If you’re running a retail business, you more than likely have goals to stand out in a crowded marketplace, be top-of-mind with your customers, and ensure a satisfying in-store experience. Your retail signage does far more for your business than just being a label or marker for your location. When done correctly, a sign is an extremely important and valuable asset, as it should be. Unfortunately, if you’re making one of the common, costly mistakes or not working with an experienced retail signage company, you’re not reaping the full benefits of your investment. Below are seven of the most common signage mistakes businesses make with our sign design tips to help ensure your efforts are successful.
Common Signage Mistakes
1. TMI
One of the most common of all retail signage mistakes is TMI — or “too much information.” A sign isn’t a brochure or even a business card. Customers must comprehend the message within about 2-3 seconds. This is especially the case with retail store signs located in areas that are designed for mobile viewers.
2. Not Enough Information
On the other end of the TMI spectrum is another frequent error: retail signs that don’t have enough information. For example, they fail to convey critical and relevant information, such as a website URL (many in-store customers want to surf and shop at the same time) or accurately portray what your business sells or provides.
3. Getting Too Fancy
It’s important for retail signs to stand out, and that means great design is critical. However, there is a limited amount of real estate to work with, and many signs make the mistake of getting too fancy with fonts, graphics, logos, and so on. Most businesses that design their own retail signs make this error, and unfortunately, pay the price when customers get confused, misinformed or annoyed. This is where working with an experienced retail signage company can truly come in handy.
4. Not Choosing the Right Type of Sign
There are many types of signs, from aluminum to LED and the list goes on. Each one has a distinct set of advantages, and what’s more, some are better suited for certain types of businesses or environments (e.g. exterior/interior). Frankly, it doesn’t matter if a business avoids making all of the other retail signage mistakes. If they choose the wrong type of sign, they won’t maximize their investment.
5. Not Choosing the Right-Sized Sign
Retail store signs come in all shapes and sizes — which for some businesses, is actually a disadvantage because they (again, unfortunately) have the wrong-sized sign. While there are many examples of this error, one of the most common is with exterior signs that need to be easily visible to foot traffic, but are simply too small. This isn’t to say that exterior signs should be as massive as billboards. But if the goal is to engage potential customers 30 feet away, a 3’x3’ sign partially obstructed by a street sign simply isn’t going to get the job done.
6. Incorrect Sign Placement
If you’ve ever been on the road and passed by a sign while saying to yourself, “how do they expect anyone to read that!?”, then you’ve personally been on the wrong end of this retail signage mistake. Typically, this happens because viewing angles and distances weren’t taken into consideration when the sign was designed, created, and installed. What’s more, this problem isn’t by any means limited to external signs. Many retailers have internal signs that aren’t placed in optimal locations, causing customers to miss out on valuable messaging from the business.
7. Not Working with a Professional Retail Signage Company
Retailers invest a significant amount of money trying to attract customers, whether it’s through marketing and advertising campaigns, sales and promotions, launching new product lines, contests, and more. However, some of these very same businesses undermine this investment by reusing old signs (that weren’t really working before and won’t again), or having their sign designed by the same company that does their photocopying. Sign design, manufacturing, installation and maintenance are not skills that people learn by watching a few online videos, or obeying whatever a piece of software tells them to do. It is a specialization that requires both training and experience — not just to reveal what’s possible and beneficial, but just as importantly, to proactively identify problems and avoid them from emerging.
Avoid These Mistakes by Working With Landmark Sign Company
At Landmark Signs we don’t “dabble” in business signs: it’s our area of expertise — and our customers reap the rewards. We are the signage design experts with years of experience in retail signage best practices. Let us help you create a sign that will grab the attention of your customers. To learn more, contact us for your free, no obligation consultation. Regardless of what retail signage mistakes you may have made in the past — or might be making now — be assured that we will solve them!
