What Is Signage Marketing & Why Should You Use It
You have most likely come across giant billboards bearing messages about a company or even seen a storefront sign talking about the store’s products and services.
These are examples of signage marketing in the business world today. Signage marketing is a prevalent marketing technique businesses implement to improve brand awareness and make better sales by targeting their audience.
Are you a business owner wondering if you should integrate signage marketing into your marketing campaign? Below, we have noted everything you need to know about signage marketing and why you should use it.
What Is Signage Marketing?
Before the emergence of signage, the prevalent mode of business advertisement was word of mouth. People who knew about a business told those who didn't, thereby circulating business information that improved awareness and created a bigger community of customers.
However, as the world progressed and civilization encroached on more significant percentages of the planet, businesses expanded and word of mouth was not enough to get the word out- pun intended- about businesses. It was time to find something more effective and efficient, cue in signage marketing.
As its name suggests, signage marketing uses signs to market one’s business. A more detailed explanation of what signage marketing is is that signage marketing is the use of artistic to communicate messages about a brand to the audience, who are the people who see the signs.
Signs are everywhere today. On the highways, in front of stores, or on the road, we run into signs as frequently as we see vehicles on the street. Signage marketing has taken the business world by storm because of the tremendous benefits it yields for businesses today.
These signs make it easier to inform the audience, instruct them, convince them of a need, influence their point of view, and direct them. Signage makes it easier for business brands today to be seen. By using imposing sign boards with engaging content, businesses can draw and retain the attention of their target audience.
Signage marketing is more compelling than many other marketing techniques. It makes it easier to manipulate an audience’s emotions and needs when used correctly. But why is this so?
To start with, humans process visual data better. In fact, about 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual. The human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text. Our thoughts, emotions, and ideas can be affected by simply looking at pictures.
Signage marketing takes advantage of this by using a mixture of texts and pictures to communicate to the human subconscious. This way, signs are appealing and yield more effect on the audience than word of mouth does. Food companies use specific colors and pictorial representations to communicate with the audience.
When the audience sees the sign with an imprint of food pictures, they undoubtedly think about how good the food looks and how delicious it will taste. To take it a step further, imagine if the sign announces a discount on the food product displayed.
Before they saw the sign, the audience had no reason to purchase food from that business. However, upon seeing the signage displayed, the audience is convinced that it needs the food.
Essentially, signage marketing often comprises a purpose, graphical representation, texts for communication, and target audience. They can be anything from murals to posters, banners, billboards, flyers, and digital signs.
Why You Should Use Signage Marketing
Signage is a multi-purpose and versatile tool that comes in handy in many business operations. It offers many benefits that can be harnessed to scale up any business. Some reasons you should use signage include:
1. Cost-Effectiveness
Signage marketing is one of the most effective types of marketing any business can indulge in. It is a cost-effective advert strategy that can help companies maximize profits while minimizing costs. Signs require a small investment to be produced.
For a small fee that does not make a dent in a company’s bank, signs can be designed, produced, and installed. With other means of advertisement, such as TV or radio adverts, the capital to create the content can be extremely expensive. Additionally, this content can only be aired for a short period. The longer the content is broadcast, the more amount is required.
Although other marketing forms are short-lived, signage marketing lasts longer and enables companies to reach their target audience for a more extended period. More importantly, creating a sign is a one-time investment until you deem it fit to be renewed.
Signs are also more affordable to design and implement than other marketing forms. They are an easy way to reach out to your target audience, increase brand awareness, and improve brand visibility on a budget.
Essentially, if you are trying to save money while also working on your business, signage marketing is one of the best ways to do so.
2. Attract Customers
According to a survey by FedEx, Nearly 60 percent of consumers said that the absence of signs deters them from entering a store or business. This survey is one of many that prove the importance of signage marketing in small and large businesses.
The attraction power of signage, whether traditional or digital, can be compared to none. Signs can grab attention and, with the right content, retain this attention so that even out of the audience’s sight, it remains at their mind’s forefront.
Attractive signage has the power to get businesses moving. It attracts clients to the establishment, thereby initiating the first step in the purchase funnel so that the business can make more money in the long run.
By installing or placing signs in strategic locations with high traffic and football, you have a higher chance of introducing your brand to your target audience than you will by doing so with word of mouth.
With signs in the right places, people will see your business message and become interested in what your business has to offer. This is undoubtedly one of the most effective methods of generating new leads by reaching new people interested in your product or services. More leads mean a higher chance of increasing your business revenue and scaling up your business.
