Despite the rise of computers and the Internet, and the resulting revolution of digital media, physical signs are still effective for advertisement and communication today. For businesses big and small, high quality signage can go a long way, and studies have been done and confirmed that high quality signage is as relevant as ever. Sign installers can e hired to help set up lager signs, and custom sign designs may be popular among smaller businesses that want to stand out. Commercial signs outdoors can raise awareness of a brand name or new deals or products in the store, and signs can also be useful for political campaigns and general ads. When it comes to high quality signage, businesses should take these in-person messaging boards seriously. The Internet, despite all its far-reaching communication, has not entirely replaced high quality signage in everyday life. What might a business professional keep in mind when planning a marketing strategy?
The Power of Signs
As mentioned above, many studies have been done to determine how effective high quality signage, posters, and billboards can be, and the results are clear. For example, signs can serve as a first impression for consumers and customers, and for this reason, businesses are urged to only use high quality signage. Nearly 70% of all consumers have said that the quality of a given business’s sign can reflect that business’s quality and character Therefore, an attractive and well-made sign can draw in large crowds and promote good faith in the business on the consumers’ part. Conversely, nearly 60% of consumers have reported that a lack of signage would prevent them from entering a business at all, and that can certainly harm profits and expansion of the client base. A lack of a sign may be seen as suspicious, or a customer may simply think that a business that can’t even be bothered with a sign is bound to provide cheap or sloppy business. This may be related to how a well-landscaped front lawn for a commercial building can make an excellent impression. Appearances indeed matter.
Other numbers show that signs can go a long way toward increasing profits and promoting consumers’ awareness of a brand or company’s location. For example, most businesses have 85% of their clients living within a five-mile radius of the company’s building or central campus, so signs and ads in person can reach out to many customers effectively. A person may see that company’s brands and signs around 50-60 times per month, or possibly even more. Similarly, it has been found that the value of on-site signage rivals that of 24 full-page newspaper ads every single year. In other cases, billboards can be highly effective, especially when placed where drivers don’t have much else to look at. Many political candidates make use of these billboards to promote themselves and their platform. Many surveyed drivers have reported that they only learned about a political candidate and their policies because of these billboards.
For smaller companies, signs are the primary means of advertising themselves and their brands, such as single-location coffee shops, sandwich shops, bookstores, or more. These shops have no need for a large and expensive Internet or television campaign, since these ads would reach many people who wouldn’t visit that faraway location anyway. A sandwich shop in Boston, for example, has no need for Internet users in Dallas to see their brand name online. Instead, an expensive online campaign would be replaced by signs. A single-location shop can attract customers with signs over its door or even signs placed on the sidewalk. Many pedestrians may be familiar with the chalkboard signs that are placed outside a coffee shop or cafe, and these boards can have messages erased and written as needed. This keeps the sign up to date for new items or daily deals.
In some cases, signs may be neon, such as for bars, or they may be electric ad screens. These ad screens can be programmed to show various images, some of which may be animated. This can easily catch a person’s attention, and such screens are easy to see even at night or in the rain when other signs may be difficult to see or read.