Strategic placement of signage can prove to be a thorny issue for businesses – despite designing and eventually spending money on a sign, many don’t actually consider the impact positioning the sign might have on both their customers and passers-by. Even if a space for the sign has been chosen, improper thought is considered for where the sign could be even more effective.

An effectively placed sign should be immediately noticeable, clear and interesting to look at, however achieving this is no easy feat. There are several things to consider when placing your sign to ensure that maximum success is had with consumers – in this blog, we cover two of the most important factors to consider.

Sign elevation

Although it may be stating the obvious, sign size should always be relative to the height at which the sign is placed. For instance, a small sign if placed high up would be visible, but the text itself may not be legible for passers-by. As such, it is recommended that these signs are instead placed at eye level if possible. Large signs are highly effective when placed at a higher level, as this allows for many people to witness it at once, which in turns allows for the biggest customer contact at any one time.

A great example is a roadside business – a sign that is placed high gives a driver ample opportunity to see it long before they can even see the business itself. If this sign is placed too low, drivers aren’t given fair warning and might just keep on driving.

Consider your environment

Although you might have chosen the perfect elevation to suit your sign, if the sign is to be placed outside, there are environmental factors to consider. Elemental interference such as rain and intense sun can work to fade away your sign in time, which can result in a highly unprofessional looking sign (even if the original looked great!) – to combat this, it’s important to choose a sign that can withstand fading. Similarly, choosing the wrong material is a terrible idea. Although a paper sign might be cheap, if it inevitably gets destroyed by rain it’s hardly a good investment!

It’s also a great idea to avoid a glossy sign if your sign will be in a position where it may catch sun, as the reflection may make it problematic to read.

Find out more about sign placement

If you’d like some more hints and tips to help ensure your sign is placed perfectly, make sure to get in touch with the friendly team at Stick on Signs today.

Applying signs to vehicles is an incredibly useful way to advertise. Whether it be a car, truck, or even a boat, bringing your brand on the road is an easy way to be seen and get people to easily see your brand.

Even when your vehicle is off the road, it will still be able to advertise. Your car will be helping you out 24 hours a day, rain or shine.

Saving you money by keeping your billboard on the move

Billboards are expensive. There’s no doubt about it. Although many individuals would enjoy having their business emblazoned on a billboard towering over a highly-trafficked area in the CBD, the costs would simply be too prohibitive.

Vehicle signage, on the other hand, is an easy and affordable way to get seen wherever you go. By displaying a clever logo and prominent contact information, you’ll be able to attract attention very quickly and easily.

There’s no reason to cover your whole vehicle in signage if you don’t want to – approaches to vehicle signage can be as personal and specific as a business owner desires. It is not necessary for a boutique caterer to have their kitchen business displayed in thick comic sans signage on their European van, as a child day-care wouldn’t want their business to appear in delicate italics.

Be seen around town

This is particularly effective if you own a fleet of vehicles. If you utilise car signage for your fleet, your business no doubt be spotted by a huge number of people in an afternoon.

As a delicious example, Big Steve might send out his fleet of pizza-themed cars out to deliver his delicious pizza all night long on a Friday night. By the end of the night, hundreds of people will have spotted Big Steve’s pizza cars cruising around town. They might explore the internet and see that Big Steve makes a mean pizza. The next week, experiencing intense pizza cravings, they order pizza from Big Steve. The pizza is delivered to them with one of Big Steve’s pizza cars, and the advertising cycle continues (making Big Steve very happy).

Get in touch to get seen

If you want your brand to be seen by drivers, sea captains or even pilots (who said you can’t apply signs to airplanes?) make sure to see the sign experts at Stick On Signs. We know the best ways to display your brand on your car, and can tailor the sign to suit your personal taste and advertising needs.

When writing, designing and producing signage, there are four important things you must first consider…

Specificity

One of the most important things your consumers — or audience — wants is specificity. There are so many people in the business of selling that, to make your product or service stand out amongst the generality of other businesses in the same field, you need to run with the details. How exactly will a consumer benefit if they choose your product or service?

Simplicity

While it’s important to be precise, it’s also just as important to keep your signage simple. Finding the right balance of these two can be challenging but worth the time drafting and redrafting to do so. The message needs to be crystal clear but if you provide too much information, the audience will quickly loose interest. Get to the point. A good way to make sure your message is by the “five second rule”. This rule states that if your message (both visual and text together) takes more than five seconds to convey, it’s not simple enough.

