Driving Attention: Sign Design Tips For Reaching Motorists In Conroe, TX
Is your business visible from the roadway? If so, you’ve been blessed with an incredible opportunity to increase brand visibility and drive sales by marketing to passing motorists.
Unfortunately, if you are like most businesses, you are letting this opportunity go to waste with suboptimal sign design and placement. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
If you want your message to reach Conroe’s driving demographics, our sign design specialists are standing by to help.
Read on to review research on the challenges that come with marketing to motorists, or call The Custom Sign Haus at (936)-539-4200 to jumpstart your sign design today and get a free quote on any order.
Marketing To Motorists: Challenges And Opportunities
Marketing to motorists is a great way to grow your audience, increase brand recognition, and sow the seeds for sales down the road. According to the US Census Bureau, there are more than 1.4 million vehicles on the roads today in Houston, TX, and if your signs can reach even a fraction of these audiences, it will yield a serious boost to your bottom line.
But that may be easier said than done. Previous research suggests that sign legibility distances and detection ratings for drivers leave serious room for improvement.
For example, in a 2017 experiment by the Interdisciplinary Journal of Signage and Wayfinding, just 57% of roadside business signs were legible to passing drivers. The other 43% of signs may have been useful for pedestrians, but in terms of marketing to motorists, they were a waste of money.
Furthermore, as many as one third of all signs were completely undetectable by passing drivers, meaning “both the businesses and their communities are foregoing the benefits that more effective signage would provide” (Auffrey et al., 2017, p. 100).
Clearly, marketing to motorists poses some unique challenges, but our experts can help you overcome them to seize these untapped opportunities, with no sign design experience required from you.
Driving Attention: Sign Design Tips To Reach Motorists In Conroe, TX
“There are a number of ways to increase the likelihood that a sign will be noticed,” write Auffrey et al. (2017). “Size, illumination, contrast, and location can all make a difference.”
To get you started with better roadside marketing results, we offer the following tips for sign design and placement:
● Upsize your message—As per the International Sign Association (ISA)’s guidelines, you should design your signs with letters a minimum of one inch (1”) tall for every twenty five feet (25’) of distance.
● Illuminate your message—Multiple studies show lighting increases sign conspicuity, legibility range, and the likelihood of positive brand impressions. Internal illumination, as seen with channel letters, for example, is best, with research by the Interdisciplinary Journal of Signage and Wayfinding finding internal illumination delivers 40-60% visibility improvements over external illumination, which can make all the difference in competitive roadside signscapes.
● Create contrast between your sign and the surrounding environment—”A sign must be considered in the context of its environment, as it must draw attention away from the visual distractions that surround it,” write Auffrey et al. (2017). “This is especially important for on premise signs along arterial highways where car and truck traffic, pedestrians, parked vehicles, trees, bushes, buildings, poles, wires, and other signs all compete for motorists’ attention.”
Accordingly, if your sign is surrounded by a grip of green bushes, steer clear of green sign materials. Likewise, if your sign is up against a white building, find a color that pops against it, like red or blue, to anchor your sign palette.
If you need help finding more ways to create eye catching contrast between your sign face, font, and the surrounding environment, our sign design experts at The Custom Sign Haus are standing by to help!
● Keep it short and sweet—Marketing to motorists is all about brevity. You need to get the point across immediately, without big blocks of text or multiple detailed images, so that drivers can take it in with a single glance, without putting their lives or the lives of their fellow motorists at risk. Most roadside signs will simply display your brand name and logo, although you may be able to squeeze in a short promotional message.
Get More Sign Design Tips: Contact Our Sign Shop In Conroe, TX
To learn more about the art and science of marketing to motorists, and get help from our in-house sign design team, you can:
● Call (936)-539-4200
● Email Hello@CustomSignHaus.com
● Fill out our quick contact form to book your consultation online
References
Auffrey, C., & Hildebrandt, H. (2017). Do Motorists See Business Signs? Maybe. Maybe Not.: A Study of the Probability that Motorists View On-Premise Signs. Interdisciplinary Journal of Signage and Wayfinding, 1(2), 100-115.
Bullough, J. (2017). Factors affecting sign visibility, conspicuity, and legibility: Review and annotated bibliography. Interdisciplinary Journal of Signage and Wayfinding, 1(2), 2-25.
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