March 17th, 2020
Re: COVID-19 Coronavirus Update from Signarama Troy:
Dear valued customer,
With the President’s national emergency declaration on Friday, we are truly in unprecedented times. Growing concerns about the coronovirus (COVID-19) may have a serious impact on your business. I wanted to reach out to you to personally assure you that our team at Signarama is working hard to deliver business continuity while dealing with the impact on our community and families.
We strive to be both as community minded as possible while working to protect our staff and their families and are adjusting many of our customer facing activities at this time. Effective immediately, our walk-in showroom will be temporarily closed to the public. While our business remains fully open and available to produce signage for you, we are eliminating all walk-in traffic inside of our facility other than direct employees. Additionally, our sales team will not be scheduling any onsite appointments until further notice but will gladly assist over the phone and via email.
Please note that we are unable to make any firm deadline commitments at this time. Due to the nature of the global & local news, staffing adjustments and our material supply chain we are working diligently to best serve your needs. As we transition our office staff towards a temporary work from home scenario, please expect reasonable delays in communication from the sales staff and our design times. We will not be able to make any production deadline commitments until further notice.
Any signage projects that are urgent in nature to support our community’s efforts to combat COVID-19 will be expedited to the top of the list (hospital signage, local businesses supporting relief efforts).
Please note that our Installation team will not be scheduling onsite installs beyond Tuesday, March 17th until further notice. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. If the nature of your install impacts the local community and the national resolution of the COVID-19 coronavirus please let our team know so we can address your project on a case by case basis.
A quick recap:
- We are 100% open! All sales and production staff are here and ready to serve you.
- All current orders may experience significant delays in design and manufacturing
- Our sales team will not be setting appointments to leave our facility or their homes until further notice.
- Our installation team will not be scheduling local installs past March 17th
- As staffing and supplies allow, we are still in complete manufacturing mode on all projects.
On behalf of our company and our family, we hope you remain safe and understand that we have to make these temporary adjustments to our normal business practices. As we strive to be as proactive as possible during this critical time, we ask for your patience as we pull together to support you during this time. Our thoughts and prayers go out to our many friends and clients whose businesses are forced to close at this time. Please support your local small businesses as much as possible.
Bob Chapa
President/CEO
- Published in Signarama Troy News
How can coroplast yard signs help direct guests to your party?
Do you have a graduation or a birthday in the near future and want the world to know where to celebrate?! Coroplast signs for graduation parties may be just what you need to point your guests in the right direction.
Coroplast signs are the perfect fit for events such as these because the possibilities are endless. Signarama has been specializing in coroplast signs for a decade. They have developed new technology that has cut the production time in half while creating a more polished look. Coroplast signs are not intended for long-term use however, if stored properly, they can be used more than once.
The standard size for a coroplast sign is 18 x 24 but Signarama has the ability to produce any custom size or shape you can dream of! You can purchase a single coroplast sign or different quantities such as 25, 50, 100 or even 1000 in a single order. If a larger quantity is purchased, each sign can be unique and different at no extra charge instead of ordering different sets of the same design. Signarama has access to every color possible as well as a highly advanced design team that will bring your imagination to life!
The team at MichiganSignShops.com is excited to contribute to your memorable day. Please call (248) 585-6880 to request a quote and further discuss your event.
- Coroplast directional signage for local golf outing
- Published in Signs
Jack Schiffman Memorial Golf Outing
Since April of 2006, we at Signarama have worked with Colliers International out of Southfield, MI and Ann Arbor, MI making commercial signs. In this time we have established a great professional relationship with many of the brokers and their support staff. Among those growing relationships came one with the marketing manager, Amy Schiffman, who we’ve been working with since 2012. In these years, Amy has proven to be a tremendous asset to Colliers, and Signarama.
Coroplast signs for charity golf event!
Long before Amy’s arrival at Colliers, she has organized and managed a charity golf event in honor of Jack Schiffman who battled pancreatic cancer. These events have had many sponsors around the metro Detroit area, including Colliers and Signarama. We were lucky enough to see this project through; from the order being placed all the way to seeing the signs on the golf course. The types of signs used in these projects have ranged from coroplast yard signs, to banners.
People just think of signs as a way to introduce yourself to the world… such as building signs. Sometimes we forget the other impacts that signs can have on us, like remembering loved ones, or celebrating new ones. The great thing about coroplast yard signs and banners, is that they have so many uses; they can be used on a golf course, front lawn, or even to hang from windows!
It has been a great pleasure to be involved in this event for the last 3 years, and we are looking forward to future events!
