Posted On 21 May, 1969 By admin On Blog
Visibility is an important key to success for any bricks and mortar business. Outdoor signs are a great way to make your presence known to potential customers, and to direct those who already want to do business with your company directly to your door.
Tips for Effective Outdoor Signs
Purchasing an outdoor sign for your business is a significant investment. According to CostHelper.com, "an outdoor sign can easily run $1,000-$10,000 or more." Before placing an order for such an important - and costly - marketing tool for your business, it's important to understand what goes into creating an awesome outdoor business sign that will get people in your front door.
Wording Tips
- Limited word count: Effective signs are those that clearly convey the name and image of the business in just a few words. According to Intuit, a business sign should have no more than seven words. It is fine - maybe even preferable - to have fewer than seven words, but you should not go beyond that number on an outdoor sign for the best results.
- Essential information only: It's hard to say everything you want to say about your business in seven words or less - but the good news is that all your sign needs to do is let potential customers know where your company is and bring them in the door. The few words on your sign should convey only what customers need to know before actually entering your business. According to McNamara Signs, examples of the types of information you may want to include are:
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- Company name (this is a must)
- Phone number
- Address
- Website URL
- Twitter handle
- Slogan
- Call to action
- Write for a moving target: Don't lose sight of the fact that people will likely be reading your company's sign from a moving vehicle. As an article on The Sign Place's blog points out, "they will need to see and read your outdoor signage without difficulty." This is an important reason why you should keep the information on your outdoor signage to a minimum. You wouldn't want to lose customers because they were so busy trying to read other information that they didn't see your company's name.
Design Tips
- Brand consistency: Your outdoor signage should reinforce your company's brand identity. Forte, a newsletter for small businesses produced by InConcert Financial Group, states, "Where possible, link the look of your signs to all your other promotional and communications elements, including advertising." This includes maintaining consistency with your logo and other marketing materials.
- Font considerations: The need for brand consistency suggest that you should use the same font in your logo in your signage, but this holds true only if the lettering style is a typeface that will be highly readable when used on a business sign. If this is not the case, choose a font that is close as possible to your logo that will also translate well in a larger format. According to CaptivatingSigns.com, the best fonts for commercial signs include Helvetica, Verdana, Futura, Grammond and Bodoni. CommerceColor.com also advises to avoid using more than two fonts on a sign.
- Capitalization: McNamara Signs indicates that signs done in all capital leaders are more difficult for people to read than those that include an appropriate mix of uppercase and lowercase letters. For this reason, use title case for the content of your sign.
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