New Year, New You: How Fresh Signage Could Boost Your Gym or Trampoline Park’s Profile

Signage for Gym’s and Trampoline Parks

It’s the time of year when many of us begin to turn our thoughts from all the Christmas over-indulgence, to contemplate a new fitness regime for the New Year. As soon as the mince pies are all safely out the way, the list of New Year’s resolutions suddenly begins to look very challenging indeed. Lots of people want to shed the festivity-induced extra pounds and get back on the treadmill, either for the short-term fix, or with an eye on a more long-term healthy living overhaul. With so many different gyms and trampoline parks out there, all offering New Year deals to lure in the guilty, how do you make sure yours stands out from the crowd and attracts those all-important new members?

One of the best ways is through new gym signage, or treating your trampoline park to a façade facelift. This is a time of year when we all hope for transformations of one sort or another, so it’s the ideal time to look to the future and make things happen. Signage should be a critical part of your New Year, new look premises, so consider this a late Christmas present to your business and see the positive effects a new sign can bring.

Good resolutions

We all know how difficult it can be to keep New Year’s resolutions, but investing in new gym signage shouldn’t be a chore. With so many people on the lookout for a membership bargain, the competition between gyms can be fierce at this time of year and anything you can do to raise your profile can only help in the battle to attract new customers.

People inevitably notice when things change, particularly if it’s for the better. If someone walks past your gym and sees a change in your signs, they’re more likely to stop and investigate further. Just by being an eye-catching and noticeable alteration to their regular walk to the station or drive to the supermarket, you’ve already won half the battle by attracting their attention.

Thanks to the surge in interest for trampoline parks, this time of year is also going to be busy if you own or manage one of these. As more people look for fun ways of burning off the Christmas excess, making sure you build your brand identity and promote it in time for the New Year rush could be the very thing to put some spring back into your business.

The benefits of good signage

Installing new gym signage or a new sign for your trampoline park really could see you reap the rewards in fairly short order. Your signage is your brand identity, the first thing people will notice when they pass your premises. It acts as an introduction to you and your company, and it’s therefore important that you make a good first impression or you run the risk of putting potential customers off for good.

Well presented and well maintained signage not only makes your gym or trampoline park more visible to the casual passerby, it also says that you take pride in your company and the services you offer. It takes just seconds for people to reach a judgment on whether they’re interested or not in your brand, so it’s important you make a positive impact before they have a chance to move on. Well looked-after signs say you care about what you do, that you take your work seriously and have a lot to offer your clients. Good signage bodes well for what lies beyond the double doors, and people are more likely to be tempted in, whereas they will be wary that poorly maintained or shabby signage is likely to lead them to disappointment.

Good signage also has an added advantage at this time of year, when the gloomy winter months seem to make the high street feel cold and uninviting. With poor weather and the usual January blues likely to be affecting quite a few of the people who pass your gym front, a well-lit and attractive sign is like a big, warm welcome invitation to come in out of the cold. Everyone can feel cheered by a well-presented business premises in their neighbourhood – it elevates the tone of the area and can elevate the spirits at the same time – just the thing you need when the rain-lashed streets make everyone feel like shutting themselves indoors and comfort eating.

New year, new look

This really is the perfect time of year to revamp your gym or trampoline park, because it’s probably also your busiest. How well presented your premises are really could impact on how much of the post-Christmas market you can capture – whether they’re impulse exercisers or long-haul gym goers.

Investing in new gym signage or sprucing up the signs you already have are one late Christmas present your business will thank you for. There’s nothing like the start of a new year to concentrate the mind and fill you with good intentions, so if you act on them now, you could see the rewards before too long. A new year and a new look could be just the tonic you need to get you through the coming winter months, so set aside some time to think about the designs you want and make sure you stick to this resolution, even if the rest fall by the wayside.

Here at the Sussex Sign Company we have many years’ experience in crafting bespoke and beautiful signage, so you can rest assured that we’ll help you find the perfect signage solution to give your premises a new look for the New Year. We can’t promise those well-intentioned new customers will stick around until after January, but we can help you get them through the door. For more information on how we can help, simply get in touch with our expert team today.

For more information contact us on 01273 417057 or contact us using the contact form.

How good signage could boost Christmas sales for businesses in the Capital

Great signage in London

Christmas is always the busiest time of year for retailers, and with only a handful of shopping days left until the big day, clinching those all-important Christmas sales is crucial. Retail analysts are predicting that spending on Christmas this year will be at the highest it has been since the financial crash of 2007, which means retailers everywhere will be hoping for a major boost to profits during the festive period. Restaurants and hotels, too, see bookings spike around the middle of December, thanks to office Christmas parties and people travelling to visit relatives for family get-togethers.

While bargain hunters might have snapped up some deals during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, when it comes to Christmas shopping, the vast majority of us still like to do things the old-fashioned way. Online sales might have increased and the Amazon effect might have made things harder for smaller independent shops, but at this time of year most people still like to brave the crowds and see and feel the goods they are buying. The same holds true for restaurants. People naturally look to online reviews to gauge how good an establishment is, but just as often, you’ll find people have paused to study a menu and make a booking on impulse, having walked past a restaurant whilst out and about.