Conciseness

This is similar to simplicity but has more to do specifically with the text on your sign. Being succinct with your text is one way to ensure you meet the requirements of the five second rule. If you imagine your message is a headline in a newspaper, you get a better idea of what is concise and what isn’t. If it runs over too many lines and would look ridiculous as a newspaper headline, it’s time to go back to the drawing board! Abridge the text where possible: take out prepositions, use superlatives, reduce the sentences to encapsulate what you are trying to say in fewer words, use design and textual hierarchy to point viewers towards the most important information.

Appeal

Generally speaking, the fundamental reason for a sign, particularly in retail is to get your audience to do something. Appealing to your demographic is what the design and creation of a sign is all about. Signs are advertisements and they should always be treated as such. What is the purpose of the sign? This is an important fact to know before you do anything else. What do you want this sign to do? Once you have set a goal for your sign, you can create an appropriate call to action.

Part 1: Quality

Signs are often the first thing that prospective customers will recognise when walking by a business, so owners (or anyone who uses signs to attract customers or clients) should recognise that signage is instrumental in attracting customers and clients. Before they eat your food, or before they buy your clothing, they will see your sign.

The psychology behind signage can therefore be quite complex – as consumers encounter potentially dozens of signs in a day, it takes special signs to draw someone in. Making the effort to ensure your sign is a step above those of other businesses is therefore the first step to opening up consumer potential.

Sign psychology in business

A survey conducted by the marketing division at FedEx in 2012 produced statistics that reflect this completely. The results found that 76 percent of American consumers enter a store they have never visited before based on the quality of its signs, while 68 percent of these consumers go on to purchase a product or service because a sign grabbed their attention.

Despite the fact that these survey results are from an American source, they still completely speak for human psychology. Humans are attracted to things that are visually stimulating or presented in an aesthetically pleasing way. It is likely at some stage you would have witnessed signs in your environment (whether in a hospital, school, church, or even retirement home) that were cheap or kitschy, and you responded with caution as a result. This same situation can very easily occur with your business – cheap signs are invariably associated with low quality businesses.

Quality signs translate to curious consumers

On the other hand, when high quality products are used by a business in any capacity, this is usually translated by a consumer as meaning a business cares about quality. When the sign of your business is the first thing a consumer sees, this means that a sign should be the first indicator of quality (this means that cardboard signs are an obvious no-no!).

The visual appeal of your sign goes hand in hand with the quality aspect. If you create a memorable sign with a clever or efficient logo, consumers are far more likely to remember your business. Stick on Signs are here to help you make your sign appealing so that you can help your business. Make sure to not disregard quality signage, as this is the first step to consumer disapproval and a very simple thing to avoid.

Part 2: Colour

While the other blog this month discussed the psychology behind quality in signs, this blog is going to focus specifically on the colour choices. Although it may at first seem like a small part of your sign (being less important than the logo and the name of your business), colours used on the sign can trigger emotional responses in people that logos and business names simple cannot.

As a very simple first example, a black and white sign may promote a very neutral response from a passer-by, while a sign that effectively uses bright colours like yellow and green is far more likely to catch someone’s attention, if only for a moment.

Colours, emotions, behaviours

With greater interest in your brands, an increase in clients and customers often results. Simple things like colour have psychological effects – Forbes contributor Amy Morin explains in detail how colours can very easily play on human emotions and behaviours.

Robert Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

In this example, it is not simply colours like blue and green creating different responses in people; it explains how different shades of the same colour can result in completely different responses. The diagram featured above demonstrates that different shades of yellow can lead to three very different responses: serenity, joy and ecstasy. While these are three very positive feelings, three different shades of orange create very different responses not entirely associated with each other: interest, anticipation and vigilance. The darker the colours in the wheel of emotions, the more extreme the feelings associated, while the lighter the shade promotes feelings that aren’t as intense.

Colours and your signs

When integrating colours into your corporate signage, it’s important to balance different shades to maximise the effect on those who encounter your sign. By using colours that do not have any negative connotations attached, customers passing by or visiting your business for the first time are far more likely to be attracted than if you were to use darker, more depressing colours.

If you browse our gallery, you should be able to get a good idea about what colour signs might be ideal for your specific business (and perhaps which colours might not suit at all!). If you need any help with colour schemes for your sign, or are unsure about whether certain colour schemes work for your purposes, Stick on Signs would love to talk to you. We can also offer you a free quote, so make sure to get in touch!