It's that time of year, when companies begin planning for the upcoming new year. It's also that time of year when many sign companies are very busy with projects for their customer's events and year-end promotions and perhaps even graphics for early 2026 trade shows. As busy as it may be, it's important to put plans in place that will help keep your business growing. I believe that committing to a plan to regularly and proactively engage with your customers and high-value pro

Everybody loves a deal! If you want to increase the impact of your proactive check-ins and emails, offer a promotion related to the product or service you are sharing!    When you are using Sign Promoter Toolkit content to engage monthly with your customers, plan ahead and simultaneously announce a promotion on your chosen product or service to garner more attention. For example, if you are sharing your capability to produce retractable banner displays, create and advertise

When you want to proactively share ideas and capabilities with customers and prospects, you can tap into the email addresses you already have to create a list. If you email invoices, use contact management software, have emails in your estimating system, or have saved contacts in your email program, then you have email addresses to begin building a customer engagement email list to regularly and proactively check in with customers.     You can also grow your list by providing

In my two decades plus in sales selling large format print and signs, an ongoing challenge I encountered was finding a meaningful reason to check in and stay in touch with customers. One of the most effortless ways to do this was to follow up on a recent quote or completed project, but if a customer had not placed an order or reached out recently for pricing, I needed to find another reason to touch base. One thing I did NOT want to do was to say, "Hi! I'm just checking in t

While social media plays an important role in customer engagement, it does not eliminate the need to proactively interact directly with customers in other ways. You have minimal control over who sees social media posts. You can invite people to follow you but you cannot truly target your audience. Public posts may or may not be seen by your most valued customers and prospects. An impressive recent project story you share may receive likes, but when you look closer, those like

Sign Promoter images offer an easy and worry-free way to share capabilities and ideas with customers without the effort of gathering photos yourself, worrying about the quality (or spending time editing them) and of course, the important but sometimes challenging task of obtaining written permission. However, if you have your own high-quality photos we can incorporate them into your Sign Promoter Toolkit content, so let's look at some ideas for building a photo library.   Get

There are a couple of ways to approach emailing the content in your Sign Promoter Toolkit.    The first option is to reach out one-on-one with a personalized email directed to your client or prospect. While this can be time-consuming, a personalized note may catch someone’s attention more effectively than a bulk email with a generic message. If the content you are sharing is particularly relevant to a customer, let them know you thought of them specifically. Here's an example

In small business, staying in touch regularly and proactively with your customers and prospects helps you stand out in the marketplace. Providing informative content and sharing capabilities positions your sign company as a trusted partner and valuable resource.    Customer relationships will strengthen when you engage regularly and consistently, and prospects will gain trust and be more likely to become customers.     In addition to raising your brand awareness, there are ma