"When an advertiser first thinks of the kind of advertising he wants to do, location is usually one of the first questions on his mind. Television commercials are obvious; postcards and catalogs are pretty obvious: straight to the recipient’s home. Brochures can be used at trade shows or in people’s homes or in the store…and sometimes, as is the case with posters, the location options are nearly endless.
When an advertiser considers poster printing options, before she even designs the poster, she has to think of the specific location where the poster will hang. Big poster printing, like a billboard, may have limited possibilities depending on budget, but smaller posters can be hung almost anywhere. Here are some considerations to think about if you are trying to figure out the best locations for your advertising posters.
Get to know your customers
Isn’t that how many advertising escapades start? If you don’t know your customers, you can’t get anywhere with any advertising campaign. Knowing your customers in this case pertains mostly to where your customers go, physically. For this situation you don’t need to know your customers’ or prospects’ online searching habits, you just need to know where they go and where they are likely to go.
If your customers have kids, you can nail down what daycares are popular in the area and hang your posters there. Some schools will even allow you to hang your poster on their community bulletin board. Think of where your customers are likely to go, like the neighborhood discount store, and hang your posters outside of that store, if possible.
Evaluate your niche market
If you’re in a very specific industry, such as making replica costumes, you’ll want to hang your posters at trade shows or costume shops, not at the local big box retailer like Target. Many people wear replica costumes to events like Gen Con in Indianapolis every year, so getting a poster into Gen Con would be an effective way to get to a niche audience.
Check out local and national groups that might need your niche product or service and sign up to sponsor part of the event or you might have to sign up just to hang a poster there because niche competition is tough.
Who are your posters targeting?
If you are only targeting those customers that already know about you, then advertising in your customers’ usual haunts is fine. But if you are trying to expand your customer base, then you’ll want to branch out and hang your posters where a lot of foot traffic occurs, like on a downtown street or the side of a building facing the highway. You can even put your posters on public transportation, like the “El train” in Chicago or on city bus stops.
Make sure you answer these three questions before you get started on your poster printing, because knowing these three things will help you in designing your poster and making sure you get as much out of it as you can.
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