How Small Retailers Can Benefit From a Custom Business Sign

Small retail stores face a lot of competition from bigger retailers as well as online stores. Instore and online shoppers never tire of browsing through beautiful displays and reading informative product descriptions. But in order to build a retail business, store owners need to be creative in how they set up their storage space and attract customers who are browsing for products that may even be cheaper at big retailers. 

One way to do so is by creating custom business signs, which can include images or logos that reflect the style and personality of their small businesses. Business signs serve the purpose of making an impression on shoppers and act as a way to grab their attention. In this blog post, we introduce some tips to help small retailers create custom business signs that will boost their sales through the help of a custom sign company or by themselves.

1. Create a Theme for Your Business

A theme makes it easier for customers to find your store among other similar businesses. For example, if you own a pet store that sells dog food and accessories, you could create a dog/pet-related theme with your business name as the title and have images or logos of dogs or cats on your business sign. It would be appropriate for you to display pictures of your products on the sign.

2. Create a Memorable Design

You can create a memorable design for your business sign using any graphics program, but the important thing is to make your business sign stand out among others in the same industry. You will be surprised at how creative you can get in making an unforgettable image or logo that portrays your personality and style as a retailer.

3. Promote Your Business With a Catchy Slogan

You can create an effective, eye-catching, and memorable slogan to promote your store by using a combination of words and images or an acronym. It should sound pleasant to customers and be easy to remember as well. For example, if you own a pet store that sells dog food and accessories, you could create a catchy slogan such as "All Dogs Go To Heaven."

4. Encourage Repeat Business With Discounts

Small retailers can encourage repeat business with promotional discount offers that are exclusive to their customers. Examples include 10% off your first purchase or an additional 10% off if you purchase more than one product. Customers love getting such offers as it makes them feel special and valued, and they will most likely become loyal customers in the future.

5. Encourage Customers to Post on Social Media With Attractive Discount Offers

Customers will return if they develop an emotional bond with you and your products. Use social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram to promote discounts. Show off a carefully selected selection of your best products and make them irresistible to shoppers who love shopping for more than one product at a time.

6. Promote Your Business at Trade Shows

A well-designed business sign will attract customers to your store, but you can also increase the number of customers that come into your store by exhibiting at trade shows. It is an effective way of reaching out to a large number of potential customers who are looking for products and services that you offer.

7. Create a Fun and Unique Design

Many small retailers can benefit from attending business seminars or workshops on retail business. There are many useful and innovative ideas to help retailers attract customers and increase sales. For example, you can create a unique collection of products for sale, such as pet toys, clothes, accessories, and food that have a cute appeal to them. Don't forget to display them in your store with cute business signs that reflect their fun appeal.

What Are the Most Cost-Effective Signage Ideas?

There are many custom business signs that can be added to your store, so if you have a limited budget, here are five ideas to help you save more money.

1. A-Frame Signs

A-frame signs are convenient and cost-efficient signs for small retailers. They could be placed in both indoor and outdoor areas of your store, and the biggest benefit is that they are easy to make. They can be made from cardboard or plywood, which is enough to attract customers to your business.

2. Monument Signs

If you have a building that has a large space, you could install a monument sign. It is customizable, and it has the potential to attract customers because most of them like grand and impressive signs. For example, if you are selling flowers, it makes sense to create an attractive shape of a bouquet with blooming flowers on your business sign.

3. Bar Signs

For retailers that sell alcohol, there is an appealing way to encourage repeat business with bar signs. It can be made from wood or metal, and it is easy to display as it is placed on a counter. It will encourage customers who are shopping for food and drinks to visit your store.

4. Wall Murals, Prints, and Graphics Materials

Many small retailers can apply graphics materials such as wallpaper, prints, and posters that look like natural scenery to their stores. Customers will get excited if they see a beautiful, realistic image or logo on their business sign. It will encourage repeat customers and reinforce the brand or personal message you stand for.

5. Mobile Signage

A mobile sign is a billboard that is parked in front of your business with the name of your store and contact details printed on it. It is an effective way of promoting your business on a budget, especially if you have a small or large parking lot. All you need is to rent a truck and a trailer to set it up for your customers.

6. Changeable Letter Signs

A changeable letter sign is made from materials such as plastic or metal, and it is easy to carry from one location to another. It can be posted in front of your store, or it can be rotated with different business names on your store for an effective sign that promotes repeat business.

