Criteria for Successful LED Sign Advertising

Effective marketing is indispensable if you want to up your business’s reputation and outdo competitors. Investing in top-notch eye-catching LED signage to promote your products and services is just the kind of exposure your company needs and is warmly taken by the public. The big question is: What does it take to make this work? How you choose to represent your business through electronic message boards could have long-term repercussions and goes far to defining it. Before you sprint to splurge hefty amounts on LED signs, here’s what you need to know to make the right decision:

1) Keep the Content Updated

There must always be fresh and updated content on your LED screen, otherwise passersby might get accustomed to it and stop looking. Even basic information, such as the temperature, the weather forecast for the next few days, the fact of the day, the name of the day, and the random quote of the day will amazingly enhance the stickiness of your LED screen.

2) Location

Always situate the LED sign at a strategic location so the audience won’t have to strain up or down or squint up to view it properly. The size and the viewing angle of the sign should be perfect to capture the attraction of the target market. Your best bet is to place the LED sign where people would have to see it, such as near a roadway, or above a doorway. 

3) Quality Hardware

While the market is swarming with retailers, promising the highest quality and color displays of LED signs, only a few come up to the mark. Make sure you do ample research before you decide on the word of a retailer. Color, pitch, resolution, software and where it is manufactured should be considered. You might be tempted to purchase a cheaper LED sign and save money, but remember a top-notch LED sign is worth investing in for long term results.

4) Easy to Use Software

For non tech-savvy business owners, working with an LED display can be intimidating and it is thus imperative to look for a sign that comes with user-friendly software. A trustworthy LED sign provider ensures you comprehend the operating process of your digital display and provides assistance with your first few attempts at content creation and operation. 

5) Keep it Simple

With the advancement in technology, there are a plethora of options to revamp your LED sign, including full motion video LED signs. However, the viewers have about 2 to 4 seconds to view your sign, while video LEDs take 15 seconds to get the message across. It is imprudent to install a video message when moving text displays are way more effective. For messages you want read by people who have only a few seconds to spare, stick to a red monochrome display as it catches the eye and is highly effective.

Red Monochrome LED Sign

6) Content is the King

Lousy and clichéd promotional messages can even ruin an immaculately sophisticated LED sign and deter the trust of prospective clients. It is imperative to fabricate impressive content to capture the attention of public and elucidate your message in a welcoming light. Use the sign's content library to upload well designed messages, or hire a professional help to craft the content for your sign.

Full Color vs. Monochrome LED Displays

Often when faced with the dilemma of choosing the most appropriate LED display for your business, common sense dictates a full color display trumps a monochrome LED in favor of attraction. However, there are many factors which are involved in the decision. You need to take in to consideration your budget, the message you are aspiring to get across to your prospective audience and the nature of your advertisement, before reaching to a conclusion. Afterall, McDonald's restaurants known for their high signage budgets, still finds value in Monochrome LED displays. The question of “what is a better investment?” is presented to many potential LED sign buyers that will have long-term consequences.  Here are a few considerations to take in to account:

1) Budget

Monochrome LEDs are without a doubt, less luxurious and pricey than their full color counterparts. Outdoor Monochrome LED Signs employ a single color of LED to create text and/or graphics. The text can be tweaked to display in myriad options, like sparkle, flash, blink, and scroll, to create a message that will catch the eye of prospective customers as they approach your business.

For businesses that don’t have intimidating competition in the vicinity or are on a limited budget, monochrome LED would serve the purpose without breaking the bank. These can be changed to advertise current promotions or news, without the additional costs and at a fraction of the effort, normally associated with a traditional billboard installation.

2) Location

Look around your business to get a view of where you stand. In the placid world of manual copy boards and static signs, even a monochrome display would stand out and create quite an impact. However, if you are surrounded by high-resolution full color or video LED displays, they would overwhelm the monochrome LED of your business and make it seem rustic. The public is quite picky about where to divert their attention. If you want to deflect their attention back to you, creatively crafted content and a vibrant colored sign would give them the push to look your way.

3) Nature of Message

If the nature of your message is pure data delivery, without incorporating images, monochrome LEDs are a more prudent option. Locations like factory floors, outdoor way-finding areas, stock tickers, loading bays and security checkpoints are all great examples. However, when it comes to demanding the undivided attention of the public, full color signs are the way to go. Supporting graphics and colorful text add more meaning to the LED sign content. Using animated images and vibrant hues, a simple text advertisement is replaced with a fully branded call to action.