- Published in Signs
Custom software settings provide more control for creating and scheduling content.
- Activate the timeline for more advanced creation
- Change the playlist mode to scheduled and create multiple playlists
Create Content
- Crop function-add impact to images and video
- Text box-manipulate the position and look of the copy
- Timeline Editor-adjust elements to appear at varied times
Manage Schedule
Set up multiple messages to run at different times of the day, week, month, and year.
- Group your messages in different playlists to run at various times.
- Set the playlist to:
- Run for a specified time period
- Recur weekly, monthly, or yearly
- Run following one another or
- Rotate through messages from multiple playlists
- Print your playlist to see the complete schedule
Font Size Changes on your LED Message Center
You want customers to read the messages on your LED message center right? Remember, they only have about 3 to 6 seconds to do it. You need to know your font size when it appears on the display.
Now there’s a simple way to find out. The Daktronics software team just uploaded a Font Size Calculator for you to use at www.daktronics.com/fontcalculator. Simply enter your display’s pixel spacing (mm) and font pixel height to get your text size.
New Daktronics blog helps train you to use your LED Message Center Software!
Topics covered in our posts so far include:
- Using the right fonts
- Making text more readable
- How to contact a trainer
- Creating color boxes
- Adding filler color
For more information on Daktronics and LED Message Center featured software please visit: http://blog.daktronics.com/category/training/venus-1500/
- Published in Signs & more Signs!
What are digital signs?
What is Digital Signage?
Digital signs are like having your own TV station to advertise to your customers inside your place of business.
Digital Signs are primarily used to communicate sales, promotions, and help up-sell customers on the establishments various products and services. They act as a modern day sales person. Consumers don’t mind watching a screen to learn about new products and promotions and in fact most find it quite enjoyable. They also serve to increase marketing compliance for many organizations such as banks and reduce printing costs.
Digital signs are not a TV or picture slide show. They are something far more unique that. Digital signs are referred to as Social Television most frequently. This newer form of media is a remote controlled distribution of media across a network of displays. It is most often found in high traffic areas with larger dwell times. You commonly see them at public venues or at point-of-purchase. Signarama Troy | Metro Detroit’s Digital Signage System can play most any file type and even do really cool things like integrate with live TV or live updates from your Facebook wall. If you can dream it, our talented staff of developers and designers can do it.
The only thing that matters is that it does the job it sets out to do. Here are a few numbers that may grab your attention and prove the effectiveness of digital signs.
An Arbitron study surveyed 1,400 shoppers about Digital Signs.
- 81% of shoppers remember the content.
- 40% of shoppers more likely to purchase.
- up to 700% sales lift on new item intros.
A National Restaurant Association study of Digital Menus revealed:
- 49.1% Lowered Costs on Menu Changes
- 47.2% Increased Customer Satisfaction
- 37.1% Increased Sales of Promotional Items
- 37.7% Improved Operational Efficiency
- 18.9% Increased Sales of High Margin Items
- 42.3% Recouped Their Investment Within 1 Year.
- 89.5% Recouped Their Investment Within 2 Years.
- 100% of Restaurants Saw a Sales Lift.
- Published in Sign Products
FiberMate™ Recyclable Rigid Print Media
At Signarama Troy/Metro Detroit, we strive to use the latest and greatest materials to produce signs. Lately, the trend has been to utilize more materials which can be recycled or re-purposed. Our goal is to leave less of a carbon footprint and follow the trends of our industry. There are several benefits to recycling including We are currently working with a new company to aid our facility in recycling more and more materials we have as scrap. Our suppliers and vendors have taken notice as well, and are pushing these trendy products to us. The latest material we have come across is FiberMate™ Recyclable Rigid Print Media.
FiberMate™ is a wood fiber panel with a white water-based UV print coating known as Eco-Finish™ on both sides. The white Eco-Finish print coating is designed to provide excellent ink and paint adhesion on both sides allowing for double-sided printing application. Made in the USA, this material is made of 100% recyclable fiber and can be recycled in either “wood” or “paper” waste stream (assuming printing ink or mounting material is recyclable).
The material is very versatile in its applications. FiberMate™ Recyclable Rigid Print can be used for P-O-P displays, exhibits & kiosks, framing, and other signage. Available in two sizes, 3.2mm and 5.5mm both in a 4’x8′ sheet, the options are endless and large enough to accommodate just about any signage need. At Signarama Troy/Metro Detroit we are capable of using the composite sheets for digital printing, painting, saw cutting and routing.
