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New Look at www.spartastore.com

If you’ve not seen the Sparta Store’s website lately, you might want to take a look. We’ve recently reworked it and added some new features and products. The Sparta Store is our retail shop located at 3 North Main Street across from the Alleghany County Courthouse here in town.

We’ve got a unique selection of local themed gifts and graphics that will interest the local folks and those passing through. From Alleghany Genealogical-Historical Society books, to area photographs to postcard sets, there should be something for everyone here.

If you’d like to get our new Newsletter that outlines sales and highlights authors, artists and their products, just register by clicking the Log In link in the upper right hand corner of the home page.

Local artists and craftsmen are invited to sell their products at the Sparta Store and online at www.spartastore.com. We are pleased to be able to offer the site as a service to our smaller customers that might not be ready for their own website. If you’re interested, you can find more information here.

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Need marketing materials for the Business Expo?

Get your marketing materials for the Memorial Day Business & Tourism Expo at Village Park in Sparta, the kickoff event for the 2010 Summer Jamboree at Imaging Specialists.

If you’re planning an exhibition at the Expo, there is still time to get your signs or banners, flyers, sales sheets, or any other handouts you need. Place your order before May 14 to ensure you get everything in time for the Expo.

Call Today- 336-372-3002 or email claire@imagingspecialists.net for pricing and availability.

Wreath photo by Stewart Royall of Studio Roxie for Reeves Ridge Tree Farm.
Wreath photo by Stewart Royall of Studio Roxie for Reeves Ridge Tree Farm.
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Sparta Revitalization Committee Banner

ISI has designed and cut a new vinyl banner for the Sparta Revitalization Comittee’s Summer Jamboree. This year’s theme is, “Together We Make Good Things Happen.” We incorporated the SRC’s logo with local themes including the Parkway, pines, hills with the new tag line in a red, white and blue reusable vinyl banner that will be displayed at events throughout the year. The banner measures 22″ x 10′.

 

2010 Summer Jamboree Banner
2010 Summer Jamboree Banner design

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Web Site Tips

The web reaches further than your immediate area. It is your storefront to the entire world. It never closes. Here are a few tips for your web presence:

  1. Plan for who you want to be on the internet. A single-person enterprise can look like a huge company and impress potential clients or a chain of restaurants can look smaller and give off a more intimate, warmer feel online.
  2. Build visibility and exchange links with others. Links are an inexpensive way to increase traffic to your site. Linking to others will also encourage them to link back to you, so that both parties benefit.
  3. Create an e-newsletter and send it to your customers, linking back to your site. We send out these news updates periodically and several people return to the site to see what is new.
  4. Subheads and bullet points make it easy for visitors to read your site. The majority of visitors to your site will scan the page, rather than read every word in each sentence. Make it easy for them to understand what is most important.
  5. Clear, meaningful home pages allow your visitors to quickly understand what you offer and make it easy to find out more. Its alright to add your policies, mission statements, or other wordy documents- but on separate pages. Anyone who needs to find them will.
  6. Feature your customers’ testimonials on your site. You do good work, but sometimes it can be difficult to blow your own horn. Contact some of your current (or former) clients to see what they have to say. Their words will reinforce your claims.
  7. Build visitors trust. Explain what you support, your history, your mission statement. If your visitors trust you from the start, they’ll be more likely to use your services.
  8. Have contact information easily accessible on your site. Let your customers contact you in different ways. List your email address, phone and fax numbers, even your mailing and physical addresses. Potential customers like to know where you are- (At the very least for shipping purposes) and rightly shy away from sites without contact info.
  9. Need information from your visitor? Build a custom input form. Or let your client fill out a PDF while online to print out and send in. Typed information is easier to read than handwriting. And it uses your visitor’s ink and paper instead of your own. PDFs can be protected, also. Contracts can be signed and returned without risk of alteration.

If you’re considering a new web site, want to redesign your current site, or just need to have a few tweaks done, email claire@imagingspecialists.net. Or for more information, just check out our Web department.

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1st Annual Alleghany Empty Bowls Event

Imaging Specialists was fortunate to be able to assist Alleghany Ministerium’s Solid Rock Food Closet with their 1st annual Empty Bowls event taking place April 16, 2010 at Village Park in Sparta.

We printed Announcement Letters, Event Admission Tickets, Flyers, Posters, and Raffle Tickets. We also created a web page for the event. The Raffle Tickets were for an original pottery piece by Alleghany Artist Bet Mangum, in whose honor the event will be held. We shot photos of the pottery and printed them onto the tickets and flyers and added them to the website.

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