At this time of year, it’s hardly a surprise that London is the number one destination for Christmas shoppers, drawing in the crowds not only from across the rest of the country but from overseas. The capital boasts some of the best shopping destinations in the world, not only in the inner city areas but across all the outer boroughs and in the many outlying towns which surround the capital. The bright lights of Oxford Street have a major pull factor, and big brand names or the likes of Harrods and Hamleys are never going to struggle. For smaller businesses in the capital, however, standing out from the crowd can be hard. Shoppers on the lookout for something a bit out of the ordinary might have more luck outside of the department stores, so competition between independent retailers can be fierce.

Capturing the Capital’s crowds

So how can you make sure your business stands out and catches its fair share of the capital’s crowds this Christmas? The most obvious answer is through better signage, and in London signs really need to stand out.

It’s no longer enough to simply spruce up your window displays and crank up the Christmas songs, and shop owners today have to go that extra mile if they are to compete with the bigger players. Your shop front is the first impression a potential customer has of you, and since there are no second chances, you need to make sure it’s a good one. A bold, bright and memorable sign will help you stand out from the competition and catch the eye of the casual passer-by or the impulse buyer, and that means more chance of them returning.

A high quality sign speaks volumes about you and your business. We’ve all seen unappealing shop or restaurant fronts with missing letters or wonky logos, and when we do, we naturally expect that what they have to offer beyond the double doors is not going to be of a very high standard. A high quality sign tells the rest of the world that you care, that you take pride in what you do and that you want the public to take an interest in your goods or services.

The best time of year for a new shop sign

There are lots of competing pressures on retailers or businesses in the hospitality trade at this time of year, but it’s also the best time to give your shop front a revamp. People notice when things change, and seeing a new sign as they’re out and about doing their Christmas shopping will certainly turn a few shoppers’ heads.

The colder and darker weather at this time of year can, in fact, be an advantage when it comes to luring Christmas shoppers in. A well illuminated and well maintained sign is an invitation that’s hard to refuse, so whether you are the owner of a small toy shop or the manager of a restaurant, investing in a high quality sign will attract attention. People are far more likely to stop and examine your goods or read your menu if the sign above the door jumps out at them.

The feel-good boost we receive in the run-up to Christmas can quickly descend into post-festive gloom throughout January and the long winter months, so acting now to give your shop front some TLC could help counter the winter blues. If a change really is as good as a rest, then sprucing up your shop front as part of a pre-spring clean could not only lift business but lift the spirits too.

With many years of experience in this field, the Sussex Sign Company are the go-to people when it comes to signage and our London signs team work right across the capital, in every London borough. That means wherever you are, we can be on hand to design and install your new sign or help you maintain the signage you already have. For more information contact us on 01273 417057 or contact us using the contact form.

Could Estate Agent Signage be Banned? Here’s Why We Think it’ll Never Happen

It hasn’t been a great month for estate agents, what with the government announcing a ban on tenants’ letting fees in the Autumn Statement. While this was understandably welcomed by most citizens and homelessness charities across the country, the move triggered a wave of condemnation and despair from estate agents and landlords.

Agents are naturally concerned about any move that harms their bottom line, and landlords are worried that estate agents will seek to pass the costs on to them through higher property management fees, which as yet remain untouched by the government. The change has yet to be formally legislated and is pending a consultation process, but already the estate agent sector has seen a fall in share prices.

London-based Foxtons estate agents lost 13 percent of its value within an hour of the announcement, and this on top of a 23 percent slide since the Brexit referendum. Critics were quick to point out that administrative fees have been banned in Scotland since 2012, a move which the sector then absorbed without any serious problems. Nonetheless, industry blogs and forums were awash with consternation about the future.

Estate agent signage: an uncertain future?

Now, to add to these worries, proposals have emerged from Belfast City Council to ban the ubiquitous “To Let” and “For Sale” signs seen on almost every street in the country. The Council’s proposal is a response to complaints from local residents about the length of time that the signs are displayed and the effect that it has on the visual environment.

Estate agent signs are already regulated by the Planning Regulations (Control of Advertisement) 2015, a planning code which breaks down signs into three groups, each requiring different levels of consent from local planning authorities on behalf of the affected communities.

Nothing is yet set in stone, much like the announced ban on tenants’ lettings fees, and much discussion is likely to follow in the council’s consultation over which is more appropriate – additional restrictions or a blanket ban. Further restrictions may be the more palatable option with the potential to please all stakeholders, and proposals floating around include limits on the size of the signs, the amount of time they can be displayed and a rule that they must be attached flush to the surface of the building, instead of protruding.

Such a set of standards would, however, require continuous enforcement, which could be costly. There could also be additional costs for estate agents in seeking to meet the requirements of the new regulations. An outright ban, by contrast, would immediately lead to a visual improvement in the affected communities, but estate agents would likely require alternative channels for marketing.

The problem is reportedly a particular concern in predominantly student areas, where almost every house changes hands every year, leading to streets full of estate agent signage. If such a blanket ban were adopted and proved to be popular and successful, it could see widespread uptake across the UK.

In light of the arguments against its use, is estate agent signage an anachronistic and aesthetic blight on our communities or a vital and powerful marketing tool? In the age of Zoopla and Rightmove, do house hunters even look for the signs anymore? The question is divisive, no doubt, but finding an answer is particularly important, given the above pressures facing the estate agent sector at an uncertain time for the wider housing market.

