rally around, Halloween and Thanksgiving. This is the time of the year to tie your marketing in with community events. For instances, sponsoring a haunted house can really ramp up business. Thanksgiving, on the other hand, is a time for reflection, family, and gratefulness. Passing the savings onto customers goes great with the “thankfulness” theme of the season.

We’d love to connect with trade or service companies – carpet cleaners, home remodelers, painters and such, who are seeking customers ready to spruce up their homes for the upcoming holiday season. Customers are now looking for holiday offers, promotions, and other ways to save.

We offer frightfully good graphic design, monstrously competitive pricing and cackling great customer service. Call today to plump up your fall promotions!

360GS, specializing in visual communications.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized

How Exhibiting at a Trade Show or Event can Benefit Your Company

August 19, 2016 By 360GS Leave a Comment

TradeshowBoothIt’s true that trade shows may be too costly for first-time business owners, their lean marketing budgets usually are already stretched with basic start-up costs. Developing a great trade show exhibit, training sales staff and travel expenses – to and from the event, and the cost of hotels and food, it is not an inexpensive marketing process. However, like most marketing mediums, with a bit of creativity and the right strategy, a trade show can be a very profitable choice to promote your company.

With the right strategy, every trade show you attend is an opportunity to drastically expand your company’s customer base. The people who attend trade shows tend to be motivated, interested in the products or services your company offers, and often ready to commit to a deal on the spot.

Trade shows are powerful marketing mediums. Here are some staggering numbers to consider:

• B2B exhibits were reported at 39% of all marketing budgets were directed at trade shows since 2011. The resilience of trade show has been fairly steady over the past several years.

• 81% of trade show attendees have company buying authority, meaning that 4 out 5 people walking the aisles are potential customers.

• 78% of trade show attendees travel more than 400 miles to attend, meaning that as an exhibitor, you will be getting national audience at many trade shows.

• 99% of marketing claim that they found “unique value from trade shows that they did not get from other marketing mediums”. The most valued aspects of trade shows were the ability to see lots of prospects and customers face-to-face, at the same time.

• The average attendee spends 8.3 hours viewing trade show exhibits, giving the exhibitor plenty of opportunity to connect with their target audience – even multiple times in one show.

Source:  CEIR: The Spend Decision: Analyzing How Exhibits Fit Into The Overall Marketing Budget

You can achieve brand awareness, lead generation and build relationships by exhibiting in a trade show or event.

Brand Awareness: Consistent branding is a huge aspect of your business’ marketing success, especially in service-oriented industries. Trade shows offer a great opportunity to build your company’s reputation, integrity and trust. Plus it portrays your company as being a serious contender in the marketing place, with strategic planning and booth placement, a company can position itself within its marketing niche, creating a powerful image of an “established brand” in the eyes of potential customers.

Lead Generation: You can drastically expand your company’s customer base with exhibiting at a trade show. The people who attend trade shows are usually more motivated, seeking new and/or better products and services, and often are ready to commit or purchase on the spot. This is a much more worthwhile process of finding leads, then cold-calling from a database or business directory. To be more successful, set concise sales goals and objectives for your team, before the show or event. Interact with every person that enters your exhibit, as everyone is a potential target and keep notes of your contacts for follow-up after the event. A successful show could keep your sales team busy for months connecting with prospective customers and closing deals.

Build Relationships: Trade shows are great networking events for you and your staff in three ways. You can build strong working relationships with potential customers, offering them the promise of exceptional customer services; you also have the opportunity to casually meet ­your competition, and evaluate your product or services and prices against them; and third, you have the chance to build business support and alliances, products and services that may benefit your own company. Make time to leave your booth and just walk around the floor on a fact-finding mission. It is very beneficial to see what your competition is doing right or what they may be doing wrong. Posing as a potential customer, take note of the giveaways that being distributed – do they relate to the company and would you remember them from the item. You can also research competitor’s prices and information about their latest products. After the show or event, you can evaluate the positioning of your products/services; critique your sales team’s performance and interaction abilities; and the effectiveness of your own marketing strategies.

