recently caught part of a radio commercial talking about POP - "Point-of-Purchase," the physical location where you interact with your Customers. Front entrance, front desk, reception area, sales booth, or model home, that Point-of-Purchase is an opportunity to put the sparkle and fizz of your offering up front - - for new and existing customers.

The most common point-of-purchase advertisement you might know of is that little plastic holder for your rack cards or brochures. It might just consist of a stack of business cards prominently displayed.

Hopefully, it's a color poster or something equally larger and a little catchy. The radio commercial I heard suggested it could be as small as a business card and as large as a wall mural. WOW - I thought, why not? A full-length wall mural of a model village - complete with happy families having fun outside - painted on the wall in your reception area is also a POP advertisement.

Find local high school or college art students skilled at painting murals - and devote an entire wall to that. Give them photos etc. to work from, and supply their art materials, and let them sign their work. You could go further, and offer the students(the school) scholarship money for these students(this is great community publicity for you). Talk to school officials. Make the mural painting activity itself a fun promotion; perhaps arranging that the students paint during a regular sales day - maybe Saturday, if physical space allows.

That radio commercial got me thinking that POP sales displays come in all shapes, and sizes. What about a huge stuffed animal out front, holding a set of keys (to their new home of course) and a stack of your brochures. Consider a dollhouse made to your specifications, similar to your model home, but open on one side, with tiny furniture inside. What about finding those stick-on tattoos kids wear, and have some made up with your company logo and name? Young children also love regular stickers for their coloring books: instead of the generic holiday ones have stickers made up with your business name and advertising logo.

What about putting down a long welcome mat that can be written on - and with magic markers write a big thank you to recent happy customers, using their names? (with permission of course).

Examine your POP(Point-of-Purchase) Customer Area. Would it attract you if you were a new customer walking in? Are you relying on your busy sales staff to keep groups of people interested every moment, or are you using interesting POP sales displays to further tell your story? Has your retail center been written up in the local press recently? IF you are proud of the story, frame it and hang it out front - this can also function as a POP display.

RETAILERS - do you have a success story to tell? What is unique about your sales center? How do you keep customers coming in the door every day? Send our webmaster, David Oxhandler , a brief e-mail and attach any photos you have of your retail center and we may be interested in featuring your story on an upcoming home page of the MANUFACTURED HOUSING GLOBAL NETWORK.