Signage: a powerful and multifaceted marketing tool

To evaluate the future of estate agent signs, we first must consider its purposes. The primary function of ‘To Let’ and ‘For Sale’ signs is to drive interest in a property by marking it out to all who walk and drive past. As such, the signs act as a beacon for opportunistic house buyers who spot a house that takes their fancy and telephone to book a viewing on impulse alone. This can work wonders with those properties requiring a little additional exposure, such as those that have sat on the market for several months.

Not only can such signage drive interest among potential buyers, but it also works in conjunction with word-of-mouth referrals to spread news of the property much further than the initial group of people walking past the house in question. It’s a given that most people encountering the sign won’t be looking for a house, but they will likely subconsciously notice and remember the sign.

Then, at a later date, anyone from a colleague to a neighbour or friend may mention that they’re looking for a property in a given area. The person who subconsciously noticed the sign then remembers it and mentions it to the house hunter. This ability to start conversations is where the real power of promotional signage lies.

And the sign alone is often more than enough to get people talking. We’ve all heard or said something along the lines of “That house down the road is up for sale again,” and these conversations as a result of the sign itself boost the reach of your marketing significantly. This is particularly evident in villages and smaller towns where people come into contact with each other regularly, but has the same effect in neighbourhoods in cities as well.

Here to stay

As we can see, estate agent signage is here to stay for the foreseeable future. With over two decades’ experience, we can comfortably say that ‘we know signage’, and we know the power that estate agent signs have to spread word of your properties and your brand. If you’d like to find out more about what we can offer your agency, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Call us on 01273 417057

Only Trust a Commercial Signage Specialist with Your Business Signs

Why Should You Only Trust a Commercial Signage Specialist with Your Business Signs?

Commercial signage is perhaps the most fundamental way of promoting a business. Signage indicates to everyone who passes by that your business is located here. This way, not only will those who have encountered your other forms of marketing be able to find your premises, but opportunistic customers walking past will also be able to drop in on a whim.

Trade signage communicates more than just your name and location, however. The quality and finish of your commercial signs also speak volumes about the level of importance that your business places on its image. This might sound superficial, but we all know the importance of first impressions – after all, if it’s bad, you don’t get a chance to make a second one.

If your signage, through its lack of professionalism, gives the impression that you don’t care about your business’ image, then some people may feel concerned that this carries over to other areas of your operations, such as a lack of regard for good customer service or the quality of your products.

This represents a real missed opportunity to attract new custom, build your business’ profile and extend your brand’s reach, and costs you money in two senses. Firstly, the money that you have invested in marketing is wasted because your campaign fails to reach its full potential, and secondly, potential earnings from customers who would love to patronise your business will never be realised, having been put off and turned away at the door.

The importance of effective and professional signage is not in doubt, then. Any commercial organisation seeking to improve its appeal and visibility to potential customers and local residents whilst avoiding the pitfalls detailed above should enlist the services of a creative, experienced and skilled commercial signage specialist. We’re going to look at what such a specialist could offer your firm that no-one else can, and why, in our view, the services of a signage specialist are integral to the operations of any company.

What Can a Signage Specialist do for Your Company?

There are many types of business signage available and each one is designed to communicate your message to a targeted audience in a uniquely effective way. These types of signage include freestanding signs installed into the ground, or wall- and roof-mounted signs commonly seen in built-up towns and cities where free ground space is at a premium. Then there are premises where the building itself is used as a sign, with a shop frontage bolted on and fashioned in brand-specific colours and styles.

Internal commercial signage is another type, commonly encountered in shopping malls, arcades and other areas where businesses share space. With all of these types of signage to choose from and more, it’s vital that business owners choose a signage solution that complements their image by being appealing to their target consumer group. Without this, the signage will be ineffective at best and at worst, counterproductive. Fortunately, getting this right is something that a signage specialist can be trusted to achieve. But that’s far from everything that a specialist can do.

Maximise Your Marketing Potential

Signage is all about communicating a message, so it follows that a specialist in signage best knows how to creatively transmit a unique message appealing to the general public and easily understood by your target group of consumers. A carefully chosen and designed signage solution can even enhance your business’ image by expressing your agenda and values, leaving a strong and lasting impression on viewers.

As well as this, well designed, professional signage has several other advantages. Unlike marketing techniques that use digital or print media, usually with relatively short print runs, signage promotes your business 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for as long as it is standing. The effectiveness of this form of advertising, as opposed to hiring a billboard or a radio slot, is clear to see. Consumers will be familiar with and recognise your brand even if they’ve never set foot in your store. When considered in terms of ‘cost per day’ or ‘cost per view’, signage is also far cheaper than these other forms of promotion.

Signs are also able to appear to a much wider audience than other forms of advertising. Radio slots or television commercials might look very flashy and tempting, but if few people are watching or listening at that time, then the advert is totally ineffective and the investment was wasted. Likewise, newspaper adverts will, by default, never reach anyone who doesn’t read that newspaper.

A professional sign designed and installed by a signage specialist, however, will be seen by whoever walks past it, which is likely to be a reasonable cross-section of society, depending on the location of the sign. This initially wide audience can then be selected from at will by using your sign to deliver a targeted message at a particular segment of this total audience, as detailed earlier. This makes signage a far more versatile and effective form of promotion when used correctly.

What’s more, market research has demonstrated that signs are actually far more effective at swaying uncertain customers than other forms of advertising. This further indicates the importance of a well-designed sign. All of the effects and abilities of signage discussed here are contained within every sign, but the point is that with the assistance and knowledge of a commercial signage specialist, these standard effects are enhanced, ensuring that your signage provides the best return on investment possible.

