If you Google "weekly grocer ads," you will see online links to ads from virtually all of your area's major grocers. Why?  Why do grocers continue to encourage the concept of a weekly promotional shopping tool? The simple reason is, it's what they have always done, and they know its what consumers are used to seeing. The deeper reason is they know that American consumers are naturally hard-wired to look for a deal before making a purchase. For years, grocery stores have relied on marketing's holy trinity: Location, Quality, and Price. The basic premise being, if you can show shoppers that you have a great selection, you are easy and convenient to shop, AND offer competitive pricing, then they will shop with you. [...]

Your Most Profitable Customer Is Just Around the Corner When is the best time to have someone see your advertisement? When they are ready to buy, of course. The trick is to know when that is. Trigger-Based Marketing Trigger-Based Marketing is a term we use for reaching new customers when a significant life event occurs. One of the most impactful events in people's lives is when a family or an individual moves their residence. It also happens to be the best time to establish valuable relationships with those looking to buy products and services for their new homes. To capitalize on this profitable market segment, Signature Graphics is introducing our New Mover Mailer Program It's designed to put [...]

Adding QR to Your Print Boosts Your Digital QR Codes are having a moment. And it's about time. "Quick Response" codes have been around for years.  But early technology was clunky, required you to download a special app, and frankly, people really didn't understand how to use them, so their potential went unfulfilled. Enter COVID 19, and we now have the first killer app for QR codes. Keeping restaurant diners safe from germy menus. When local restaurants were first allowed to serve guests in Portland, we sat at a table with a QR code printed on a postcard. It said Scan Me to see our latest menu.  It worked great. We were viewing the menu in seconds and there was no sign of crusted [...]

One Plus One Equals Three? I know that title sounds like something from the new math, but it's really a formula for marketing success. It's not uncommon to have two different things that, when married together, add up to something better than each would on their own. Take, for example, peanut butter and jelly. Both very good on their own, but when you combine them, wow, they add up to something pretty amazing. Something much better than when eaten individually. Not surprisingly, advertising has a similar story. Let's take two effective advertising mediums: Print and Digital. Individually, both are effective ways to engage consumers. However, when you marry these two media, the combined result is greater than just using each medium on its [...]

Consumers consistently tell us they want more. More information, more selection, more special offers, and more ways to access your goods and services. Enter Multi-Channel Selling and Marketing... Multi-channel is a buzzword we hear a lot lately. Until recently, it was mostly used in a marketing context to describe a multi-touch approach to reach customers. But more and more, we are hearing it used in referring to selling channels. Let's take a few minutes to unpack how multi-channel can profit your business. If there is one positive outcome from the pandemic, it has accelerated how businesses expanded their selling channels. What do I mean by selling channels? A selling channel is how a customer is able to buy products or services from you.  As [...]

Earlier this summer, we shared in an email that we saw certain economic conditions coming our way that would impact consumer's shopping behaviors. While the glow of unexpectedly robust Q2 revenue was still fresh in many retailer's minds, we shared that based on feedback from our July consumer survey, we saw a reversal coming our way along with a shift in shopping patterns. You can access our original article here. Shoppers told us they were concerned about the economy and that they would adjust their household shopping budgets accordingly. Well, it played out pretty much as we expected. Just last week, the Wall Street Journal confirmed our predictions in an article titled "With Second Stimulus Check on Hold, Americans Spend Less at the Grocery Store."  Source: [...]

To better inform our clients, Signature Graphics commissioned a survey in late July to take the "Pulse" of today's shopper. We wanted to get direct feedback from consumers to better understand what they are experiencing today and how they anticipate responding to these new circumstances tomorrow. The Economy Our first concern was to better understand how consumers feel about the economy today. This is important because it will drive all other decisions consumers will make. We asked two simple questions: 1. How Concerned are you about the economy during the next three months? 2. What impact will COVID-19, and economic concerns have on your monthly household spending during [...]

Q2 is behind us and the numbers were surprising. Year over year, growth was off the charts for many retailers. For some, not in a good way, but for those essential businesses selling groceries, hardware, and general merchandise, you more than likely exceeded some of your best quarters. Now what? Can we expect more of the same? Most analysts have identified Q2 as an anomaly, a perfect storm that provided certain retail segments with a significant challenge, but also with a sizable reward.  No one's saying it was easy, but the bottom line looked pretty good. So let's do it again in Q3. Right? That may be harder than it looks. The landscape has changed. The pandemic is still with us, but the panic [...]