3. Communicates Brand Identity
Potential customers have no idea what your brand character and identity are until you tell them. What better way to do so than with self-explanatory signs that do all necessary communication?
Signs are not only visually–appealing aesthetics meant for audience appraisal, but they also communicate messages. These messages may be events, such as announcements of events, discounts, and whatnot, or made more detailed to convey brand identity.
Although your business's signs are specially curated for advertisement purposes, they do a great job telling potential clients what to expect from your brand. Every detail, from the fonts used to the text colors, text placement, and background colors, can make or break your relationship with your potential clients.
More importantly, signage consistency makes it easier for clients to identify your brand wherever they see your signage quickly. For example, you can almost immediately spot a Coca-cola signage because their signs communicate consistency with every unique message.
Using signage to communicate your brand story, identity, and character is a great way to build the brand experience. It makes it easier for potential clients to be familiar with your brand, thereby offering them a little sense of security or trust that will benefit your business and the client.
By using signage to convey your brand vision and deity, you make it easier to convince potential clients to purchase your goods and services. At first glance, using signage to communicate brand character might not seem like an excellent way to make
4. Promote Products And Services With Ease
Who says signs are only good for directing potential customers to your business doors? Signs are so versatile that they can be used for a wide range of things, product and service displays included.
It does not matter if it is inside or outside, signage advertisement is the best way to promote your business’s products and services. By combining pictures, graphical representations, texts, and colors, you can use visuals to compel or convince potential customers that they need the product or service displayed.
Outside your store or business building, your potential clients probably don't know what products or services you sell. They will continue to have no idea until they set foot in your establishment. However, with signage marketing, you can introduce potential clients to your products and services, even before they visit your establishment.
The more people see your product and services, the more people are convinced to make a purchase or two. The more purchases your potential clients make, the more revenue your business earns.
Inside an establishment, signage marketing is an excellent way to encourage impulse purchases. By displaying your products using attractive signage, you can get people to make unplanned purchases influenced wholly by the presence of signage and the fact that your signage looks good.
5. Increase Impulse Sale Opportunities
Sometimes, people who visit a store already know what they need and are determined to shop by this list. Other times, people do not know for sure what they need and will only shop as they go. In both situations, how do you convince these people to buy what they didn't realize they needed?
Every one of us had gone to a store and ended up buying what we didn't realize we wanted to buy in the first place. This might be because the product caught our eyes on the shelf. It can be because of something an employee said. Or it is most likely because we saw the product displayed beautifully on a digital sign.
Digital signage affects customer shopping behavior. It is known to increase impulse purchases by increasing the likelihood of a client purchasing a product. By using digital signage to display certain products at strategic places (like a point-of-sale counter), businesses can draw attention to these products, planting a seed of fear of missing out in the client’s mind.
Displaying best-selling or seasonal products makes it easier to up-sell and cross-sell via impulse purchases. This, in turn, works wonders at increasing sales revenue.
6. Easier Communication
Without signage, businesses will be left with no option but to resort to other marketing means. These means may range from newspapers to television and even word-of-mouth. Although those serve their purpose, they are still considered inefficient compared to the power of signage marketing.
Signage makes it easier to communicate with potential clients. It increases brand visibility, helping people become more aware of a brand and its products or services.
By using static or dynamic imagery (in the case of digital signage), businesses can attract and hold attention in a way that many other marketing techniques can not. By drawing the audience’s attention to their signage, a company can easily and quickly get the audience to notice the message on the sign.
This makes signage marketing a great medium to reinforce a company’s message, promote business deals, or simply convey specific information to the audience.
7. Offers Competitive Advantage
Today, businesses adopt any strategy to help them make more sales while staying above the competition. Although there are various ways they do this, one of the most common is digital signage.
Not all businesses have discovered the potential that using signage marketing offers. As a result, those businesses that adopt this ingenious marketing method tend to stand out from their competition.
But why does this happen? It is not surprising that people tend to remember businesses from their signs. Signage, especially digital signage, comes with a high recall rate so that people not only see the signs but also remember the message being passed even when the sign is out of sight.
Optimizing Signage Marketing With Loop TV
Signage marketing has grown increasingly popular, and for great reasons too. An innovative marketing technique, signage marketing makes it easier to connect with potential customers and increase business revenue in the long run.
However, to do these, you need an efficient digital signage solution. Loop TV allows businesses to create whatever digital signage marketing content they need. With free digital signage solutions, free digital signage features, and a free media player for you, Loop TV helps you optimize your signage marketing.
For your free media player, sign up on the Loop TV official website (for free, of course).