Corporate Signage:

When thinking of a company or a brand, what comes to mind? Perhaps the last experience that you had with the company flashes in front of your eyes, or maybe an advert that you saw which referenced the brand in question. When we consider our encounters and relationships with businesses and brands, we experience an emotional response. Depending on the nature of the experience, that emotional response can be positive or negative.

These emotional responses, founded on actual experiences, are highly significant to consumers when it comes to making purchase decisions. Naturally, if you’ve recently had a positive encounter with a company that led to your needs being met in a timely and efficient fashion, then the positive emotional response that you experience when considering whether to purchase from them again is likely to tip the scales in that company’s favour. A negative emotional response due to a bad experience, however, means that you are likely to remain wary of that company, even if they offer a special deal or particularly low prices.

Given that the associations that consumers have with your brand could literally make or break your business, it’s clear how crucial it is to do everything you can, as a business owner, to make sure that your customers leave your store with a smile on their face. This includes all of the things that you should be doing anyway, such as providing outstanding customer service.

However, your levels of customer service, for example, are determined by your corporate culture, your attitude and that of your employees. There is a far easier way to influence customer perceptions of your business, boost your brand visibility and improve consumer brand recognition. This is done via the clever and strategic use of corporate signage to create an integrated and unified brand image.

The Power of Corporate Signage

Whether you’re about to open your doors for the first time or you’ve been operating for decades, signage remains one of the most critical considerations for bricks-and-mortar businesses. First and foremost, an attractive and creative sign is vital to indicate your presence. If your customers and any opportunistic wanderers can’t find your business, then they can’t buy from you.

But besides marking out where your store is located, signage also plays an important role in distinguishing your business from the competition. The high street is a cut-throat environment and this doesn’t look set to change. Every town in the country has a number of pet shops, bakeries, repair shops and so on. Signage gives you an opportunity to indicate why yours is different and why consumers should come to you instead of your competitors.

Of course, only a small minority of the people walking past your shop are likely to come in, but signage helps to plant the seed for sales further down the line as well. Market research indicates that consumers are more likely to buy from a company whose brand they are already familiar with. So, make sure your signage is memorable and appealing, and your business will enjoy the effects of a boost in brand recognition.

The Medium is the Message

The power of corporate signage to serve as a kind of silent salesperson for your business, brand and products is clear. A well designed and eye-catching piece of signage can help to make a favourable first impression on potential customers before they’ve even set foot in your business. Getting this right is vital, though, because if you get your signage wrong, your business not only wastes the investment of time and money put into the signage, but actively loses additional income in the form of earnings from customers put off by the inappropriate signage.

Inappropriate in this context needn’t mean ‘offensive’. Signage can be inappropriate simply by not speaking to your target group of consumers in their language and thus communicating to them a message that you didn’t intend to send.

For example, imagine a sign made up of built-up lettering that is initially poorly installed. The faces of some of the letters slip slightly, a couple drop away totally. This sign communicates certain messages to any would-be customers in no more than a split second.

Firstly it gives the impression that you don’t care about the appearance of your business, and thus probably don’t care about other areas of your operations such as customer service or product quality, either. Secondly is the suggestion that health and safety isn’t on your radar as a business owner, as the lettering could easily fall and hurt someone.

Then come other messages, some occurring subconsciously in the mind of the consumer, that the business clearly isn’t doing very well, as they can’t afford the time or money to repair and replace the sign. This sets off other alarm bells – why aren’t they doing well? This acts to reinforce the initial negative impression obtained at first sight. Purchase decisions like these are made in a matter of seconds and very often, as with all first impressions, they cannot be undone.

Why Use The Sussex Sign Company?

Getting signage right the first time is evidently vital to your future as a business. To do this, you need to use a signage company capable of meeting your needs. At The Sussex Signs Company, we offer holistic corporate signage solutions where we take care of everything from design to installation.

We are able to do this effectively because of our in-house teams and preferred partners with a wealth of experience, qualifications and ability that gives you peace of mind in knowing that an expert will be working on your project every step of the way.

We also believe that installation is not the end of the job – it is simply a transformation of our working relationship into one where we manage the maintenance of your signs to ensure that they keep turning heads and providing maximal return on your investment far into the future. Call us today on 01273 417057