Our modern age is no different in kind to ages past. Whenever people have traveled, they have always looked for a sign that let them know when they had arrived. Imagine traveling hundreds of miles in search of Rome in 100BCE. How would you have known that you were going in the right direction? Or, imagine traveling from Massachusetts to Philadelphia in June 1776, hoping to get there in time for the reading of the Declaration of Independence. Without quality signs, you could’ve easily ended up in New Jersey!
Nothing has changed today. We all need and rely on signs of all kinds. Every good business already knows how powerful good signage can be. That’s why they are a good business. Whether it’s a school marquee, a church marquee sign, or signs for municipalities, show people in a bold way that you exist can mean everything to your company’s survival.
When it comes to businesses, signs are the defining part of their location. In a recent poll, 35% of participants said that they would never have even discovered a business if it hadn’t been for the sign. Even more important, perhaps, is the fact that a change or an upgrade in the size of a sign will directly improve the revenue of a business. Replacing a basic wall front store sign with a bigger sign that announces the store’s presence more boldly has been shown to increase revenue by 7.7% almost immediately.
Sometimes a business has restrictions for how big their sign can be or what the lettering can be. For example, if a chiropractor opens a practice in an office complex, the sign restrictions will be dictated by the complex or the building. This cannot be helped at the complex itself. But a quality billboard placed somewhere in a busy part of town can certainly direct prospective patients to a website for more information or even a phone number to call.
Other institutions like churches, for example, rely heavily on their signs for attracting visitors who might just be passing through town and are looking for a place to worship. A church marquee sign that gives information regarding the worship days and times and other contact information will enable those out of town visitors to attend services at the right place and time. A quality church marquee sign can easily blend in with the architecture of the church building itself, making the sign look like part of a larger campus. Municipal signs can be the same way and often are. Blending in with the larger building or buildings on the campus, they still stand out with the appropriate information.
These days, the value of signs can be seen directly in the amount of business a company does or a number of visitors one receives. When trying to figure out where to spend that advertising budget, it’s worth it to note that an on-site sign has as much value as 24 full-page newspaper ads in one year. Such is life in our modern world.