At The Sussex Sign Company, we have the keenly honed expertise to be able to offer a holistic signage creation service with experts and specialists working on every stage of your sign, from design to fabrication and installation. Only this way can the marketing potential of your brand by maximised. If you’d like to know more, don’t hesitate to get in touch, Call us today on 01273 417057

Don’t Underestimate the Importance of Shop Signs!

You’ve spent months of planning, designing and building to spruce up the interior of your high street shop. It’s now opening day, and despite the marketing campaign you don’t attract anywhere near as many customers as you hoped and expected. It hurts even more because you’re sure you did everything right, no?

The answer could be staring you in the face. It’s often overlooked, but thankfully very straightforward to put right – the issue is signage. With market research suggesting that in the UK, even in the contemporary age of social media and the internet, up to 50 percent of new customers make an on-the-spot decision to enter your shop on the basis of your signage outside.

But it’s not just new businesses that risk putting themselves at peril by underestimating the importance of signage. Regardless of the age or nature of the business, there are a whole host of reasons why signage shouldn’t simply be an afterthought, but rather must be a well-integrated facet of any marketing plan. We’re going to take a look at a few of these now.

Shop Signs and New Custom

The answer, according to a wealth of market research, suggests that signage is highly important due to its effect on attracting new customers. Seeking new custom is a task that no business is exempt from and must do in order to survive, whether the company has a hundred years of trading behind it or only opened last month.

Indeed, one study showed that just under 30 percent of those passing your premises won’t even be aware that your business exists if you don’t have visible and clear signage on your shop frontage. This means that your business misses out on opportunistic and impulse buyers, resulting in an immediate loss of both footfall and profit.

This has the knock-on effect of depriving your business of the repeat custom that can arise from wowing these impulse buyers with excellent customer service. As well as the repeat custom of new visitors, your business will also miss out on the chance for these customers to be impressed and drive even more custom by doing your promotional work for you via word of mouth.

Further marketing studies have found that, depending on the focus and location of your business, the proportion of impulse buyers varies from 25 to 45 percent. Given all of the above benefits to be derived from attracting new and opportunistic custom alone, imagine the power of a sign that reminds this demographic that they’ve been meaning to buy such-and-such for a while, and that your store happens to sell it?

Driving Local Custom

Most bricks-and-mortar shops are generally dependant on local custom for the majority of their business, making signage highly important for shops in this position. It won’t come as a surprise to shop owners to learn that, on average, 85 percent of a shop’s customers live within five miles of the store. What’s more, people living within this radius, including non-customers, will be exposed to your signs around 50 to 60 times a week if your store is located on a busy thoroughfare.

This represents a vast pool of potential customers, but only if these people know where your store is located and what it has to offer them. People who have been recommended to visit your shop will also need to be able to find your premises, and preferably as easily as possible. The statistics and studies quoted above clearly show that signage is the most effective way to communicate these important pieces of information to your target market.

It’s also worth remembering that this pool of potential new customers renews and changes annually, as around 20 percent of the population move house ever year. In light of the growing popularity of e-commerce and internet shopping, along with the capacity of shop signage to maximise the pulling and selling power of your store, shop signs are clearly something that can no longer be ignored or left as an afterthought.

Shop Signs: A Business Investment?

As we’ve seen, signs are vital for driving new custom for all businesses, whether they’re new start-ups or established old hands. In this sense, shop signage is most accurately viewed as an investment like any other – it involves an initial expenditure which should, if employed correctly, deliver a substantial return.

Signage is also well placed to produce a particularly substantial return on investment. Shop frontage signs are in operation 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, spreading your message to anyone and everyone who ventures past your premises. Compared to hiring a newspaper advert for a week, or a TV slot or billboard for a month, it is clear that, as a form of advertisement and promotion, signage is without a doubt the most effective means of reaching your target audience of potential customers.

On the other hand it’s worth noting that poor or absent signage due to lack of investment doesn’t just mean that no money is spent on signage – it means that the business is actively losing money as a result of failing to attract potential customers daily. This lost revenue adds up over time, alongside lost engagement and connections with these potentially life-long customers.

Final Thoughts

Any business decision involving expenditure should be carefully planned and thought through, especially something with the power and effect of signage. Fortunately, we at The Sussex Sign Company are well-placed to help guide you and your business through any hard decisions. With over two decades’ experience in the sector, we have the expertise to help draw up a tailor-made solution to the uniquely specific needs and requirements of your firm. Get in touch today to find out what we can do together, call us on 01273 417057

Halo Illuminated Signage: Don’t Ignore the Benefits!

Almost all businesses have signs nowadays – they’re simply essential to show customers where your store is, and have many functions that allow them to be one of the most powerful marketing tools in the arsenal of any business owner. But with signage so ubiquitous, how do you differentiate your company from the others?

Illuminated signage provides a solution to this end, along with many other benefits. Besides making your company premises stand out in a packed and increasingly competitive bricks-and-mortar retail environment, illuminated signage can serve to revamp your business exterior with a particularly 21st century, super-contemporary look. This is sure to turn heads and maybe even attract customers who had previously dismissed your firm altogether.

