Imagine your store as a three-dimensional TV commercial in a box.
In store signage can promote and motivate customer behavior and increase sales. Follow these sales tips to maximize on your in store advertising!
- First divide and map your store into sections and ask yourself in each section (a) what will the customer be thinking, (b) where will their eyes focus and (c) how long will they linger.
- Each section is great for one kind of message and completely wrong for another. Placing a sign that requires 12 seconds to read in an area where the customer will spend 5 seconds will not be effective.
- In a section where people are walking fast the message has to be short, concise and arresting. For instance in the display window or on the entry door the maximum number of words should be kept to 2 or 3 words maximum (e.g., Big Portions, Sale, 50% Off Sale, etc.)
- In an area where your customers are browsing a more detailed message is appropriate.
- At the register they’ll have longer and is a great location for a longer message. This is a great location to promote new products or a Loyalty program.
- The correct position of a sign can be measured in a few feet one way or the other and a few degrees of angle this way or that. Stand in an area and decide where people will be looking.
- Maximum exposure is achieved when interrupting the natural sight lines in an area to intercept the customer’s gaze.
- The concept is to increase the percentage of customers who read your promotional material by optimizing the message in each area for the length of the message based on the amount of time the customer will spend in that area.
- Proper sequencing of the signage is also important to promote the behavior at the appropriate time.
- The complete message doesn’t have to be on one sign; and can be sequenced over several signs. As customers move along in a line multiple signs can be read in sequence to create the complete message. The total message doesn’t have to be on one sign.
When patrons enter a fast food restaurant they’re looking for the counter or the restroom. You will not have their attention on the way to the restroom but once in the restroom an appropriately placed message of substantial length can be displayed and read.
Fast food restaurants have found the majority of their customers will spend time looking at the menu board after they have ordered and paid to keep themselves occupied. Another area where customers will read signage is at the condiment bar. Table tents will be read by about ¼ of the customers at fast food restaurants where more people dine alone and almost no one in a sit down restaurant where two or more people are visiting with one another.
Use your imagination and the sales tips above to create great promotional messages tailored for the area, where your customers will be looking, how much time they’ll be in the area and what they may be thinking about. In many situations the customer is looking for a diversion or something to keep them occupied as they are waiting, dining alone, or moving along in a line.
By Tom Fraser