By having an attractive and eye-catching exhibit that is consistent with your marketing branding, have plenty of collateral pieces and memorable giveaways to distribute to the people for future reference and including your social media information so that event attendees can later connect with you online, will strengthen your brand awareness. Not all potential customers appreciate the direct marketing approach. They may find it intrusive and annoying, whereas the attendees of show and events are there by choice or as a benefit given by their company. They are out of their “business routines” and are more open and enthusiastic to finding the treasures of the show. The potential profits gained from a successful show or event can greatly exceed the cost of being an exhibitor.

Screen Shot 2016-08-18 at 5.14.47 PM360GS can jump-up your success as a show exhibitor with well-designed and affordable start-up show kits, starting at just *$575. Or we can create customized displays to fit your individual needs and budget.

 

*Pricing may be updated if needed, as per availability. Does not include the cost of Design and layout.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

What is Content Marketing?

February 3, 2014 By 360GS Leave a Comment

Content Advertising

Useful content should be at the core of your marketing. Consumers have shut off the traditional world of marketing. They own a DVR to skip television advertising, often ignore magazine advertising, and now have become so adept at online “surfing” that

“Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”

Content marketing’s purpose is to attract and retain customers by consistently creating and curating relevant and valuable content with the intention of changing or enhancing consumer behavior. It is an ongoing process that is best integrated into your overall marketing strategy, and it focuses on owning media, not renting it.

Basically, content marketing is the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling. It is non-interruption marketing. Instead of pitching your products or services, you are delivering information that makes your buyer more intelligent. The essence of this content strategy is the belief that if we, as businesses, deliver consistent, ongoing valuable information to buyers, they ultimately reward us with their business and loyalty.

Content marketing is highly successful. It is being used by some of the largest marketing companies in the world, including P&G, Microsoft, Cisco Systems and John Deere. It’s has also, become a valuable marketing tool for small businesses and one-person shops. 

Insert from Content Marketing Insititue Article

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Combine Direct Mail and Web Marketing for Greater ROI

April 3, 2013 By 360GS Leave a Comment

imgMailComputerMarketing and advertising plays a vital role in every small business. It is important for the business owners to understand their target audience and setup strategies to attract them. The use of direct mail and the Internet marketing provides great opportunities for small businesses to reach a wider audience in cost effective and efficient ways.

Direct Mail Marketing

Direct mail is one of the best performing mediums of marketing for small business. It is a personal approach to consumers that initiates an immediate response or call to action. It is cost effective at reaching a number of consumers for only a few cents per piece. Radio, paper and television may perhaps be a pricey and hard to organize ways of advertisements for small business owners.

Digital/Internet Marketing

Typically the most popular method at present for small businesses is through the Internet. Most businesses use online advertising as a practical and easy approach to target the buyers needs remotely. Its easy to get connected and setup with an detailed website where people can look for your goods and services offered, your contacts and summary profile about your business. Your website should be used as a major point of contact for your business. Internet promotion for the business is an effective and convenient solution to invite and interact with prospects. As a small business owner, you will want to think of effective methods or approaches to interact with prospects on-line.

Combining Direct Mail and Internet Marketing

A great approach in promotion for a small business is to set up a well-rounded strategy that combines print and website marketing. While a large number of people are on the Internet, there are still a great number who check out their mail. Using the combination of mail and the Internet offers great potential to grow your business, give it the most exposure and receive the best Return-on-Investment (ROI) for your advertising dollars.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Design Firm or Studio vs Advertising Agency

April 28, 2012 By 360GS 2 Comments

Gears IconWhat is the difference between a design firm/studio and an advertising agency? All perform similar tasks and provide professional services. They all will propose the best creative tactics to convey your marketing and promotional messages and achieve campaign objectives. Although the terms are often interchangeable, it usually depends on the image that the company wants to portray. The distinction is often blurred, but primarily comes down to organizational size and costs. 

