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.

Shorten and simplify

A common in-store signage mistake is to write too much, resulting in a sign that’s so overloaded with text that it fails to attract the attention of customers. We’ve all “tuned out” from an ad that’s too wordy or lengthy, making it easy to sympathize with customers exposed to overly long signs.

If your sign’s headline has more than seven words of text, shorten it so that it sends a similar or identical message in less than five words. If your body text takes more than 10 seconds to read, try shortening it so that customers can get the key message of your sign in five seconds or less.

Short signs work because they attract attention and quickly deliver your message without ever making the customer feel as if they have to work. Reduce the length of your message and you’ll reduce the mental objections customers make to reading your sign, hugely increasing its ROI.

Use a text stroke to improve readability

Another common annoyance for customers is signage without clear, large text. While some of your customers will be able to read unusual fonts and thin text, a large percentage will struggle with text that isn’t clear, precise and easily readable.

One of the easiest ways to improve your signage readability is to use a block font that’s made with readability in mind. Choose a large font size and use contrasting colors, so that your text clearly stands out from the background.

You can also add a thin stroke to your text. This is a contrasting “border” of three to four pixels that helps the text stand out and improves readability. This is a great way to improve the clarity of your headlines, subheadings and signage body text.

Use product-specific signage

If a large percentage of your customers visit your store for information about a specific product, using product-specific signage in a clear acrylic sign holder is a great way to increase engagement and help convert visitors into customers.

Product-specific signs are signs that focus on only one product. For example, a product-specific sign could promote a discount offer on one of your top-selling products. While these signs reach a small audience than generic signs, they have a far more specific effect on sales.

By identifying your top-selling products and creating product-specific signage for each one, you can increase customer interest and improve sales of the key products that generate revenue for your store.

Is your signage as effective as it could be?

We’re retail display experts, with decades of experience helping businesses get more from their in-store displays. View our collection of displays and sign holders online or contact us to learn more about how we can help your retail business improve its signage and make more sales.