When you’re deciding what type of signage would best fit your business, there are a number of factors to take into consideration. The right exterior sign for your business or shop is one that fits well with your brand and that maximizes the number of potential customers or clients who will see it. In this post, we’ll talk about the three questions business owners should ask themselves before committing to one particular type of exterior sign.
What sign works best for my brand?
Consider two different businesses: one of them is a gift shop, and the other is a fuel delivery service. The signage that works for one probably won’t be a good fit for the other!
Carved signs, awnings, and dimensional letters may be a better fit for the gift shop’s brand and the image its owner wants to project to customers. Carved signs, made of durable, high-density urethane that resembles the look of wood, lend rustic charm to any storefront. Awnings are decorative and functional, getting your brand out to customers, providing them with a landmark, and protecting them from harsh sun and rain! Dimensional letters, which are three-dimensional letters mounted to your building, serve as a bold marker, with crisp, clean lines that use light and shadow to communicate with potential customers.
Meanwhile, the fuel delivery service may prefer a pylon sign or an LED monument sign. These two signs make the fuel delivery company readily identifiable by customers, employees, and business-to-business merchants, and the LED sign broadcasts fuel prices, messages with fuel safety information, and reminders to purchase fuel before seasonal price increases.
What sign works best for my location?
Your business’ location determines whether your clientele mostly consists of foot traffic or people driving in. The type of sign you need is determined by whether your sign needs to reach pedestrians or drivers.
Locations on city streets must often follow regulations about space and lighting. Business owners in downtown areas or historical areas may be unable to use self-illuminating signs like cabinet signs or channel letters, and monument or pylon signs may not be possible in the city due to space constraints. However, dimensional letters can take advantage of the lighting that is present on city streets. Dimensional letters placed on your building work well with spotlights, casting shadows that ensure that your business’ exterior has a bold but classy appearance that will reach customers even at night.
Attracting Foot Traffic
Many businesses based in strip malls use lighted cabinet signs or channel letters. Sign cabinets, also known as box signs, are a great way to associate your business’ logo with your physical location as they are able to display complex graphics. Unlike uniform sign cabinets, channel letters are individual lighted letters. They similarly ensure that your business stands out from the locations around it, getting you noticed and bringing in customers on foot or in cars.
Attracting Car Traffic
Standalone locations often need to draw in people traveling on highways or streets. Tall pylon signs expand your business’ presence onto busy highways, making you visible to high-speed traffic. While they sit lower to the ground, monument signs ensure that people on roadways can find your location, and they provide information about your business to the people who frequent your street whether by car or foot. Both pylon signs and monuments can take advantage of illumination for visibility as well as LED displays, which can be updated with relevant information and send personalized messages to your community.
What sign works best for my hours of operation?
Your business’ hours of operation are the last major factor that you need to consider when choosing your sign. Businesses that operate only during the day may opt for non-illuminated signage, but businesses that have evening hours often depend on their signs’ ability to reach customers at night.
Carved signs, awnings, and dimensional lettering all work well for businesses only open during normal business hours. These types of signs are often a good fit with the image of downtown areas or upscale shopping districts. However, even if your business closes at five o’clock sharp, you may wish to keep these signs illuminated with a small spotlight so that your sign and therefore your business are memorable to customers who come across your location on an evening out (or in the winter when the sun sets especially early).
Illuminated signs are vital to the life of a business that operates at night. Illuminated pylon signs broadcast your presence to people even when they are on a highway or far down your street. Sign cabinets and channel letters also provide visibility while guiding customers to your storefront.
Match your sign to your business
The three questions we’ve covered here provide some good guidelines for business owners to follow. Every business is unique, and every business needs multiple types of signage, so it’s likely that a combination of the types of signs we’ve described here will work best for your shop or service. Plus, we haven’t even discussed the interior signs you’ll need! You have lots of choices, but if you ask yourself these three questions when matching your business with your signage, narrowing down the options becomes easier.
