What Does a Poster Need to Do?

By Colleen Davis

How can you use a form of advertising if you aren't entirely sure exactly what it's supposed to do? Each marketing device you'll come across was made for a different purpose. That's what you should first consider, that these forms of marketing were invented to fulfill a very specific purpose, and if you want to use it, you have to know why it was made, and how you can use it.

I wouldn't hope to be able to cover the full gamut of every kind of advertising and what each is meant for, so for this article poster printing is going to be the primary focus.

So why were posters made and what can you do to make them work for you?

Unlike most other forms of advertising a poster is a stationary advertisement that a person can't carry with them. No other type of marketing is as stationary as a poster-I'm not really counting billboards here, because let's be honest, a Billboard is just a larger poster.

Now because this advertisement is so stationary you don't have the benefit of being able to hand it to people for them to peruse at their own discretion. You need to grab their attention based purely off of what your poster says.

This places a very strong emphasis on the images and wording that you use with your poster. Pictures are going to be the best way to get a poster to jump out at people and make them want to look over at it. If an image is large enough, colorful enough, and tied well to your message, it'll make a person look.

A strong headline will accomplish a similar goal. Make your headlines short and easy to understand so all a person needs to do is glance over at it to understand what you're trying to say.

This leads to another key point about poster printing. A poster can't be taken with a person so they're going to have to read the entire poster right when they see it. You don't want to load down a poster with too much text or else no one is going to take the time to read it. Keep your poster messages simple and centered on a brief message. Hopefully a person should only need a minute at most to understand everything your poster says, if not only thirty seconds.

Lastly, a poster is stationary, so you want to make sure that you pick the best location possible for it. Before you print posters be sure that you already know a number of good locations to put them up. The right location can easily make or break a poster.

So remember, consider where your posters are going, what kind of images you have on your posters to grab a person's attention, and how long it takes to get all the information your poster says. If you're considering these key points you'll be on your way towards some great posters.

For more information, you can visit this page on poster printing