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Supplier/Industry Advertising - The Picture Framers Grumble
In order that Ron's "Anti-Artist Rant" Dracuthread not become a Frankenthread as well, I decided to start a new thread, but this Quote: is from that thread.
Quote: : N Waldmann:
We rarely do any local advertising, because we have nothing we want to sell to the general public.
This makes it difficult to provide support in the community.
However, we recently decided to try the idea of an ad that tells about our product, and then says "available at the following locations" and listed a few local shops that carry our stuff.
We'll see how it goes.
I do appreciate the feedback thus far and look forward to more, as our retail frame shop customers are our bread and butter.
David, how did that work?
And to everyone else, is anyone coming in wanting or asking about the L/J mouldings from their ads?
I read (and study) a lot of "shelter" type magazines (Old House Interior, Southern Accents, etc).
I look at the photos with the articles to see what type of frames are in the backgrounds, and how they are displayed.
(Of course I look for caned bottom chairs too.) Then I study the ads.
What catches my eye, what works and what doesn't.
When most national or even regional companies or brands have an ad, they also have either "To find a local distributor call 1-800....
Or go to our web site at ....
Or they will actually list, oh, a half dozen suppliers or so.
That's called "co-op advertising".
The company pays part, and the supplier listed pays part.
I've often wondered why L/J doesn't do that with their ads.
I don't want to start another L/J rant.
After all, they are the only supplier to take on national advertising.
How could it work better?
And how could it work for, say, PPFA, or FramerSelect, or whomever else.
How could it work better for all of us?
I was just curious if it worked for you David.
Betty
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Betty,
I am afraid that, to most of the American consumer base, remembering a specific name of a picture frame moulding company is akin to you or me remembering a particular brand name of lawnmower blade that happened to be featured in a magazine ad.
(Well, you MAY be really big on lawnmower blades, I'm not sure.)
I have not had a single customer come into my gallery and mention a word about Larson/Juhl or even mention any ads for picture frame moulding that they have seen in some magazine.
Home furnishings people would probably notice, home interior decorators may notice, but the average Joe 12 pack probably wouldn't give a raccoon's pitooty about what moulding is hip today.
Then again, most of my customers are ex-WalleyWorld picture frame shoppers so what do I know about it??
Framerguy
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Quote: : Newman:
I was just curious if it worked for you David.
Well it's kind of early to tell.
But let me clarify a little bit more what we did.
We paid entirely for an ad in the "Annual Brochure" of a local musical performance series.
It was really just a charity thing where we thought we'd try out the concept for possible future use.
We thought that if it seemed to work at all (we don't expect ROI on that type of "advertisement"), we'd approach our local customer about a joint effort.
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Hmmm……don’t ever know , give it a little more exposure time.
The people who read these “name brand” magazines may be the same people that come to your shop driving their “name brand” cars, wearing “name brand” shoes to match their “name brand” clothes and recognize that “name brand” frame on your wall someday.
It is obvious the manufacturer would be more effective in enticing, I mean educating the public of the top quality of their brands that we buy and use to frame their treasures.
It may seem we are just trying to get all their money.
This way it is more the customers’ decision.
Then, of course, they will feel that much better about spending all those $ for "the best".
Start a trend…give it time..it couldn’t hurt.
And of course they would tell their friends too!
(can just hear them now)
Jeff & Donna
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I believe Larson has a web address in their ads and if you are a partner they will refer folks to you from the website.
At least that is my understanding.
I have had one customer come in and ask if I carried Larson.
She was looking for a specific moulding and it was a big ticket job.
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Quote: :
I have not had a single customer come into my gallery and mention a word about Larson/Juhl or even mention any ads for picture frame moulding that they have seen in some magazine.
That's exactally what I mean, Tom.
But a lot of magazines have regional issues (what magazines do L/J advertise in anyway?) What if, in a regional issue the ad had at the bottom.."In Salem Il.
See Tom at Touch the Wild Gallery for all your fine framing needs" Wouldn't that change things?
Now I'm sure if the PPFA did advertising they couldn't list all the members in a given area, but they could go a long way to educate the consumer (good framer/bad framer thread).
Jeff, I'm not so sure it's a "name brand" sort of thing as much as it is an "awareness of the industry" sort of thing.
And then for us (framers), it's most definately an education sort of thing.
And Debbie, that's great.
We've just got to position ourselves to take advantage of any articles or advertising about framing that takes place.
Betty
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I remember hearing several years ago that the framing industry was at the same place, in terms of public awarness, that the florists had been at some earlier time.
Now you can hardly turn on the radio or tv or open a newspaper or magazine without seeing an ad reminding you to buy flowers for some occasion you've never heard of before.
Usually they're not ads for a specific shop, but for the industry as a whole (or members of a particlar association.)
The florists have not only gotten people thinking about buying plants and flowers on a regular basis, but have invented new holidays to give you more reasons to do this.
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Quote: :
I believe Larson has a web address in their ads and if you are a partner they will refer folks to you from the website Vilgal ,
Indeed they do.
As we subscribe to a true statistics data provider, we can tell when people are redirected to our website from the Larson-Juhl site and they do, in regular numbers.
"Branding" can be powerful, and the postcards that LJ provides for their "partners" are similar to the national ads that you've all seen.
We've had multiple customers not only request the moulding, but ask about the artwork as well.
Quote: : Now you can hardly turn on the radio or tv or open a newspaper or magazine without seeing an ad reminding you to buy flowers for some occasion you've never heard of before.
Usually they're not ads for a specific shop, but for the industry as a whole (or members of a particlar association.) Ron , Although the Art & Framing Coucil is attempting to get the word out, I don't believe they have the funds to really have much clout.
FramerSelect is attempting to do this for it's members and has already seen some success.
Obviously as dues paying members they have a larger budget to work with They've provided brochures, magazine ads with leads being sent to members.
And now a selection of oversized postcards.
Providing members with leads, branding and marketing tools.
(They're on the right track.)
John
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Quote: : Ranes II, CPF, GCF:
"Branding" can be powerful...
John Just in the past week, I've read 3 or 4 articles on "branding" and one excellent one on "microbranding".
All of these articles were from completely different sources.
It's a tremendous concept.
One we (framing industry) ought to take a look at.
I told my husband last night, I think there's someone, somewhere that gives out assignments to all the various business periodicals and magazines.
I can see it now, "The buzz word for May and June is 'branding', what it is and how it works"
("The word for July is arcane - we'll all get arcane and go fishing tomorrow" oops got warped there!
)
Betty
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We are required to participate in a super-high end Holiday magazine for one of our properties.
It is a slick project that is very well done and carries full and half page ads from Tiffany's, Hugo Boss, Ann Taylor etc.
The production costs to create an ad to fit in this medium are daunting.
We turned to Larson and we use their ads and place our name as featuring Larson mouldings.
The Atlanta folks work with the mag publisher saving us a ton of money and effort.
The result was we have an ad every bit as professional as the rest.
The Larson people couldn't have been more helpful or gracious.
The insertion fee was $5000 and without them it could have easily doubled.
The ad generated little measurable response, but it did help reinforce some name recognition.
(We did have the mother of one of our competitors call Larson very upset that Larson was paying preferential treatment and why wasn't her son's shop listed also?)
The key is do any of us have the resources to effectively create a meaningful program to this type of marketing program?
Hardly.
So as John Ranes has indicated, join a group (we're FS members, also)to maximize the dollars for impact and share the expense.
Other than that I think advertising dollars in this industry (at retail level)couldn't be wasted anymore than what we all experience.
Those same few, precious dollars should be spent elsewhere.
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