What You Need to Know about Business Signs and Branding
How Business Signs Can Help or Hurt Your Branding
Brand consistency is a crucial part of any business plan. Your business signs can help or hurt your branding efforts, which are crucial to attracting and keeping customers.
Imagine you see a business on Facebook or another social media platform called Luigi’s Brick Oven Pizza. The image on the page has a logo of a pizza chef spinning a pizza in the air, and it uses red and green colors. Later in the week, you happen to drive by a restaurant called Brick Oven and you see a worn down sign that is blue and red with the business name on it. That delicious pizza place you had hoped to eat at with your family on the weekend suddenly wasn’t as appetizing.
You wouldn’t want to bring your family to this place that looked unkempt and dated. Inside, the pizzeria had been renovated and was a great place for families to dine, but because the online branding set your expectations and the business sign failed to match the superior quality, you never entered.
For many businesses, this is a common problem. Consistent branding helps consumers identify your business and delivers the message of your business, preventing any confusion or unintentional false advertising. As a business owner, you should always ensure that your business signs, online presence (whether on a website or social media), and print materials (such as flyers or newspaper ads) all match so that potential customers can recognize your business, gage the quality of your products and services, and be enticed to visit.
Here’s how you can use business signs to help your branding.
How Business Signs Improve Branding
It’s clear that poor signage will deter customers from entering your business and may cause them to easily forget about your business. On the other hand, a well designed sign that matches your the branding you’ve established for your business will further enhance the branding and make customers want to visit your location.
Make a Great First Impression
Many times, a potential customer’s first impression comes from seeing your signage. An eye-catching design on a well-maintained sign will form a positive impression on passersby. Because outdoor signs ultimately determine if someone chooses to enter or pass by your business, it is extremely important for them to showcase your business in the best light and effectively convey what your business is about. In the pizzeria example, the outdoor sign lacked imagery, the colors didn’t represent the offerings, and it didn’t tell the customer what the business was about.
Encourage Brand Recognition
When you have consistent branding from your signs to your ads and online presence, you develop brand recognition. When someone walks by your business, they see your sign and remember that imagery. Then they’ll see it again online or in a newspaper. They may even hear a friend recommend your business or see your business sponsoring a local event. With the same imagery and text being displayed on all of these platforms, the customer begins to recognize your brand and it sticks in their head, making them more likely to stop in.
Develop Your Reputation
An aesthetically pleasing sign will give your business a reputation of professional and authority. When you use your business signs to brand yourself as a clean, experienced, and attractive, potential customers will associate those qualities with your products and services, which develops a positive reputation for your company.
