While communities often use signage for directions and safety information, businesses use them for advertising of products and services. Today’s highly mobile society often tends to venture into unfamiliar areas wherein which on-premise business signs come into play. A business can cost effectively communicate messages to potential customers who drive through their area of business. Often these signs may provide information of goods and services that customers are actually on the lookout for.
For a business
When making decisions about signage, businesses have to take into consideration the available financial resources, their target market, and characteristics about the location. In addition to that, a business has to clearly analyze the effectiveness of signage in terms of the overall branding and marketing strategy of the business, in relation to its location. The type and design of signs chosen to achieve the final objective depends on a few factors such as viewing distance, curvature on the road, amount of traffic lanes, setback of building, landscaping, any obstructions from other signs, poles, buildings, beams and any such object.
According to research, it is said that while some signs are appropriate for one kind of business, it may not be suitable for another. For example, LED signs used for a chain of hotels may not work well with a shoe store. Similarly, an electronic sign designed to increase turnover and enable better community relations for a car dealer will be different to that of the type and design used by a banking chain for integrating their national branding strategy. Therefore, the ultimate LED sign you invest in will depend on the above given factors.
For communities
Decisions made about an electronic sign, whether it is private or public, will have a critical impact on surrounding communities. While businesses are aiming to design signs that are visible, legible and conspicuous, they should also keep in mind the regulations that balance community standards with regard to location-specific technical requirements. However, in setting these standards, government establishments should acknowledge the difference in purpose and use of signs for individual establishments, small businesses and large businesses.
If regulations are biased towards one sign purpose, a business that depends on it will be at a disadvantage; particularly for small businesses who depend mostly on electronic signage as a crucial mediator for communicating business related matters to the public. On the other hand, if regulations encourage quality signs for effective communication at low costs, small businesses will benefit from it.
