While interior signs are often rightly a key focus of signage strategy, what people see on the outside is just as important.
So whether you run a retail outlet, sports site, gym, hotel or other hospitality venue, exterior signage has a host of roles to play, from helping visitors or others to find your business to advertising fresh features or new offers, while also helping anyone at your premises to find their way around.
Types of exterior signage
Exterior signage takes many forms, and can be far more than just a placard bearing the name of your business. In truth, there are myriad different types of signage and similar branding you can use on the exterior of a building.
These include:
- Window graphics: These are signs and other advertising items which attach directly to a window. Window graphics can be printed in an array of styles and sizes, they’re typically fully customisable, according to what a business needs.
- Wayfinding signage: As the name implies, wayfinding signage helps you find your way around a business or other physical location, directing you from one point to another and confirming your progress along the way. It’s especially helpful in places like offices, hospitals and other medical sites.
- A-boards/pavement signage: A-board pavement signs, also sometimes called sandwich boards, suit all budgets. These signs are typically made from aluminium or metal, have a folding design and replaceable poster holders with either a magnetic or snap frame design. They’re popular with shops and can advertise special offers. An alternative for hospitality venues is the wooden chalkboard.
- Illuminated signage: Signs that are lit up can definitely help push your business head and shoulders above the competition. Clearly, this signage type is particularly useful at night, or in winter, in raising your brand’s visibility and bringing it brilliantly to life. From custom-lit letters and LED lightbox solutions and faux neon, there are plenty of options for illuminated signs.
- Hanging signs: These are made to attract people walking nearby rather than to be seen from a distance. They move in the wind, and are particularly popular with pubs and similar venues. Professionally done hanging signs are eye-catching and attention-grabbing. They’re usually suspended from a bracket, but can also be hung from a canopy or marquee.
- Fascias and shop-front signs: A fascia or shop-front sign is a highly visible kind of exterior signage, generally going at the front of business premises to promote services or an event. These boards can be installed just about anywhere that will boost your business.
- Totem poles: Totem poles are a popular style of vertical sign typically incorporating logos and brand colours. They are designed to attract attention from passers-by from a long way off, to make the most of passing trade.
- Outdoor business plaques: You can mount these on doors and walls, and they’re available in a huge range of different materials, from brass, acrylic and aluminium to bronze, steel and slate. Illuminate with backlighting or engrave them. These products are popular in particular with hotels and shops.
- Printed banners and flags: These are an affordable type of large-format signage, printable on materials from canvas to vinyl. Banners are easily mounted, can be seen from far away, are customisable and ideal for advertising events like grand openings and special promotions.
- Billboards: If your business is near a main road or a busy urban street, billboards are ideal and will be seen by large numbers of people. Digital models can be lit internally – otherwise, external lights on top of or at the bottom of the sign can provide illumination.
Why it’s worth investing in exterior signage
Clearly, the main purpose of exterior signage is to advertise your business so that you attract new customers. But at the same time, there are various other benefits to investing in exterior signage, and you can use it in a myriad of creative ways to boost your business and help it thrive.
Here is a summary of just some of them:
#1 Exterior signs attract new customers and advertise your business
The simple fact is that exterior signage attracts new customers and creates that all-important first impression by advertising who you are and what you do. This may seem blindingly obvious, but it’s surprisingly easy to forget the importance of outdoor signs as marketing tools. What’s more, it’s more cost-effective and affordable than you may have realised.
#2 Help visitors find their way to your entrance/car park or any other areas they may need to find
Whether someone has gone out of their way to find you or encountered you by chance, once they’re on site they won’t want to hang around. Use outdoor signage to help people locate the entrance, reception area, car park, loos or anything else they may need to identify quickly and easily.
#3 In the case of illuminated exterior signage, it can help your business be seen and found at night
Especially if you do a lot of business in the evenings, whether that’s selling petrol or running a late-night café or restaurant, you’ll want and need to be easily noticed and found. Vibrant, illuminated outdoor signage makes all the difference. Even if you do most of your trade during the day, bear in mind how early it gets dark in the height of winter. This benefit is also important if your location is D in a rural or otherwise out-of-the-way spot.
#4 Signs brand and decorate the outside of your premises, whatever your business
Whether you run a shop or anything else, a plain, non-descript exterior won’t attract much in the way of passing trade. Exterior graphics make the outside of your business look far more attractive and eye-catching, meaning people are far less likely just to walk on past.
#5 It can give visitors important information before they enter your premises
An exterior sign gives people key information about your business before they’ve even set foot across the threshold. It sets the tone for what they will find inside and tells them what sort of place they are entering. It identifies your business as a particular space.
#6 Helps your business to be found and advertises new lines of products
In particular, in bigger shops and large venues like sporting stadiums, signage tells people where your site is and encourages them to enter your premises. You can also use it to advertise new lines that you want to promote.
After quality outdoor signage?
At Rocket Graphics, we produce and fit both interior and exterior signage in all its various forms, from shop-front designs to venue graphics for outside display at massive sites. We produce everything ourselves from our large-format printing facility in Watford.
What’s more, we work across numerous different business sectors, including sports and retail, hotels, hospitality, offices plus many other venue types.
Get in touch to learn more. We’ll be glad to have a no-obligation chat about your signage requirements, whatever type of premises you run and whatever you need. We can also advise on how to maximise impact with things like colour, wording and font size.