The Power of Illuminated Signage

Advances in fabrication and illumination technologies have given business owners access to a huge variety of illumination techniques and options which can be used to create beautiful, show-stopping illuminated signs, tailored perfectly to the needs of your business. Variety extends over the types of materials used in the sign and the types of illumination to make your signs stand out.

Built-up signs are composed of several layers to create a stunning 3D effect, making your sign stand out in the literal as well as the figurative sense of the word. Built-up signs can be manufactured from brushed or polished metals, including stainless steel or aluminium, or plastics such as acrylic. This range of materials ensures that built-up lettering is well within the reach of almost all business owners.

Halo Illumination – What and How?

Using built-up lettering also expands the types of lighting effects that can be applied, due to the fact that locating the lights in one of the many different locations on, or in, the letter will produce a different effect. Illumination techniques generally revolve around LED-backlit letters or a light box. When internal illumination is combined with built-up lettering or logo shapes fabricated from solid metal or acrylic, the faces of the letter remain opaque with the light diffused against the background surface creating the effect of a glowing halo.

What Can Halo Illuminated Signage do for You?

First and foremost, by giving your signs a glowing outline, you make them far more visible! Illuminated signage ensures that your business is clear and stands out 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, no matter the weather. This is especially useful in the winter months when the nights start to draw in early and your shop would be totally unnoticeable to impulse customers and those who explicitly wish to visit.

There isn’t really a comparable advertising medium that works around the clock to promote your business. Illuminated signage brings your business and brand to life via the power of light.

Greater Clarity for More Effective Communication

When a passer-by sees your sign, you only have a split-second window in which to communicate your message before their glance moves on to something else. This means that clarity is paramount and, fortunately, illuminating your sign with a halo makes it much easier to read and understand. Using illuminated signage for any time-limited promotions or special offers will guarantee that your message has a far greater impact than it otherwise would.

Consumer Perceptions

All signs have the power of transforming passers-by into potential customers simply by virtue of being seen. However, signage communicates more than just the message written on it – indeed, in some senses, ‘the medium is the message’. The medium of halo illuminated signage, with its eye-catching lighting effects and use of sleek metals such as aluminium, carries a distinctly contemporary and cutting edge feel.

Therefore, with the use of halo illumination, the transformative power of signage is extended further, working to engender the impression in the minds of viewers that your business itself is fresh and modern.

Improve Your Image

Upgrading your signage with a halo illumination effect shows everyone who encounters it that you take your marketing and business image very seriously. This can work wonders for boosting your credibility and reputation, even among people who have never interacted with your business before. By showing that your signage, marketing and image are considered important, it will seem likely that you’ll take other areas of your business, such as customer service and quality of products, just as seriously – if not more so.

Furthermore, a firm that can take the time and capital to invest in a new and visually impressive illuminated shop sign must necessarily be doing well in business. The subconscious implication to the customer is that you must be doing something right, making you the right person for them to choose to do business with.

Boost Your Energy Efficiency

Halo illuminated signs use LED technology to deliver massive efficiency improvements, reducing your impact on the environment and minimising your expenditure at the same time. Previous illumination systems worked either with external light – shining a spotlight at something so it can be seen – or internal light, such as backlit lightboxes containing fluorescent tubes.

Spotlights are highly energy inefficient, emitting large amounts of wasted energy as heat and driving up your bills. Lightboxes using tube lighting often fail to light the surface evenly, spoiling the quality and effect of the sign. Neither of these techniques produce particularly effective halo effects, either.

LEDs, by contrast, last for thousands and thousands of hours, functioning as a ‘plug in and forget’ solution to signage illumination. They also use roughly 5 to 10 percent of the energy used by halogens and fluorescent bulbs, representing a massive saving for the environment and your bottom line over time.

Let’s Work Together

At the Sussex Sign Company, we have the skills and expertise to create a halo illuminated sign to your precise specifications. We also have an in-house design team to help advise on the specifics to ensure that your sign helps your business to reach its maximum potential, call us today on 01273 417057

A Powerful Tool: Differentiate Your Brand and Drive New Clients with LED Light Pockets

All retail premises on high streets face certain pressures these days, with growing numbers of consumers opting for online commerce against the general backdrop of commercial uncertainty over what the future holds. Despite historically high house prices, estate agents feel both of these pressures particularly keenly at the moment, and unless the Brexit affair is settled speedily, there is a chance that this could continue for some time to come.

Fortunately, there are plenty of tools to draw consumers and clients back to brick-and-mortar stores. Delivering unparalleled customer service with which internet-based companies can’t hope to compete is one of the most effective ways to do this. In this blog, however, we’ll be looking at the power of signage to attract new custom, in particular the fairly new technology of LED light pockets for estate agent window displays.These display solutions are increasingly popular, but adoption is still far from saturation point – so now is the time to strike. Read on to find out everything you need to know about this innovative and eye-catching display technology, whether it is worth the investment or not, and what it could offer your business.

LED Light Pockets: What are They and How do They Work?

The use by estate agents of clear acrylic pockets suspended from cables is long established, so much so that it would be surprising to see an agent’s window without them. By embedding LEDs into the pockets, an attractive and striking effect is created, visually highlighting your window. Each panel is generally not more than several millimetres thick and they often come in a range of styles, including bevelled and framed edges.

