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).