Effectiveness of Posters
By far the best way to communicate with employees is to engage them one on one. But this section of the A.I.M. process deals with promotion. Remember that promotion is one way communication, so we are talking about how to be most effective when needing to get a message out to the masses. Posters are the easiest, and if done right, most noticeable way of promoting safety.
If a poster is effective, it will engage workers to discuss the message that the poster portrays. A good example of this would be the visual safety horror posters that some companies would hang up. You know, the one with the particle sticking out of the eye because a person did not use safety glasses. Sorry for the visual, but if you have seen it, I bet you talked about it with someone. Another good thing about using posters for promotion is that a message can be relayed to as many people as possible, or just focused on a select group. It can be placed in a lunch room where only employees may see it, or displayed in a window where anyone who walks by may see it. So posters can be quite flexible in sending a message out.
Advantages:
- They can be inexpensive to buy or make
- Long length of exposure
- Non-Threatening
- Flexible in regards to set up
- High acceptance
Disadvantages:
- Not taken as seriously as papers
- May be ignored
- If there is too much information, it will lose interest
There are a lot of services and print shops that do a great job of organizing your thoughts, laying out the graphics and produce a quality product. If you have the budget for it, use this option because it will save you a lot of time. But there are also a lot of resources available to you on the web that could help you produce a professional product in house.
There are a number of graphic and desktop publishing programs that you could use to produce a poster that could rival the professionals. Once you are done putting your poster together, you can send your product online, and a print shop will have it in seconds ready to print out a test sheet. Whatever method you use, there are a few things you should keep in mind regarding effectiveness of posters:
- Make sure the poster is focused on a single message. Anything more will be confusing and loose it’s appeal.
- Minimize words and graphs, and use graphics and images to tell the story. Posters are considered passive promotion, and most people don’t have the time to stop and read a few paragraphs. An effective poster should be able to relay its message at a quick glance.
- Keep the message organized. The poster should flow well, and not have people glancing all over the layout to figure out what the message is.
Posters can be a great source of information or conversation starter if planned out right. However, if the effectiveness of posters isn’t there, it will just be another painting on the wall.
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