Conclusion

Now that you know what kind of business signs to use, there is only one important question left: How much will it cost you? Well, small retailers rarely pay thousands of dollars to a custom sign company for their custom-made business signs because there are many cost-effective and convenient ways to advertise their businesses. If you follow the tips we discussed in this article, your business will definitely benefit from more traffic and sales from repeat customers. 

If you need a custom business sign, contact our team here at Midtown Signs today! We would be happy to discuss the cost with you and get you a quote right away. 

The Types of Outdoor Business Signs That Can Help Your Company Stand Out

Visibility is crucial for succeeding with any kind of brick-and-mortar store. Outdoor business signs are an excellent means of making your existence known to possible customers. They also help direct people who already intend to do business with you right to your doorstep.

Making an Effective Outdoor Business Sign

When you buy an outdoor business sign, you are making a big investment. Outdoor business signs can range from $1k - $10k or more. So before you spend your money on such an expensive and essential marketing item for your store, it’s vital to know what it takes to create such an amazing piece of ingenuity that’ll bring people to your front door.

The Right Wording

Keep the word count limited. The best outdoor business signs will clearly represent the image and name of your store in only a few words. And according to advice from Intuit, your business sign should contain no more than 7 words. Therefore, it’s perfectly fine (and probably even preferable) to have less than 7 words. However, you should not have more than 7 words if you want to have optimal results.

The Key Message Only

It’s difficult to elaborate on all the things you’d like to mention about your store in just 7 words or less. But, with your outdoor business sign, all that needs to happen is to let possible customers know the location of your business and guide them into the door. Those few words on your sign only need to inform them what they absolutely need to know before going into your store. Some of the types of information you may consider including on the sign are:

• Call to action

• Company name (mandatory)

• Slogan

• Address

• Twitter handle

• Website URL

Write It for People on the Move

Don’t forget that folks will most likely be reading your outdoor business signs when they’re in a moving vehicle. According to the US Small Business Administration, your sign should be readable even for people “whizzing by in a car going 45 miles an hour.” This is why, therefore, you’ll want to limit the information on your sign as much as possible. After all, why risk losing customers by including unnecessary information that would possibly prevent them from reading the most important parts (like your company name)?

Make It Consistent With Your Brand

Outdoor business signs should reinforce the brand of the business. This means linking the appearance of your signs with that of all your communication and promotional elements, including advertising. So, your logo and other marketing items should stay consistent as well.

Consider the Font

Going off of brand consistency, you should stick with the same font in your signage logo. However, this is only true if your lettering style is a readable typeface from afar. If not, then pick an alternative font that’s as close as possible to your logo but will also look good in a larger format. Some good choices for commercial signs are Future, Bodoni, Helvetica, Grammond, and Frutiger. Also, we here at Midtown Signs suggest not using more than 2 fonts in one sign.

Capitalization

For most people, signs in all capital letters are actually harder to read than signs that have a good mix of lowercase and uppercase letters. Therefore, stick with the title case for your sign’s content.

Color Contrast

While it’s important that your colors remain consistent with your other branding and marketing efforts, they should also be readable. So, using contrast is a smart idea. Consider the fact that green on blue isn’t readable, but yellow on black, for example, is a lot more visible. The combination with the highest contrast and the greatest visibility is black and white. Additionally, it does not matter whether you go with black lettering on a white background or vice versa.

The Focal Point

You should establish a focal point on your signage, putting the essential information in a place that will captivate and hold people's attention. Keep in mind that people usually read from left to right and top to bottom. Therefore, you should normally place the focal point around the upper left of the signage.

Outdoor Business Sign Examples

Getting your message across to potential customers is the key to business success. Using outdoor business signs effectively has a key role in that because you’ll be able to attract a live audience. Professional outdoor business signs can put your brand and promotions on display 24/7.

Choosing the right kind of sign demands strategy, planning, and some additional insight. To that end, here are a few of the best outdoor business sign ideas for you to get ideas and inspiration from.

3D Signs

These make excellent outdoor business signs, and you can get a lot of ideas and inspiration from them. That’s why they are popular with nearly every kind of business enterprise. They provide lots of creative potential for bringing amazing sign ideas to life. There are tons of options for dimensions, fonts, shapes, and colors. Your goal should be to bring your exterior and interior image into harmony while remaining true to your brand image. With that being said, do not worry about personalizing your ideas on outdoor business signs.

