Visual branding has become more important than any other time in history. Forbes Magazine approximated there were around 27 million small businesses operating in 2015.
Custom signage is one of the most obvious forms of visual branding available to business owners. Finding a great sign maker helps a brand stand out from the competition on High Street.
Custom signs can transmit a brand’s identity with colorful designs and striking typography. This helps consumers connect with and relate to a brand.
65% of consumers claim to emotionally connect with a brand when they “care about people like me.” Visual branding is how companies create those emotional connections with their audience.
Let’s look at some of the perks of custom signage and how they can help build a brand.
Benefits Of Custom Signage
Custom signs are some of the most cost-effective and efficient tools available for a brand.
Customs signs help a business:
- Attracts New Customers
- Increases Profits
- Encourages Drop-In Shopping
Custom Signage Attracts New Customers
50% of consumers report regularly finding out about a new business via an on-site sign. 35% of consumers say they wouldn’t know a business was there without a sign.
Word-of-mouth recommendations are responsible for 33% of new customer awareness, by way of comparison. Sign makers in London are a more effective marketer than a customer’s friends and family in that city!
Signs Increase Profit
In fast food, a monument sign increases revenue by 9.3%. That increases to 15.6% if it’s mounted on a large pole.
In the retail sector, a large pole sign increases revenue by 8.6%. Adding two new directional custom signs increases revenue by 8.9%. Replacing a storefront wall sign with a larger sign increases sales by 7.9%.
Encourages Drop-In Shopping
85% of a company’s customers live within a 5-mile radius of the business. Considering that 17% of Best Buy’s foot traffic comes from seeing the company’s sign, not displaying a sign prominently would be a mistake. That’s like passing up on 1 out of every 5 customers!
Custom signs are responsible for 35% of local customers being aware of a business. This is especially important for new businesses that are still building their loyal customer base.
Word-of-mouth recommendations alert 14% of consumers to new businesses. Custom signs are nearly three times more effective than word-of-mouth recommendations.
5 Tips For Finding The Best Custom Signs
Follow these five pointers to make the most of visual branding.
Decide On A Function
Different signage fulfills different functions. An exterior sign mainly attracts passer-bys and helps a business stand out on the street.
Interior signs deliver information to customers and point out special sales. Both have their individual design rules to best fulfill their function. Deciding on a sign’s function ahead of time allows a brand to customize their visual branding for specific tasks and goals.
Decide On A Location
One of the biggest benefits of custom signage is the ability to personalize visual branding for the specific location and business needs. Deciding where signage will go before ordering custom signs makes it easy to decide on exact measures, colors, and fonts for the specific location.
The location need not be on-premises, either. Custom signs can be used for street advertising like billboards or flyers to be placed around town. Magnetic vehicle decals and wall murals are some other examples of how custom signs can play a role in a more extensive branding campaign.
Check Out Local Searches
Every geographic region has its own peculiarities and idiosyncrasies. Doing a quick local search helps brand owners learn those quirks and avoid potential missteps. In London, city center would be spelled ‘city centre,’ for example. Little missteps like this spell out ‘generic content.’
Seeing as how 78% of consumers believe brands that create custom content are more trustworthy, a quick local search could spare a brand owner a lot of missed business opportunities.
Investigate The Competition
Browsing through business listings like ‘Printing Services – Retail‘ is a quick way to see what others in a brand’s niche or industry are up to. It’s an easy way to generate ideas for excellent visual branding.
It’s also an easy way to avoid generic visual branding. This helps establish a brand identity and reinforces a brand’s identity and unique value proposition.
Social media is another invaluable way to investigate the competition in an industry or niche. Start out with a simple #CustomSigns search on Twitter to see all of the thought leaders in a particular industry.
Social media search is also an effective way to see how their marketing is being received. Pay attention to the Likes and Retweets on a particular post and reverse-engineer to adopt their best practices into new custom branding campaigns.
Take Advantage Of Colors, Fonts, And Images
Customers are 80% more likely to recognize a brand due to its color. Colors immediately convey a brand identity. Think of Starbuck’s iconic green logo or Coca-Cola’s consistent use of the color red for their visual branding.
Colorful custom signs also allow a business or brand to take advantage of trending colors. Pantone’s annual ‘Color Of The Year‘ is an essential tool for designers and marketers looking to make a business relevant and timely.
Great design needs to be timeless to be truly effective, however. Be careful using trending colors as they are constantly shifting.
Investing too extensively in a flavor-of-the-month will mean having to redo branding in a year or two. This could lose the brand recognition and customer loyalty of the previous visual identity.
Custom signs are shown to be some of the most cost-effective forms of visual branding. Digital marketing is reaching a saturation point. Customers are leaving virtual spaces in favor of real-life experiences.
A lot of marketers have been focusing solely on online promotion in the last decade. Custom signs and print media, in general, are often overlooked in this digital world. This creates a vacuum for brands to step in with compelling, colorful, creative visual branding to capture the hearts and minds of their customers.
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