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high tech devices in their stores. But one of the most effective ways to increase sales is introducing high tech to the outside of the store.

More and more home centers and lumber yards are installing electronic readerboards out front to lure in prospective cus0omers with computer-

Story at a Glance

Electronic exterior signs help reach your most likely audience in the greatest numbers ... how and why site based advertising works.

ized commercials for their businesses, producB and promotions.

Attractive, eye-catching and clear, computerized signage is available in countless configurations, colors and dimensions ranging from countertop to ballpark scoreboard-size. "We love iL" said the owner of one small town lumber yard who last year replaced his time-worn metal display sign and slide-on plastic letters with a computefized version. "It's very effective. We're able to change our advertising regularly. The old letters were a hassle; we hardly ever changed them."

His Electronic Message Center from North American Display Systems features a computerized message changer which continuously runs a I S-second advertisement, consisting of five three-second sequential frames. Four advertise special products and sales, the fifth displays the time and temperature, i la the common bank signs.

"The biggest thing is the time and temperature," the retailer said. "It catches people's eyes and keeps everybody looking our way."

The customized advertising messages also help increase customers' product awareness. "A lumber dealer might think, '\ile've been here for 40 years. Everybody in town knows we're here.' But everybody in town doesn't know tle range of products they carry," said Jack Michaux, president of North American Display Systems.

Among the company's most common jobs is replacing the 4x8 manual readerboard a home center or hardware store often has attached below its main sign with a double-face, computerized model that hooks up to the store's IBM or IBM-compatible computer system. Standard equipment and installation cost about $20,000.

Affordable to operate, the state-ofthe-art signs are powered by new low energy technology, and messages can be changed quickly and easily using computerized controls.

Since the greatest challenge a business faces is just getting the customer to visit, such "site based advertising" is invaluable. Unlike costly newspaper, radio and television advertising, it continuously and affordably reinforces your message to create a conditioned response in the mind of potential buyers. So when they need a certain type of producl they will automatically think of you.

And the largest audience that can be reached frequently and economically is in one's "primary mobile market;" it's the vehicular traffic passing by a business every day. The average consumer makes the same one way trip 20 times a month. Since probably less than l0qo arc your customers, your competition is getting the other 90Vo. And often up to204o of all traffic is made up of people new to the area, people in the process of forming buying habits.

This group is your business', your competition's and your Electronic Message Center's only audience.