Interesting Recycling Facts – Paper
- Recycling 1 ton of paper saves 17 mature trees, 7,000 gallons of water, 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 2 barrels of oil, and 4000 kilowatt hours of electricity. This is enough energy to power the average American home for 5 months.
- The process of recycling paper instead of making it from new materials generates 74 percent less air pollution and uses 50 percent less water.
- Manufacturing recycled paper uses 60 percent of the energy needed to make paper from new materials.
- Over 73 percent of all newspapers are recovered for recycling. About 33 percent of this is used to make newsprint the rest is used to make paperboard, tissue, or insulation.
- A little more than 48 percent of all office paper is recycled. This is used to make writing papers, paperboard, tissue, and insulation.
For more information on FiberMate™ Recyclable Rigid Print please visit: http://graphicdisplayusa.com/en/articles/fibermate-product-literature-samples-describe-new-recyclable-rigid-print-media/
For more information on the benefits of recycling please visit: http://www.benefits-of-recycling.com/interestingrecyclingfacts/
- Published in Sign Products
Fluorescent Lamp Ballasts
As leaders in the sign industry, our team at Signarama Troy prides itself on keeping up to date with new products and services. We continually educate ourselves through trade publications such as magazines, supplier newsletters and books. Through this method of keeping informed, we are able to pass valuable information along to our clients. A vendor recently notified us that the United States Department of Energy issued new rules regulating the efficiency of fluorescent lamp ballasts.
“As many of you know, in November of 2011 the United States Department of Energy (DOE) issued new rules regulating the efficiency of fluorescent lamp ballasts. These rules will take effect later this year on November 14, 2014.
As a result, many, if not all magnetic sign ballasts will no longer be manufactured after this date (although they will continue to be available for purchase until manufacturer and distributor inventories are depleted). Some manufacturers have already introduced solid-state electronic units which replace the old magnetic units, and since their appearance on the market some 5 years ago, have proven to be reliable and are very easy to wire.”
As a sign manufacturer, we utilize these types of bulbs in signs such as illuminated boxes. We have made a commitment, moving forward, to purchase the new electronic ballasts which are specifically designed to wire like a magnetic unit. These work especially well when used to replace old magnetic ballasts in existing signs. We are available, as a service to our clients, to replace the fluorescent lamp ballasts with the new options or replace existing bulbs with LED’s.
For more information on the DOE you may visit: http://www.energy.gov/
Source: Jim Redmer, Director/Sales-Marketing, Wensco
- Published in Signs
Using Pinterest for Business
There are over 70 million users on Pinterest today!
Signarama Troy Has a Pinterest!
Using Pinterest for business is becoming a wide spread trend throughout the United States. As of October 2013 the popular website logged over 70 million users. Companies like Sephora, Lowe’s and Sony Electronics are all utilizing the site to market their brands. If you’ve never used Pinterest here’s a breakdown of how it works!
What’s Pinterest?
Pinterest helps people collect and organize the things they love. Here’s how it works for you.
The Pin Cycle
Pins can be almost anything—a gift, recipe, or even a quote. They’re like little bookmarks people add to Pinterest that always point back to the sites they came from (like yours!) If you add the Pin it button to your site, people can use it to add your stuff to Pinterest.
Beautiful boards
Boards are where people collect and organize their Pins. Each board tells a unique, hand-crafted story about what that person cares about. People can follow boards whose Pins they like—like yours!
Simple discovery
Pinterest helps people discover things in a simple, visual way. Pinners might find something they love while browsing your boards, scrolling through a category you’re listed in or searching for you directly.
Connecting interests
Pinterest connects people through shared interests—their passions, hobbies, tastes and values. You can inspire them by using Pinterest in a personal, authentic way.
For a business, Pinterest can be beneficial in several ways. The opportunity to post photographs and links of your products is immeasurable. For Signarama Troy it is a way for us to showcase the many different types of signage we are able to create and produce. Our Pinterest page is geared towards the various projects we have worked on along with signs and other applications that inspire us from other pinners!
To visit Signarama Troy’s Pinterest page go to: http://www.pinterest.com/signaramatroy/
Source: Pinterest.com and Wikipedia.com
- Published in How-Tos
The Signarama Troy team along with UFG CEO Ray Titus.
Preceding Signarama Troy’s recent Caribbean Cruise, our team had the opportunity to visit the United Franchise Group World Headquarters. As a part of the Signarama franchise, our Hall of Fame location operates in the top 1% for the conglomerate. It was a huge honor and very exciting to visit the people who provide so much support for our business.
