Many businesses rely on their outdoor signs to let customers know where they are and to get them in the door. When a sign is put in the right place, it can show off your brand to people in your area between 50 and 60 times every month. When asked, at least 71% of consumers say they read advertising that is on the side of the road. At least 50% of people who enter a store do so because they saw the sign. Moreover, it has been estimated that a sign located on-site has the same value of 24 full-page newspaper ads (put in over the course of a year). Whether you are making life size posters or custom banners, there are things you can do to have more success with your signs.
- Check them out at different times of the day. You want your life size posters and display boards to look great at different times of the day. That means they need to be put in the right spot. What you need to do is go by, drive by and walk by, at different times of the day. If your custom banners are hung above your business, they may look great in the morning but then during the afternoon rush hour are made invisible by the sun. What you need to do is take the time to look at your sign at various times during the day to make sure people can read it all of the time.
- Simplicity is your friend. You may have a great story for your brand that you want to tell. There are places to promote that message but your signs should not be used for that purpose. You need your messages to mirror or complement the messages you have on your other materials but you also need to use as few words as possible. You need to put only the information that is absolutely needed in your signs.
- Lose the fancy fonts. A lot of people think fancy, frilly fonts are fun. They are fun. They are also incredibly hard to read from any distance. Your best bet is to use simple, sans-serif fonts such as Arial or Tahoma. You should also stick to one or two fonts for your sign. At the end of the day, it is much more important that people be able to read your signs. How pretty they look is not going to get people in your door if they cannot read your signs.
- Go big or go home. In the same way that you need to use fonts that are easy to read, you need to make the font large enough to read. This is another reason that you should keep your message simple. If you have a paragraph of text, there is no way you can keep it large. People will only spend seconds on your sign so the ability to read it and understand your message almost immediately will make it more impactful. You also need to invest in a sign that is a decent size. For the signs in your business, life size posters work well. For the signs outside, you need to go bigger.
- Use quality graphics. There are a lot of free graphics out there on the internet. These are not always the best quality and you need to invest in decent quality images for your signs. It has been estimated that more than 70% of people will judge the quality of a business based on the quality of their signs. If you do not pay attention to the quality of the graphics and images, you will be doing yourself more harm than good.
- Be careful with color. If you have a logo with certain colors, your sign does not have to only use those colors but you should pick colors that do not work against your logo colors. They should also contrast with each other but not look terrible together. The right colors can go a long way towards making your sign look great.
Many people rely on signs at businesses to find what they are looking for. From creating inviting life size posters to creating eye-catching banners, good signs can really improve your bottom line.
