I love books. As part English major, I feel like that might be required.What’s better than books? Rows and rows of them! Yeah, I’m talking about bookstores.
I could spend a good couple hours perusing shelves, reading back covers and building towers of my favorite finds. 
While I have a favorite genre – I’m looking at you, historical fiction – and a few authors I tend to favor, as I place another book upon another book and another, I find myself choosing them based on…. the pull of their cover art.
..Wait.
Yep.
I know – flashback to 2nd grade when Mrs. Swenson taught you that classic phrase, “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.” While that is indubitably a lesson to remember, the ugly (or not so ugly, in this case) truth is, design is integral to every purchasing decision. Like my cliche bias toward aesthetically pleasing book covers, customers foster an inherent bias toward great signage.
A few years after second grade, my educational prowess continued to grow! This time, I learned that when you state an argument, you’d best come prepared with some cold hard evidence. Well, Mrs. Swenson, here it is.
FedX Office, Ketchum Global Research and Analytics, and the University of Cincinnati Economic Center have conducted research using surveys regarding the importance of signage in relation to business success.
For all you number folk out there, here’s some neat numbers provided by their research! 🙂
- 75% of consumer indicated they referred others to a business due to its signage
- 68% of consumers believe the quality of a business’ signage is reflective of the quality of their products or services
- 67% of consumers reported they bought a product based solely on a sign catching their eye
- 60% of businesses reported that changing signage positively impacted sales by 10%
- 60% of consumers stated that they will not enter a business if there is an absence of signage
- 8 in 10 consumers said that they have entered a store based solely on the signage
While one sign has a cost of $0.02 per one thousand views, a 300 line newspaper ad is $2.81 per one thousand views and might only reach 53% of the intended market base, and one TV ad is $9.82 per one thousand views with a market reach of 14%.
Amidst all of those numbers, the central message is that signs are cost-effective and continuous, providing service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As Michael Jackson succinctly put it, “Beat it! Just beat it!” Beat those rates – I double dog dare you. So, while we should pay tribute to the well-intentioned Mrs. Swenson, (who, as we now know, wasn’t actually referring to book covers, but rather each other 🙂 ) we should dually take heed to the importance of quality design and the impact of great signage.