With these designs, the LED light is bounced off the inner edges of the pocket, creating the impression that the frame of the pocket is glowing. Each pocket is attached to imperceptibly thin metal cables, suspended between the ceiling and floor. At a glance, the glowing pockets look as if they’re floating, which is a particularly striking thing for any passerby to see! The power for the LEDs is transmitted by wires tucked away inside the suspension cables, furthering this visual effect.

These pockets can often be made to order in any size as well, giving estate agents the opportunity to use posters and graphics to draw attention to promotions or special deals, as well as simply highlighting the present properties up for sale. The lack of clutter, combined with a highly visible and legible form of display, allows you to convey maximum information with minimal effort on your part or that of the viewer.

What Can These Light Pockets do for Your Estate Agency?

Your business may close at 5pm, but with the aid of glowing light pockets in your windows, your properties will be advertised and clearly visible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, allowing people to see what you have on offer any time of day. This is particularly effective during the winter months, when the evening draws in by 4 or 5pm, but people will be present in busy streets until much later.

In this regard, LED illuminated window pockets constitute a powerful tool that utilises the promotional capacity of a space that you already own and have the right to use, as opposed to hiring a billboard or space in the pull-out property supplement of a newspaper. That said, there are many other stores on the high street, and all of them will be trying to do the same thing that you are – maximising their use of space for promotion. Fortunately, LED-illuminated pockets can help to differentiate you further still.

Brand Differentiation

By making your window display glow, your premises are guaranteed to stand out from the white noise of the high street, working to grab attention and hold it. This means that people are likely to remember your store, and thus your brand will be in the front of their mind when they eventually need your services, or if someone else mentions looking to buy or sell a house. In this way, brand differentiation pays its dividends over a long period of time, and therefore this form of signage should be viewed as an investment.

Furthermore, the contemporary and modern style of these light pockets creates the perception that your business is forward-facing, modern and efficient. This also makes people more likely to buy from you, and can even give you an edge over those older brands who can claim expertise by way of having existed for decades.

Keeping Up Appearances

Such an investment in window displays also suggests to consumers a care of appearances. Any business that is able to devote time and money to external appearance is more likely to be doing well in terms of custom, and therefore must be doing something right. This care over appearances also implies that you take care over other areas of work, such as attentiveness to customer service and experience, getting the job done and producing positive results.

Lastly, the beautiful effect created by glowing frames in your window allows your premises to actually enhance the look and feel of the local area, which is something that not many businesses can genuinely claim to do. All of these thoughts are subconscious and occur when viewing your window display, but they influence decisions very strongly.

The technologies behind signage solutions change and develop every year. At The Sussex Sign Company, we have accrued several decades’ experience in the business, and we’d be thrilled to put that expertise and knowledge to work for the aid of your company. To find out about the great things that we can achieve if we work together, get in touch today, Call us on 01273 417057

Is the quality of your estate agent signage letting you down?

They’re a ubiquitous sight on streets, roads and lanes across the United Kingdom – brightly coloured boards outside properties advertising their sale, usually with the name of the estate agent responsible, together with a telephone number by which to contact them if you’re interested. Estate agents have long used these signs to drive interest in certain properties, particularly those requiring a little additional exposure.

For Sale signs also serve a purpose as a beacon for instinctive or opportunistic buyers who see a house that they like and phone to arrange a viewing on impulse alone. And then there’s the window adverts on the premises of the estate agents itself. Who hasn’t stopped to have a quick look at the local property prices once or twice?

However, in recent years questions have been raised about the continued usefulness of both of these forms of signage in light of the digital age in which we now live. With the online market the first port of call for many would-be buyers and sellers, are For Sale signs still relevant?

Combine this with the sales promotion potential offered by other commonly used formats such as the property supplements in local newspapers, and it might be easy to conclude that estate agent signage will shortly be a thing of the past. In this article we’ll examine this question, finding that not only is this form of signage still very useful, but that its sales and promotional power can be redoubled by ensuring that the quality of the signage is top-notch.

For Sale signs

In addition to drawing attention to the fact that the property is up for sale, For Sale signs also garner publicity via word of mouth. The sign is subconsciously noticed by someone walking past. Then, days or even weeks later, someone close to them – anyone from a loved one or friend to a neighbour or colleague – mentions that they’re looking to buy a property in a certain area. The person who noticed the sign might say something along the lines of “Oh, have you seen that property just off the high street, with the For Sale sign?”

The presence of a sign alone may even get people talking. Who hasn’t heard someone say something along the lines of “Have you seen that they’ve put that house down the road up for sale?” This increases the reach of your promotion significantly. However, this tactic is far more likely to have success in villages and smaller towns, where lots of people know each other and come into regular contact, and gossip travels much faster.

Window signage

There is also a second permanent signage fixture used by estate agents. This takes the form of signage suspended in the window of the agent’s premises, displaying some of the property up for sale locally. These signs often take the form of A4-sized clear plastic pockets suspended from wires that are attached to the floor and ceiling. Recent innovations in window signage have led to the creation of slightly thicker acrylic pockets with LEDs embedded inside. The light bounces off the sides of the frame, making it appear as if the edges are glowing. This is a fantastic way to draw attention to the properties on offer, and even raise their profile a little.

The fact that light is involved also means that your signs will be viewable 24 hours a day, reminding people of your presence even if they simply drive past. Naturally, high quality window signage will make people reflect on your brand with more positive reactions, increasing the likelihood of referral to others via word of mouth should the issue of needing to buy or sell a property come up in conversation.