 The type of provider you will require will depend upon the scale of your planned advertising and the skills of your internal teams, as well as your planned communications activities. Communications service providers may include designers, photographers, advertising agencies, copywriters, media planning/buying agencies, public relations, event management and digital agencies.

 

The Role of an advertising agency

An advertising agency is often thought of as being a huge marketing machine, that encompasses public relations, marketing activities and graphic art services. The agency usually supports a large staff of professional and creative personnel. Larger advertising companies offer a “one stop shop” providing many or all of the above types of services, whilst other companies will specialize in one or only a few of these services, and out-source on a project need basis. The agency is normally broken into three working groups: Public Relations, Marketing and Research and Creative Services. The agency normally has a substantial internal sales force to support the agency itself, seeking and securing clients and projects. In most cases, the sale’s executive represents the client within the agency and is the sole contact that the agency has with the client. His interpretation of the client’s preferences and goals plays an important role to the success of the advertising and marketing materials are are produced. 

Public Relations: Public relations professionals work with the media to build public awareness and promote a favorable image for a company or client within stories and articles found in relevant media outlets. They closely monitor numerous media channels for public comment about a company and its products and manage crises that threaten company or product image. Their efforts creates goodwill among an organization’s target market through community, philanthropic and special programs and events.

Marketing and Research: The marketing department will handle product development, marketing research, demographics, and perform product surveys. The marketing efforts define the clients’ target market or audience and help position the product or services. With the collaboration of the art director and to some extent the sales person, the marketing team develops an advertising campaign for the client. 

Creative Services: The agency will recommend the advertising concepts and a variety of advertising options, e.g. events or presentations, handouts, website, collateral (posters, stickers, brochures) to best meet the client’s marketing goals. Once the approach of the ad campaign has been agreed upon, the advertising agency responsibilities would typically involve all aspects of the production of the advertising materials and despatch of materials to the media. The agency will employ creative art directors, graphic designers, copywriters production artists and media buyers. If the agency has a consistent need for a specialist, they may also have in-house illustrators, photographers, event managers and digital service providers.  Advertising agencies typically charge head hour costs plus any third party production or other services they commission. Client commit to the agency on an annual contract basis for all of their marketing and advertising needs; client often pay monthly retainer fees to the agency.

The design firm is often thought of as the larger of the two, although not as large and varied as the advertising agency. It usually employs more employees on staff, whereas the studio may be a sole proprietorship consisting of only the designer/owner or a small company of two or three partners. Both offer a full range of professional services, usually specializing in a given niche market or talent. Established firms or studios are robust in networking with other independent contractors that provide specialty or complementary services with the need arises. They also offer public relations, marketing services, media buying and internet or digital services. Studio can also refer to the workplace of a self-employed artist, who usually shares office space or works from their home. The client would hire and work directly with designer themselves and creating a more personal working relationship.

Smaller companies are often intimidated by the larger advertising agencies, and feel that the agency has pressured them into spending more than their advertising budget can afford. Within today’s economy, most companies are handling their own advertising and marketing internally. By hiring a smaller design firm or studio, they are actually acquiring an extension to their own company and have someone on-call as needed. The company can contract with the provider on a project to project basis, which overall is usually less costly than the annual contract commitment required by the agency. Also design firms or studios will often accept smaller individual projects, whereas an advertising agency will not. The design firms or studios usually don’t have a large cash flow, and rely on deposits to off-set the initial costs of the project, as well as to substantiate the project agreement between the client and artist.

 A simple campaign which requires the production of simpler print materials might require the services of a graphic design firm or studio, rather than an advertising agency. In these cases, you may consider directly engaging the specialist services that you require. 

Filed Under: Graphic News and Information, Uncategorized Tagged With: branding, brochures, catalogs, design firm, design studio, flyers, logo, newsletters, web design

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