Brands

4 Simple, High ROI Optimizations for Your In-Store Signage

Great in-store signs grab a customer's’ attention and motivate them to take action. While some retailers have mastered the art of in-store signage, others use signs that are ineffective at best and hurtful to their visitor-to-customer conversion rate at worst.

Luckily, it’s surprisingly easy to change your signs from ineffective and uncompelling to highly effective. In fact, all that’s often required are a few small changes to the way your signage is designed, worded and positioned.

Below, we’ve shared four simple but highly effective optimizations you can make to your in-store retail signage to capture more attention from shoppers, generate more interest in your products and offers, and convert more visitors into high-value customers.

Give customers a reason to buy

One of the easiest ways to improve the return on investment you get from your in-store signage is to change your copy from giving customers information about a specific product or service to giving them a reason to buy.

For example, if you own a bakery and cake store, an informational sign would read something like “our cakes are made using 100% natural ingredients.” Signage built around a reason to buy your product would instead say “Surprise him/her with our 100% natural baked goods.”

The difference is small but significant. Instead of giving customers information about a product, you give them both information and a reason to buy your product. This tiny change in wording is often all it takes to transform an ineffective sign into a major source of revenue.

No matter what you sell, if you’re a retailer, you can increase your sales and encourage more customers to take action using in-store signage.

Almost all retailers are aware of the importance of signage. Despite this, many retail stores use signage that’s ineffective at best, and outright bad at worst. From poor messaging to readability problems, many signs that could be effective fall short because of easily avoidable errors.

From window displays to product displays, effective use of retail signage in your store can drive sales, encourage more customers to sign up for loyalty deals and special offers, and massively increase your visitor-to-customer conversion rate.

Would you like to generate more revenue from your existing customers? Below, we’ve listed four simple but highly effective ways you can use in-store signage to boost sales, increase average revenue per customer, and grow your retail business.

Give customers a reason to buy specific products

Many retailers use signage to draw attention to products, but few use signs to give customers a reason to buy a specific product.

Every product has features and benefits. The features of a television, for example, are its size, display resolution, speakers, input and output ports, “smart” technology and more. These are the specific features that make up the product, and they’re moderately strong selling points.

The problem with focusing on features is that they’re not a strong source of motivation for the majority of customers. Only a small percentage of customers will buy a television because of features -- far more people are persuaded by benefits.

Checkout counter purchase, often impulse buys, make up a surprisingly large share of most retail stores’ revenue. By designing your checkout counter to encourage purchases, you can add a significant amount to your business’s bottom line.

There are a variety of strategies to increase checkout counter impulse buys. One of the most widely used is to train staff to highlight special offers and deals that appeal to customers. This produces real results, but it’s far from the only option available for your business.

Another option is to use in-store signage to draw people’s attention to special deals, discounts, add-on products and other inexpensive, high-margin items that make up the bulk of checkout counter sales.

When you buy sign holders or other display holders for your retail business, you have a variety of options to choose from. One of the most important decisions you’ll make is the material used to manufacture your sign and display holders.

Most of our products are available in three materials. Today, we’ll compare two popular material options: clear premium acrylic, and clear extra strength PETG.

Clear Premium Acrylic

Clear premium acrylic is a high quality material that’s ideal for sign holders and other items that will be used in busy, high-traffic areas.

Compared to other materials, such as styrene, clear premium acrylic has several strengths. It’s less rigid and more flexible than styrene, letting it absorb impacts (such as falling to the ground from atop a table or countertop) without cracking or breaking.

Part one of any retail marketing strategy is driving traffic to your store. Part two is a little more challenging -- converting the traffic that comes into your retail store into profitable, dependable and loyal customers.

When used effectively, in-store signage can be an extremely helpful tool for generating leads in your store. Customers that respond to signs can join your retail business’s mailing list, enter into special offers, and even sign up for long-term recurring sales and services.

Like with any marketing campaign, the difference between successful in-store signage for lead generation and unsuccessful in-store signage can be small. From positioning to your message, a variety of factors go into ensuring that your in-store signage is successful.

Below, we’ve listed for “101” tactics for your in-store signage to make sure your signs generate leads, inspire customers to take action, and have a measurable positive effect on your store’s turnover.