When people walk past the agent’s premises, many like to stop and have a look at the local prices and see if any interesting properties are up for sale in the vicinity, purely out of curiosity. If the signage is poorly maintained or hard to read, their attention will not be held for long and they will walk on. Even if they didn’t intend to buy a property, they will remember your brand as representing a particularly successful-looking estate agency, thus providing an excellent opportunity to use your estate agent signage to build brand familiarity and recognition.

Estate agent signage: more than just selling homes

In considering estate agent signs from the perspective of marketing, we need to take a more holistic and long-term perspective. This means looking beyond the immediate goal of seeking to sell a specific property. As touched upon above, estate agent signs also help agents to boost their brand familiarity and recognition.

As people encounter your brand more frequently, they will associate it with ideas such as ‘local community’, ‘trust’, ‘reliability’, and so on. Coming to be viewed as a part of the local community is perhaps one of the useful things that can happen to any small or medium business in terms of public relations.

Impressions of trust, reliability and effectiveness can be engendered by sticking a bright red ‘SOLD’ sticker over both the For Sale sign and the window advertisement, or you could even utilise multi-coloured LEDs to differentiate between sold and un-sold properties. These techniques use signage to promote you and your brand as being highly effective at selling properties, and can be used even if the property in question was actually sold over the internet or via a newspaper ad.

The last word

Estate agent signage is far from a has-been – it still offers huge marketing potential to agents and plays important roles beyond simply selling individual properties. At The Sussex Sign Company, we have what it takes to craft a tailor-made signage solution that perfectly responds to the needs of your estate agency. Don’t hesitate to get in touch today to find out what we can do for you. Call us today on 01273 417057

Halo illuminated letters in high street signage:

The high street has always been a competitive environment with a limited number of potential customers, established brand loyalty and a willingness to pay more at local and ‘authentic’ businesses. According to a report commissioned by the Economist, the high street retail environment has become considerably more cut-throat in recent years.

Uncertain futures?

Retail sales are declining due to changing consumer habits, including a greater tendency to shop online. The outlook might be a little gloomy, with an added hint of uncertainty since Brexit, but there are still billions of pounds of commerce up for grabs. The tightening of consumer retail spending leads to an ever-more competitive environment, as an increasing number of businesses vie for a decreasing amount of consumer money.

Retail firms are working on drawing in customers and getting them to come back again and again with a variety of techniques, including cutting prices, diversifying their offerings and spending vast sums on public relations and marketing campaigns. There is a far easier option, however, that offers huge marketing potential, harnessing the power of brands and won’t cost you an arm and a leg: high street signage.

Retail signage is often overlooked, with many business owners assuming that provided that their trading name is nice and clear above the door, then customers will come in. This may be true enough, but such an approach fails to utilise the true potential offered by signage. In particular, halo illuminated signage can turn your shopfront from ‘just another shop’ that fades into the background, into an attractive, sleek and modern locale that subtly improves its surrounding environment.

What is halo illuminated signage?

There are several different forms of illuminated lettering used in signage, including side, full letter and face illumination, all of which are self-explanatory. Halo illuminated signage is a type of built-up lettering with LEDs positioned internally to create a glowing ‘halo’ effect behind the letter. The light is diffused onto the fitting surface upon which each letter is installed.

This is far more subtle and contemporary in appearance than large ‘lightboxes’ in use in so much high street signage which is, essentially, a box containing LEDs or fluorescent tubes that shine through a translucent sign on the front. Indeed, changes in planning regulations over the past decade have indicated a shift away from large illuminated surfaces towards more subtle and aesthetically pleasing forms of signage lighting.

Halo illumination can be used in built-up lettering fabricated from any material, from stainless steel and aluminium to acrylic and modelboard, depending on the precise effect and impression you seek to create. The illuminated surface behind the letter requires a little more thought. For the perfect halo effect, it’s wise to avoid dark coloured surfaces such as black, purple or dark brown as these colours absorb more light than they reflect. This can cause ‘spotting’, when the LEDs’ light doesn’t diffuse evenly, spoiling the halo effect.

Likewise, glossy surfaces should also be avoided. This is due to their high reflectivity which may even allow the viewer to see the LED modules themselves in the reflection when viewing side-on. For the sleek and beautiful halo effect that’ll make your premises the talk of the high street, matte surfaces with medium or light colours are the best bet.

The use of LEDs instead of tube lighting or powerful spotlights also provides several benefits in itself. LEDs usually last for several thousand hours, with ratings varying between models, but essentially providing a ‘fit and forget’ signage solution. LEDs are also very low producers of carbon, using between 5 to 10 per cent of the energy of halogen or fluorescent lighting.

Why illuminated signage?

As covered above, increased competition is the watchword of the day as a brick-and-mortar retailer. High street signage, if poorly designed or not looked after, quickly fades into the white noise of our image-saturated shopping environments. To really turn people’s heads, something a little different is required. Going all-out with brash, loud signage is likely to turn people off, but halo illumination provides an eye-catching yet subtle and understated solution.

Illuminated signage also has the benefit of making your store visible 24 hours a day, advertising your presence to any and all of the hundreds or thousands of daily passers-by. You aren’t likely to get much footfall at 4am on a weekday, but this feature is very valuable in winter, when the sun is already setting by late afternoon. Depending on your line of business, incorporating warm, welcoming colours into your sign could take advantage of winter by appearing particularly inviting to pedestrians.

