Signage plays a vital role in helping businesses effectively communicate with customers. Whether it’s wayfinding signage to guide customers within a store, branded signage to promote brand awareness, or outdoor signage for directing traffic – the right signage can boost sales and enhance customer experience. With the rise of digital marketing, the importance of physical signs may seem diminished. However, printed signage continues to be a cost-effective marketing tool that businesses leverage for capturing attention and conveying crucial information.
Printed Signage Market by Coherent Market Insights explores some popular types of printed signage, their usage and trends in the printed signage industry.
Advantages of Printed Signage
Printed signage offers various advantages that digital signage cannot match. Let’s explore some key benefits:
- 24×7 Visibility: Printed signs are always on and visible to potential customers. They don’t require any technology or electricity to operate. Signs effectively broadcast your brand message or information around the clock.
- Captivate at a Distance: Large format printed signs with bright colors and clear messaging can catch people’s eyes from a distance. This helps create top-of-mind awareness as people pass by your storefront
- Affordability: While initial set up costs may be high, printed signs have a very low total cost of ownership. Once installed, they don’t demand any running or maintenance costs unlike digital displays. This makes printed signage very cost-effective over the long run.
- sustainability: Durable vinyl, aluminum, and other materials used for printed signs have a long lifespan. Signs can be reused, repaired, or recycled at the end of their useful life – leading to minimal environmental impact.
- Revenue Generation: Retailers often change printed window signs and interior signs weekly or monthly to highlight new products and promotions. This ensures a consistent flow of contextual messages driving impulse purchases.
Types of Printed Signage
Given the diverse needs of various industries and businesses, printed signage comes in many forms. Here are some major types:
- Window Signs: These eye-catching signs placed on storefront windows create brand awareness and showcase offers/inventory for passersby. Cling vinyl and backlit box signs are popular window sign formats.
- Wall Murals: Large format wall graphics wrap an entire facade or wall surface. Murals can transform a bland exterior and strongly promote your brand through vibrant visuals.
- Interior Signage: Directional signs, menu boards, chalkboard signs, and other formats provide essential in-store guidance and communication for enhancing the customer journey.
- Outdoor Signs: Pole/pylon signs, monument signs, banner signs help drivers easily spot your location from the road. Illuminated channel letter signs make a strong after-hours impression too.
- Vehicle/Fleet Graphics: Full or partial vehicle wraps create a mobile billboard for your brand while trucks are on the road for deliveries or services.
- Tradeshow Displays: Tabletop signs, banner stands, and other portable pop-up displays strengthen branding efforts at trade events and conferences.
The Rise of Digital Printing Technology
Advancements in digital printing have revolutionized the signage industry. Inkjet and LED printers utilizing UV-curable inks deliver near-photographic quality graphics on a wide range of substrates. This has enabled signs to showcase highly detailed imagery, complex layouts, unlimited color options, and versioning capabilities. Today, most sign shops offer economical short-run and one-off prints alongside mass production using their digital fleets. This flexibility has increased the application potential of printed signage across all end-use sectors.
Market Outlook
While the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted signage demand in 2020, the industry is rebounding strongly with reopening of economies worldwide. Factors such as rising commercial construction, improving economic conditions, expansion of retail and hospitality industries will continue propelling signage consumption in the coming years. As per research conducted on Coherent Market Insights, Asia Pacific is emerging as the largest market for signage due to rapidly developing infrastructure in China and India. North America is also expected to maintain lead position, backed by significant opportunities in real estate, transportation, and other sectors across the region.
In this digital era, printed signage deserves more recognition for being a dynamic promotional medium. When creatively designed and strategically placed, signs boost branding efforts, enhance client engagement, and foster business growth. As customer journeys grow increasingly multichannel, an integrated marketing plan leveraging both digital and physical media will remain most effective. Printed signage fits perfectly within such blended approaches for delivering tightly-targeted messaging to audiences on the move.
