Avoiding Major Mistakes on your Business' Signs

When you're brainstorming ways to bring in new customers to your retail establishment, make sure you don't skip over the basic steps in search of new and exciting promotional strategies. There's nothing wrong with thinking outside of the box, but you should cover the tried and true techniques inside the box before you venture on your own. One such technique is the use of effective signs. Many a customer found a great new store simply by driving or walking by and seeing a placard that caught their attention. But many would-be customers have passed up a store because of common mistakes. Make sure you avoid them when making yours.

Grammar and Spelling

Unless you want to wind up on a website with the word "FAIL" written in red letters across a picture of your signs, you'll want to make sure your promotions are free from spelling and grammar errors. If you aren't good with the English language, have someone who is take a look at your copy and correct any errors you may have made. You might not think it makes a difference, but errors are only going to inspire laughter and scorn. People don't want to buy from establishments that can't even get the signage right.

Too Small

If you're going to spend the money to have your signs professionally done (and you should), shouldn't you at least make sure potential customers can read them? Text that looks large and easily readable to you, standing two feet away and expressly looking at it, may not be that way at all to a pedestrian or driver who has no reason to be paying special attention to what it says. Your ultimate goal here is to attract attention. While there is a school of thought that says small text will draw the reader in to examine what's written more closely, this isn't a theory you want to play around with when you're just getting started.

Self-Made Signs

Sure, it's a lot cheaper to type something up in Word and print it out on your computer or simply take a magic marker to poster board, but these methods look cheap and uninviting. It's one thing to make your own promotional materials when advertising a bake sale, but it's quite another to do it for your retail business. People are judging your company before they ever step foot inside the store. Give them the air of professionalism that you wish to convey. Subconsciously, people are looking for reasons not to spend money in your store. Don't give them any easy ones.