Connections
Visit Us at the Indianapolis Sign Business and Digital Graphics Show
We’re going to be at the Indianapolis Sign Business and Digital Graphics Show from May 28th – May 30th.
Okay, it’s not the Indianapolis 500 or a Colts game, but still, we’re looking forward to it. And if you work in a sign shop or the digital graphics business, you need to be here.
National Business Media is promoting this regional show, as well as shows in Long Beach, CA, Baltimore, MD, Tampa, FL, and Charlotte, NC. The show will feature a three-day trade show and a four-day education conference. If you’re in the sign business, you need to be here.
We’ll be there, talking about UV curable flatbed printers.
UV curable flatbed printers are changing the game by lowering printing costs to a point that makes even recently purchased solvent technology based printers obsolete. If you own or manage a sign or banner printing facility, or would like to, you need to take time to learn how you can have as much as a 50% cost advantage on your competition:
“Right now, most sign and banner shops sell a 5′x3′ full color banner for around $120. We can now sell the same thing for $60 and make the same profit.” — Garry Jones, Owner Lloyds of Indiana
The best way to see how UV Printing is revolutionizing sign printing is to see it in action for yourself. That’s why we open up our production center to let sign shop and print shop owners see exactly how wide format UV printing fits in. Join us on May 28th through May 30th at the Indianapolis Sign Business and Digital Graphics Show and an informational tour of our facility to see firsthand how a single Digital Equipment Company Legend 72 HUV flatbed printer has revolutionized our business, and how it can change yours, too.
Network With Other Sign Shops to Increase Your Own Sign Revenue
With the economy being down, people are cutting costs all over. And sign shops are no exception. I’ve talked to a lot of sign shop owners over the past several months who are all saying the same thing: revenues are down because fewer people — realtors, trade shows, stores — are buying signs. They’re getting beat up on price, and quality is not the issue it once was.
The natural thing to do is cut prices so you can increase sales, right?
It’s also the wrong thing to do. This is not the time to cut costs, because reducing your prices means reducing your profits. And with lower sales, this is the wrong time to lower profits. Rather, it’s the time to diversify.
Most sign shops don’t do every kind of sign. Some offer vinyl banners, others do restaurant signs, other do fast signs for trade shows.
What it’s going to take is one smart sign shop owner to invest into a new piece of equipment, like the Legend 72HUV from Digital Equipment Company, a UV curable wide format printer.
The really cool thing about this machine (and there are several cool things) is that it’s like a giant inkjet printer, which lets you make full-color signs without all the extra costs of vinyl, and none of the chemical issues found in VOC inks.
Most sign shops would look at this printer as just another piece of equipment that’s going to sit silently in the shop, along with everything else.
But the smart sign shop owner will see this as a revenue generator. Rather than beating your brains out to find the end users who will need this kind of sign, get all the sign shop owners in your town to do the work for you.
You probably know all the sign shop owners in your town, and know the things they do and don’t do. Pay a visit to each of them, and offer them your UV sign printing services. Then, whenever the vinyl shop gets a customer inquiry to do something outside their scope of expertise, instead of turning down the project, they can still sell it to the customer, wholesale it to you, and you both make a sale.
They generate a 10 – 15% brokerage fee, and you make a wholesale deal that pays for the machine and keeps it running, even while your own vinyl machine is sitting idle.
Now your competition has just become a source of revenue for you. They’re not working against you, they’re working for you.
Here at Lloyds, we’ve seen people who got into the wholesale business of printing and dropped their retail business completely. It ends up being a bigger win for them, because instead of one shop owner selling to a handful of customers, they have five, or even ten, owners selling for them instead.
New Printing Technology is Changing How Signs & Banners are Printed
Wide format, UV Curable printing is changing the print industry and if you’re not on board, you’re going to miss out. I’ll admit that when I was first introduced to UV Curable printers, I was a little hesitant because sometimes products that tout higher capacities and lower costs often come with a hitch – like lower quality, particularly in the banner printing industry.
But, ever since we brought our first UV Curable printer into the Lloyds of Indiana office, I’ve been a convert. These machines consistently put out high quality, versatile print jobs for a fraction of the costs of traditional cut vinyl methods.
They can cut labor costs by up to 75%, lower printing costs by 65% and increase your production capacity by 65%. And because of their speed, quality and reliability, they’re quickly becoming a mainstay in most print shops – meaning if you don’t have one, your competitor probably does and he’s already undercutting you on prices.
The Legend 72HUV wide-format printer [(which we sell) costs less than $80,000, but it goes way beyond entry-level. This beast of a printer can print full-graphics directly to a sign or almost any surface and it can do a standard banner printing job in about 7 minutes. The best part? It does it for about $0.28 per square foot (putting it on par with single cut vinyl methods).
I’m also consistently amazed by the variety of surfaces that you can print on with this machine. It goes way beyond basic banner printing. You can print on any flat surface, including rigid media, or mediums like paper, cloth or vinyl. We once used it to print on a door.
I can’t say it enough though – if you’re running a high-traffic print shop or you want to be a high-traffic print shop and you’re not using wide format UV Curable printing methods, you’re missing out.
Top 4 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Calling the Sign Shop
I hate to see people waste money, so before you go out and spend hundreds of dollars on a vinyl sign or full color banner for business, you should sit down and ask yourself these 4 essential questions:
How will my sign be used?
If you’re looking for a temporary, large-format paper sign to hang in the window on sale day your needs are going to be different than if you’re looking for a permanent masthead to hang outside of your business (in which case, you’ll probably want a hard surface, durable product).
In terms of design, you’ll also want to ask yourself if the sign is intended to direct people, sell people or inform them?
Who is my target audience?
If you’re looking for a sign that’s going to advertise a children’s toy store the look is going to be significantly different than a sign intended to welcome attendees to your annual Bookkeeping Conference.
Another consideration is the actual mechanics, meaning how far will your target audience be from the sign and how long will they have to read it? For example, a full color banner intended to catch the attention of drivers on the freeway might just be a few words.
What will my sign copy say and how will it be laid out?
Once you know the purpose of your sign and your target audience, you can focus on the actual copy and layout. Is there a certain message you want to convey? Do you have any logo requirements? Also, does your sign need to fit in with an already existing design aesthetic or brand strategy?
How will my sign be installed?
This is another important consideration – will your sign be displayed indoors or outdoors? How will it be attached and are there any restrictions put in place by building codes or the building owners? By knowing this information ahead of time and planning for it, you could save hundreds on your next vinyl sign or full color banner.