During our visit we toured the facility which is encompassed in what used to be a movie studio! The headquarters is a combination of offices, sample showrooms for each brand, research and development, production rooms, a full size gym along with a half basketball court, an amphitheater with translation room for international guests and much more. While we toured the grounds we were shown the various areas utilized for supporting our Signarama brand.
The highlight of the experience was a personal presentation by CEO, Ray Titus, inspirational talk from JJ Prendamano both with a video introduction by President, Jim Tatum. Ray had been preparing a speech for the “World Leaders Conference 2014” and presented it to our team as a “warm up”. His talk touched on life/work balance, continuing our education through books about self improvement, and not to multitask when doing certain tasks such as answering a phone or working with a client in person. He passed out several books to our team, notably “The Energy Bus”, by Jon Gordan. Our group has agreed after each of us read every book we will make a habit to enjoy lunch together while sharing our thoughts on each title.
Overall, our day was well spent. We came out of UFG inspired, excited and ready to take on new challenges. It was an experience we will never forget and will always be grateful for having.
With over 25 years in the franchising industry and more than 1400 franchisees throughout the world, United Franchise Group offers unprecedented leadership and solid business opportunities for entrepreneurs. Today, United Franchise Group has more than 200 employees with established offices in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. Its corporate headquarters are located in West Palm Beach, Florida and also house a superior state-of-the-art training facility, where all new franchisees are welcomed to begin their journey into business ownership throughout the year.
For more information on the United Franchise Group please visit: http://unitedfranchisegroup.com/
For more information on the World Leaders Conference 2014 please visit: http://worldleadersconference.com/
- Published in Signarama Troy News
Signarama Goal Smashers enjoy a Caribbean Cruise!
In January 2013 Signarama Troy President, Bob Chapa, set a hefty goal for his team. He said “if we can collaborate, work hard and increase our sales 20% over 2012, I will take each of you and a significant other on a Caribbean Cruise!” Not only did our team achieve the goal, we SMASHED our goal. 2013 proved to be the most successful year ever for Signarama Troy. We improved our previous years sales by over 50%. The Signarama Troy Goal Smashers were set to enjoy a Caribbean Cruise!
On Sunday, February 23, 2014 the Signarama Goal Smashers were off to a week of traveling they would never forget. The adventure started with a trip to World of Beer and a fantastic dinner at E.R. Bradleys in West Palm Beach, FL. We shared a meal with Scott Mast, United Franchise Groups Vice President of Global Performance. It was just the beginning of what proved to be a rewarding and enjoyable trip for all.
We set sail on the Royal Caribbean Liberty of the Seas on Monday, February 24. We wore matching red polo shirts with “Signarama Goal Smashers 2013” embroidered on the sleeve. They were a hit in line, many people asking why we all matched and asked what “Sing-A-Rama”. To our amusement we politely replied we were the entertainment on the ship!
While on the vessel we were all amazed at the size and variety of features it held. We all enjoyed several of the ships features including:
- FlowRider® surf simulator
- Rock-climbing wall
- Mini-golf course
- Full-sized basketball court
- Saturday Night Fever: The Musical in the Main Theater
- Ice-skating shows
- 22 bars, clubs, and lounges that never have a cover, including Boleros Latin-themed lounge and Hoof & Claw English Pub
- Windjammer Café, Jade Sushi, Sorrento’s Pizza (the most popular with the Goal Smashers), Café Promenade for coffee and pastries/snacks, and room service!
Our favorite gathering place was Hoof & Claw English Pub. It was a pub reminiscent of it’s namesake and had 2 of the best servers on the Liberty of the seas. We had amazing dinners each night with dedicated servers who also treated us like royalty. We made quite an impression on our fellow diners chanting “Telly, Telly” to our beloved head waiter. Our last night on the ship was a meal to remember, chock full of fresh lobster picked up on our last port of call Falmouth, Jamaica.
The 2013 Goal Smashers celebrating our success at the Hoof & Claw!
When our team thanked Bob and his wife Melissa for the opportunity to spend a week together at sea he replied,
“It sure feels great to work hard towards big goals and share in the rewards together! Thank YOU for making it happen!”
Our team couldn’t agree more with our respected President. Thank you Bob & Melissa, we will never forget our trip together. We can’t wait to “smash” 2014’s goal and make new memories in Jamaica!!!
For more information on World of Beer: http://wobusa.com/
For more information on E.R. Bradley’s Saloon: http://erbradleys.com/
For more information on Royal Caribbean Liberty of the Seas: http://www.royalcaribbean.com/home.do
- Published in Signarama Troy News