Furthermore, humans are creatures of habit and people are far more likely to buy from brands or stores that they know. By having a highly recognisable and memorable sign on display 24 hours a day, and especially after dark, you increase your brand familiarity amongst your target market.

Put simply: imagine you own a bakery. Of those people who have seen your memorable and bright high street signage, when they come to need a custom cake designed or fancy some special bread, your bakery will be the first that pops into their minds. The same applies if they are asked by someone else to recommend a good bakery. Your glowing signage creates a good impression even if they’ve never set foot on your premises.

High street retail signage and the contemporary retail environment can feel like minefields. You want to attract customers, but not put them off by coming on too strong. At The Sussex Sign Company, we have the knowledge and practical experience that only comes from decades of working in the industry. And we’d love to put our finely honed expertise to use for the good of your business. Contact us today to see what we can do for you, on 01273 417057

There’s far more to corporate signage than you think

Signage makes up a surprisingly large chunk of our visual and physical environments. We take in hundreds to thousands of signs every day, depending on what we’re doing. Encountering so many signs in such a short period of time means that we rarely spend more than a second looking at a particular sign. This has serious implications for businesses and corporations, who, as players in an increasingly competitive marketplace, need to take full advantage of that split-second window to leave a memorable, lasting and positive impression.

Warning and safety signage naturally needs to stand out and attract the eye in order to draw attention quickly, hence the fluorescent oranges and greens and bold capital letters present on most safety signage. Business and corporate signage, however, has a slightly more developed and complex role to play. Indeed, brash fluorescent colours and block fonts are likely to give potential clients the wrong impression! Much business signage, if well-designed and smart, often remains at the subconscious level of perception among consumers, not appearing out of place or intrusive.

This leads us to the crux of the problem: corporate and business signage needs to communicate its message quickly and effectively, but brash and loud signage can overshadow the intended message of the sign. This is an issue that can be solved by thinking about signage design, corporate image and identity, and how the two concepts relate. We’ll start by examining the actual messages that corporate and business signage is intended to communicate, and from there we can consider how we can use design to communicate these messages.

Why use business signage?

The benefits of business signage are manifold. It uses space that you already own, instead of paying to hire a billboard, and it lasts far longer. Its exhibition on your shopfront or company headquarters alerts people to your company’s presence, turning every single passerby into a potential customer – a truly powerful marketing tool.

Over time, this develops into brand familiarity. Your sign, with your company’s logo and slogan on it, start to be seen as a dependable part of the community, purely due to the longevity of the presence of your business sign. It is the first and last thing that your customers see as they enter and leave your premises, and your return customers begin to associate your external image, embodied by your signage, with the experience that they had at your business. This lays bare the sheer importance of smart business signage and gives rise to the idea of ‘corporate image’.

What does ‘corporate image’ actually mean?

Your corporate image consists of consumer perceptions of your corporation. These perceptions accumulate and grow over time, and are affected by the perceived quality of tangible aspects of your business, such as your customer service and your products (if applicable), alongside more intangible elements, such as your corporate values and identity. Smart corporate signage can directly influence consumer perceptions of both tangible and intangible elements of your business.

Signage and tangible business aspects

How can signage influence perceptions of tangible aspects of your business? Surely the consumer will simply judge your product or service on its own merits? If only business was so simple! We know from anecdotal reports and psychological research that a huge amount of factors can affect how your products are perceived by consumers, covering all five senses. It is for this reason that department stores pipe in music to enhance the shopping experience, or that Subway ensures that their stores always smell strongly of freshly baked bread, for example.

Now imagine a department store or baguette shop where the in-store wayfinding signage or menu board is scruffy, hard to read and poorly maintained. The consumer will gain a negative impression instantly, as these aspects of your signage suggest either a lack of care and attention, or a lack of funds for repairs, which raises other questions – “if the business is not making money, then people aren’t shopping here, so perhaps they know something I don’t?”

These negative impressions remain in the back of the mind of the consumer, lowering their expectations of the quality of your product or service. Because signage is the first thing that the customer sees, and thus it forms the basis of their first impression, it can be very hard to challenge an initial negative impression, even if your product is perfectly good.

Signage and the intangible aspects of your brand

Intangible aspects of your business are slightly harder to pin down, but definitely no less important. They cover things such as consumer perceptions of your company’s values and identity. Company values are specific and defined for each company to guide that company towards its business goals. They typically include things like ‘empathy’, ‘honesty and integrity’, ‘passion’, ‘professionalism’ and so on.

Signage can influence customer perceptions of these values in two ways. Values such as honesty, empathy and integrity can be communicated through design elements contained within the sign. Think of this in a purely artistic fashion – for example, wide-spaced, thin, lower case and sans-serif letting suggests stability and openness, whereas bold, thick sturdy letters imply a firm sense of integrity.

The second way that signage can affect perceptions of your values is similar to that seen with tangible assets, via the quality and smartness of the sign itself. Values such as passion, professionalism and so on are communicated by ensuring that all signage is well-maintained. A poorly fixed and faded sign suggests anything but professionalism and passion.

As you can see, there is a lot more to signage than meets the eye. Signage does more than simply signpost things – it embodies your brand identity. At The Sussex Sign Company, we have decades of expertise and have shown that we can be trusted to protect and embellish your brand. Please get in touch today to find out how we can work together, call us on 01273 417057.