Five reasons why a professional business sign makes bottom-line sense

It’s either an asset that works for your business, or a liability that works for your competitors.

It goes without saying (which is what people always say before they say it anyway – and we’re no different) that the last thing you want to do is serve as your competition’s voluntary lead generation source. There’s being nice, and then there’s being crazy.

“But wait,” you might be thinking, “I already have a business sign and nobody’s complained about it.” How can we put this gently and diplomatically? Actually, we can’t: unless your business sign is professional-grade, then you can safely assume that it’s not doing you any favours beyond providing a purely functional purpose (like one of those “Hello my name is…” stickers that nobody likes wearing).

Here are five reasons to help you appreciate the importance and value of professional business signs vs. conventional, ordinary, run-of-the-mill and eminently forgettable ones:

You’ll attract much more foot traffic. Business signs trigger what’s known as ‘confirmation bias.’ It’s the science behind first impressions. When people see something that they like, they tend to filter what they come across after that moment through a positive lens. The same logic applies when they see something they dislike. An impressive and attractive sign sets the right tone, and leads to more foot traffic.

Heck, even if you’re a B2B business and customers don’t stop by, chances are that a great sign will attract some that you never knew existed. It can and does happen. A FedEx study found that nearly 8 in 10 customers entered a store they’d never visited before simply because they liked the sign.

You’ll sell more. Just as a great sign helps pull people into a store or shop, it can lead to more sales. A UC study found that 60 percent of businesses that upgraded or replaced their sign with something better saw an increase in sales, number of transactions, and overall profit.

You’ll go top-of-mind. Do you know how businesses these days (and you’re probably among them) are trying emphatically to get to the top of Google? Well, a professional business sign will help you get to the top of something even more valuable: your prospects’ minds. Great signs are memorable for all of the right reasons.

You’ll get more web traffic. As you’ve probably experienced, there’s a convergence between the online and offline world. In fact, it’s so integrated that many customers don’t care about the difference. They expect an omni-channel experience that could involve doing research online and completing a purchase in the store, making a purchase in a store and getting support online, and so on. How does this relate to business signs? Here’s how: a great business sign can drive traffic to your website, since you’ll be generating brand awareness. And while you can put your URL on your sign (if it’s sign-friendly), you don’t have to. Like the Field of Dreams, if you build it, they will come.

The bottom line

Is a business sign a magic wand that will instantly take you to the top of your marketplace? Nope. But it can certainly help you improve brand awareness, customers, revenues and profits. But hey, with realistic expectations like this, who needs magic wands?