Happy New Year everyone! I hope the holidays were good and you have committed to some new years resolutions. Hopefully one of those is to get an LED sign for your business or organization, possibly to replace a “Changeable Copy” sign like the one below.
What is the second line on this sign trying to sell? Is it a prank or a missing letter? Is it some sort of hyphenated acronym? If it takes you longer than 1-2 seconds to figure it out, you are not alone. I had to drive by it twice before I knew what it meant. If you are still having trouble, the answer is at the bottom of this post.
By the time a motorist deciphers the coded message (if he even decides to take the time to think about it) he will be too far past the property to make the “convenient” stop. You do not want your advertising to be coded, especially on an outdoor sign where the audience has a limited time to read, process, and decide if they want to act now, keep the memory for later, or forget about it. I thought this would be a great picture for a future blog post about why LED signs are such a good investment, so I decided to stop, not to buy anything, but to take a picture.
A decision to purchase an LED sign is not a light one. They can be expensive, and the market is full of confusing information and less than straightforward sales strategies. The purpose of this blog is to help clear the way to the truth. There have been some great posts in the past on buying an LED sign, Deacon’s last post should be extremely useful for researching our blog.
LED Signs help focus your advertising and make the messages clear and dynamic so the motorist can make that decision quickly, and hopefully in favor of visiting your establishment.
No More Acronyms
Your sign shouldn't look like a classified ad with abbreviations and acronyms that help fit the text on the sign by sacrificing readability. LED signs let you scroll, or use different size text to create a crystal clear and meaningful message your potential patrons.
Easy Message Creation
More than once, I've seen the previously pictured sign stuck on the ground for quite some time with half a message. This can happen for many reasons. They ran out of letters, the manager was called back into the store, or the motor got stuck. In any case, anyone who has placed letters on these signs can tell you its not a fun or creative experience. However, with an LED sign you have the convenience of creating messages at your own pace, in the comfort of your office using a full pallet of colors, backgrounds, and fonts.
LED Signs Look Better
You only get 1-2 colors to work with when you use a changeable copy sign. They do not age gracefully. The tracking breaks, causing the letters to hang crooked and they can get corroded and rusted. The lighted plastic face can become discolored or cracked. I couldn't get a good picture, but the other side of this sign was not pretty. It faces a less busy street, so I’m assuming they decided not to worry about and turned it off. However, LED technology has been getting better and you can expect a longer life, and a more graceful aging process with a high quality LED sign. Unfortunately there are still some signs out there using cheap components that give the rest a bad rap, but that's what this blog is for. We want to make sure you get the highest quality LED sign for your business. that will look good for years on end.
A Good Investment
When you have a quality sign with quality content, LED signs will pay for themselves. A measurable and significant ROI on an LED sign investment is virtually guaranteed, unless you're installing a sign in Antarctica advertising refrigerators. The key is to use an LED sign that is manufactured with quality components, has a good documentation and a solid support team. The only people I've talked too who regret there LED purchase, are the ones who used sub-par suppliers with outsourced support.
Effective advertising has a focused, dynamic and clear message to the target audience. Unless they are cryptographers, the message should be in readable, easy to understand words. Outdoor LED signs are the most effective way to do this and promote your business to local traffic. Prices have gone down, the displays are sharper, and the lifespan is continually improving. Make this year the time to take the jump and invest in a quality LED sign. If you don’t do it, your competition will.
-SH
P.S. The sign at the beginning of this post is advertising ice cream on the first line, and store brand (WAG) AA and AAA batteries in a 16 pack on the second line.
I hope this post has been informative and helpful. As usual, I welcome ALL constructive comments. Please feel free to comment and add anything I’ve missed, or additional tips you may have regarding this topic. Please visit www.vantageled.com for many other resources, white papers, and of course: Great looking LED Signs!
**All posts/thoughts/writings are strictly the viewpoint of me and me alone and do not reflect nor speak for Vantage LED’s beliefs, attitudes, thoughts, etc. unless specifically stated.
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