Building a Successful Sign Business on the Internet
By: Shane Willems
Ceo SignSite.com, Inc.
In 1995 I was in the market for some vehicle lettering for my truck fleet. Little did I know how this simple need for vehicle lettering would impact my future. I went to a small sign shop that was referred to me by a friend of mine. While their; I purchased a complete decal package for a few of my trucks. I was satisfied with the price and the quality of work so a few days later I took my Chevy Blazer in for a small company logo on both doors. I watched the entire process from computer to plotter onto the side of my blazer. It took all of 15 minutes. The price they charged for these 1/2 square foot decals was $100. I paid the bill and headed for home. On the way home I could not shake the feeling that I had just witnessed some one make an enormous amount of profit on a sale. After all how much could vinyl really cost?
The rest is history. I researched it and found out I had actually over estimated the cost of vinyl. One month later I started my own local sign shop. Over the years I did experience much larger profits margins on small items sold in small quantities. However I was not able to sell enough of it to stay busy in our small community. Larger items and larger quantities were usually shopped harder by the customer. The orders usually went to the lowest bidder on these large orders. We were profitable as a business however we had reached a plateau in our business.
From here I applied some real technical business logic. We have a very profitable item. We simply needed to sell more of these items. So I went to work on a marketing plan revision. Again I ran into the restrictions of my community and competitors under bidding us. So on hot summer day in 1999 Speedysigns.com was created.
I stumbled around the internet with a simple little web site for a year or so with very little results. In 2000 I decided to revolutionize the way signs were sold on the internet. We started by allowing a customer to type the letters they wanted. From their the customer could choose the font, color, and size. Our website would then actually give them a price. From their they could their item in a shopping cart. We also offered a catalog of OSHA signs, and ready made banners and pennants. After a considerable amount of work we actually had a sign company web site that could sell product any where in the USA.
Nothing happened. For months we had no sales or traffic of any kind. We tried numerous search engine marketers which yielded no results. So we decided to try and figure out what was necessary to get ranked on search engines. We changed our content. We submitted our sites to the search engines and we started to rank. We continued to study and tweak our online marketing plan. It worked.
I can not even begin to describe the relief I felt when we started to actually receive orders. We functioned this way for about 6 months. Sales were decent but hardly enough to get excited about.
During this 6 month period of time we were to receive some very valuable information. For starters people were nervous about ordering letters without seeing a proof. We were spending an enormous amount of time emailing proofs and tweaking graphic files. We also realized you could develop a business relationship with customers abroad via email if we were willing to invest the time. And most importantly we discovered that people would purchase this type of product over the internet. My local community boundaries no longer existed. My competitor's prices were not relevant. My sales territory had just become the whole world.
We were excited to say the least. We did a few competitors online at this time with similar technology. We decided to leave them behind and carry the online sign concept to a new level. This spurred us on to create the most advanced online design technology in the industry. Our competitors have been chasing us ever since. The following is a list of some of the changes we have made over the years to our web site to arrive where we are today.
- Online Previewing of vinyl lettering
- Customization and preview of OSHA signs
- Borders and Shadows added to our lettering
- Custom aluminum signs
- Online graphics library
- Custom Banners
- The ability for customers to upload their own graphics to their designs.
- Custom Magnetic signs
- The ability to design right on a template of their vehicle
- T-shirts
- Sublimation items
- Embroidery
- Sports Balls
- Engraving
As this technology was being developed we continued to get more and more business. As sales increased we started to look at ways to start producing these order more productively. The first thing that jumped out is a common problem in the industry. We were not being paid for the time we put into the project in the graphics department. It became painfully clear that Graphic time was still a considerable problem. We had to completely create the items the customer was ordering. So we started to work on automating the process. We set out with a goal of having the customers design automatically come off of our website in a ready to produce file. Our goal was to spend less than 5 minutes on each file. We have obtained that goal and then some. The second are we focused on the productivity of was Customer Service. We have worked hard on perfecting the process of taking care of clients on line. From their we looked at production. We have created a production department that is streamlined and profitable. We are currently producing in the range of $300 of product per man hour.
Now what? Are we finished? Not even close! Remember with these tools the opportunities are many. We have created a valuable sales tool that has the ability to be used in many ways to sell signs to a huge variety of customers. In 2003 the SchoolBarn concept was developed. We have created an excellent new and exciting method for Schools and other non profit organizations to raise funds. We are setting them up with a web site that allows them to sell all of the custom products we offer. We even design the site using their colors and mascots. This has been openly welcomed by almost every school we have approached with it.
During the years of our development we have had numerous sign companies, print companies and other industries contact us looking to buy our technology. It is for this reason in 2006 we are kicking off SignSite.com. We are continually adding new concepts to our technology and are excited about our transition from a sign company to a online technology company. There are numerous roads yet to be traveled with this exciting technology. The advantages offered with a SignSite web site are many. It has taken us 10 years to arrive where you will be beginning. We are not simply selling a tool. We are providing you with a complete program that includes the knowledge and experience of the originators of this concept.
Are you ready to start your success story on the internet?