Illuminated Signs

Create additional visibility for your branding plan and allow your outdoor business signs to keep advertising night and day! Signs that are lit up will allow your written messages to reach a larger audience. This kind of custom sign also lets you choose among free-form style options. Also, if you choose a sign that can glow during the night, then the power of your branding message will double!

Channel Letters

This one is very cool. It’s an illuminating outdoor branding feature that can be placed right on the wall or on a backing panel. This idea is commonly incorporated into commercial building signage. They create more depth with their 3d look that’s accentuated further with appropriate lighting. These can also be combined with other commercial signage-related ideas (illumination optional).

6 Ways Commercial Signage Increase Your ROI

Still worried about your ROI? We have good news. We are here to provide signage trends that you will need to always be on top of your game, increasing your Return of Investment just before this year ends.

1.) Attracting Customers

First off, you will need to know how to attract your customers. But how, you may ask? You become overwhelmed as the opening day slowly comes. The sign you have put up turns heads, glancing at your store as they see something new is up in town. These potential customers passing by come to a halt to check out what is up and then proceed to walk into your newly established business store.

The graphics and aesthetic of your signage have caught their eye. As they continued looking around the place, you knew your store had piqued their interest. They suddenly want to avail your products. How has it come to this point? They might not even need your products and services in the first place.

Consumers are reported to be attracted to stores because of their signages. In addition, the commercial signs and graphics used in business signage attract potential customers into buying products. The increase in new sales will be a great pleasure the next year when you discuss signage upgrades.

2.) Building Brand Awareness

Second, you need to build awareness of the brand you have. You suddenly think again of how you will be able to get people to walk by the store. It doesn’t matter how high quality your signage is if nobody can even see it. Do not worry. You are thinking the right way.

This is where you put yourself out in the market as you slowly build your name, especially on social media. It is important to know your voice, brand, and the audience you want to reach. This makes your success rate much higher than before.

Building a brand is important as this is where you will express your business’ personality. When you finally know your brand’s voice, you need to stay consistent with it as it is what you will use to speak to your audience; potential customers and patrons alike. People buy from people they like and people they think are like them. So get yourself out there and show your business’ presence!

What now? You have incoming and repeat customers availing of your services. But what do they think about your products and services? 

3.) Listening to Feedback

This is where we go to the third step. You need to receive the feedback of your customers. The first two steps may take a while to be properly done, but as soon as you succeed in them both, you finally meet face-to-face customer feedback. Of course, you feel nervous, but that is alright.

It is important to keep in mind that every customer that walks in and out of the store is a different individual with their own opinion. Don’t hesitate to listen to them! People love being heard. Feedback always helps the business become much better than it was before.

You can ask your customers directly too. Is there anything we should improve in our products and services? How do we get better in aspects like this and that?

The tip above is great if you have a physical store, as you can have direct conversations with customers. But what if your business is mostly done over the internet? Send out customer surveys for them to fill in! It’s also important to interact with the customers themselves. Their feedback is necessary to help build and maintain your business.

4.) Setting Goals and Expectations

As you finally get to receive your customers’ feedback, you need to set goals to keep your business stable and running. This is where the fourth step, setting consistent expectations, comes in.

You have already exceeded your customers’ expectations, but it is necessary to keep consistency throughout your business. Although a customer or two may have given you positive feedback about your products, you know you cannot let them down! Perhaps another customer was not very happy about the services they received. Take this as a lesson to resolve the problem and offer better services to keep your customers coming back to your store.

Although your commercial signs and graphics have been getting the attention of various people as they turn into potential customers, you also still need to be consistent with branding. 

5.) Location and Brand Design

There are also other important factors that you need to remember before you proceed to the next step: location and properly researching your chosen market. 

This provides interconnection between the products and services your business offers. But how about the business design? This is the part where you use your brand image. Your brand image is one of the most practical ways to implement the design you want your brand to be remembered by. 

Your design is something that speaks of your company’s name and products. It not only describes your products, but it draws more attention to your potential customers. Your brand, colors, font, message, and voice are a representation of the personality you want your business to have. Even your packaging helps accelerate the growth of your ROI.

6.) Increase ROI

You have finally made it this far. Congratulations! This is where you finally experience the increase in your sales. An increase in ROI means an increase in the bottom line. We, of course, want every tip we can find to help us during the process. Unfortunately, there is no magic you can use to increase your sales overnight suddenly. The tips we have given above all impact your business daily and tend to get overlooked by most small businesses! Too often, we do not even have enough time to think through every aspect of business that boosts sales.