Houston-based sign companies want to help businesses communicate the right messages to their customers and demonstrate their brand’s tone and style through signage, drawing both foot traffic and attention from a distance.

It’s among the most important advertising investments companies can choose. Visit – Importance of Signage in a Business – to learn the importance of signage in business.

Signage is not a one-size-fits-all approach, however. If you miss the mark with your vision, design, message, and location placement, it can be a waste of time and effort as well as money spent.

Aside from the investment loss, poor signage has major lasting effects that could damage your business reputation after the initial launch.

Let’s review how your brand can be impacted and how, by working with a qualified and reputable business sign company like Humble Sign Co out of Houston, you can create effective signage that’s worth the investment and will continue to pay for itself over again.

What Constitutes Poor Signs in Business

Some aspects of sign creation and implementation are subject to opinion. Still, common pitfalls can lead to poor signage, damage your brand, and fail to grab the attention of the consumer. Here are examples of what constitutes poor signage in business.

Lacking a clear message

Branding, size, design, and placement are all crucial, but they mean nothing if the message you want to convey is confusing. When you lack a clear message, it can impact your bottom line.

The Signage Research Foundation performed a study relating to customer retail sign perceptions and roughly half of those studied from every major retail sector admitted dismissing businesses entirely when the message was confusing or unclear.

Poor design or difficult to read

Signs that are difficult to read can hinder most well-intentioned messages. All signs are unique. Read here for tips for designing smart business signage. Difficulty with legibility is often caused by:

• Too many visual elements
• Poor angle or location
• In close proximity to similar signs
• Improper size
• Poor contrasting background color or text
• Text that’s too close together
• Complex fonts
• Poor illumination

Signs that are in disrepair

Despite having an expert design, perfect location, and a spot on message, it can be for naught if the sign is dirty or deteriorated.

Roughly 40 percent of North American consumers state they make immediate assumptions about the business quality based on the care and upkeep of the sign. There is a clear correlation between its maintenance and the impact on the bottom line.

Consider the following impact of poor signs on your company.

Your brand loses touch with the target audience

The signs you incorporate into your business are integral in drawing the ideal consumer to venture into your business. It also plays a subtle role in keep your brand name and presence recognizable in the targeted markets.

While people might not necessarily stop and step into your company, the sign helps them recall the brand and makes you visible, so they come back. Over time this helps establish confidence and trust.

However, when the sign is difficult to notice from a distance or challenging to read, you lose not only a prospective customer, but that recall you could be building and the investment in ineffective signs.

Frustrated and confused prospects

Despite your sign placement and positioning being perfect, if it’s challenging to understand, you won’t further your reach into other targeted markets. In fact, studies show that challenging to read signs can actually damage a brand. When the signs are hard to read, customers become annoyed and frustrated.

This is not the first impression you want to convey when you’re trying to convert leads or encourage new sales.

Poorly perceived brand

A sign relays much more to the audience than the message regardless of how straightforward you are when communicating. Prospects look at the care and upkeep that goes into maintaining the signage. They also pay attention to how often the message is updated.

These things speak to the prospective customer on the quality of your brand and the type of experience they may have when dealing with you or purchasing your goods or services. A poorly kept sign tends to keep the trust level low with the local market.

This audience sees you as less credible; you can find it more challenging to wind business that you could have easily had with the best signage in the Houston area.

Foot traffic and sales

Whether it’s due to design, installation, positioning, maintenance, or difficulty reading, it will cost your sales. The impact on the bottom-line shows that consumers make a conscious choice not to enter businesses when signage is poor, especially if they have spelling errors, a poor design, or are confusing.

The prospects don’t want to spend money with a business when the sign quality reflects poorly on the business. This essentially means you can’t afford to neglect collaborating with a reliable and qualified sign company to create signage that does your business and brand justice.

Installation

Another key aspect to pay attention to is installation. It’s critical to the safety of employees and guests of your business as well as the longevity of the signage You want to avoid having the sign become a liability to the company by ensuring it’s adequately installed by professionals and in a secure location.

In this same vein, you want to order the sign in time to be prepared for a product launch, grand opening, or promotional event. Ordering in advance so you can take have it installed properly and avoid potential hiccups before the big day is essential.

Final Thought

The performance of your signage is significant in competitive markets and considering restricted marketing budgets for companies in these sectors. It can become overwhelming trying to remain relevant.

Still Houston-based sign agencies understand the plight and can help companies, especially small businesses, reach their targeted audience by creating signage that command attending.

They work diligently to elevate your brand and bring sales to new heights. They listen to your ideas and what you envision and bring these objectives to fruition.