4) Nature of Business

There are situations where images enhance the meaning of your message, more than words ever could. E.g. a pizza place would fare better with an enticing image of a pizza slice, oozing melting cheese, than using only words for words to tempt the public. With the additional benefit of complex images via multiple color display options, in full color display, a more awe-inspiring and tantalizing message can be displayed. On the other hand, if you are in the insurance business, a mere picture can’t convince people to stop by and utilize your services, and in that case, a monochrome text display would serve the purpose better.

LED Signs for Schools

Schools need a means of instant communication with the students to operate efficiently, as they are a hotbed of activity, such as sports games, club announcements, plays, fund raisers, safety warnings, and a plethora of other events that need to be shared with the students and the parents within the community. Bid adieu to rustic blow away message boards, or flyers which are cost-intensive and might be lost, since schools are increasingly incorporating large LED display boards to increase the outreach and visibility of all important messages.

Here’s how LED signs enhance the effectiveness of communications in schools:

1. Cost-Effective LED signs

Old-fashioned marquee signs with changeable letters are not feasible anymore and are prone to theft and vandalism. Indoor or outdoor LED signs are not only attractive and easier to read, but also have a useful life of more than 10 years. As LED signs are brighter than LCD or plasma displays, while only using 10% of the energy as compared to incandescent bulbs, their animation and vibrancy attract attention and create awareness. Although the initial investment may come as a surprise, the return on investment makes up for it.

2. Display Important Announcements

LED signs enable schools to inform students, faculty, and the community about a variety of information: welcome and guide campus visitors, broadcast safety alerts, weather warnings and other safety instructions, announce any schedule changes and cancellations, promote student activities, school spirit and achievements, advertise the auditioning for extracurricular clubs, attract community members to get involved in school activities, issue public notification of school events, display motivational quotes to inspire students, flash the motto of the school to passersby and promote the school on an innovative level. An LED display is an easy and effective way to communicate with the school community.

3. Present Innovation

Your school may be splurging a fortune on top-notch technology within the classroom, but people driving by the walls of your school may never be aware of the happenings inside the premises. Therefore, investing in digital signage presents a tech-savvy front for your school. Show everyone what a great school you have and the technology you are using inside!

4. Ensure the Safety of Students

Any unprecedented occurrence can compromise the security of your school. A fire may break out spontaneously in the cafeteria, a suspicious stranger is suspected of lurking in the school premises, there is a threat of imminent violence or crime, or the school needs to evacuated due to a severe weather condition, a mass response LED sign can be used to broadcast safety announcement in a matter of seconds.  

Humorous Appeal: Adding Amusing Messages to Your Sign

Adding humor is a great way to break through the clutter via effective signage, and there are solid reasons why. It is believed to be one of the most powerful tools in gaining attention, engaging consumers and aiding recalls.

Does humor work best for all?

No it doesn’t. As the same rule can’t be applied to all, so can’t humor.

Humor appeal is largely determined by what you are selling. What works best for others, may not work well for you. For example, a company campaigning for breast cancer awareness with a humorous appeal, may negatively influence the sentiments of the people struggling with cancer.

Creating an outstanding sign 

Before leaping onto why it works, here are some of the most commonly used techniques by companies to sell their products.

Comparison: Technique with the involvement of putting two or more components together to develop a humorous appeal. Best to use when the focus is to provide solutions to an existing problem.

Personification: This technique works best when you try to achieve positivity by attributing human characteristics with things to attract youth.

Sarcasm: This technique involves usually promoting embarrassing situations, habits of a person etc to target the core audience. Making them seem funny and enjoyable is the objective.

Silliness: Simply put, silliness refers to a ridiculous situation, incident or occurrence.  Making signs seem silly on purpose to make people laugh is an art of advertising. Highlighting the silliness in advertisements/signs, especially to market luxury or personal use products, is very popular tactic among marketing gurus.

Exaggeration: Exaggeration technique refers to the extension of any given situation in order to focus on one key element. ‘We sell the best’ slogans are made using this technique.

Adding humor to your signs: Benefits

Competitive Advantage Over Others: Adding humor to your signs makes it easily distinguishable from the clutter, with a greater impact. It provides you with the competitive advantage your product needs to sell more.

Source of Instant Entertainment: The most important advantage of humorous signs is that they attract instant attention. This is how it works. Humor triggers your memory to feel something. It enables you to laugh, giggle, or be amused, arousing a response, thus increasing the likelihood of the product to be remembered.

Aids Comprehension: Sometimes adverts are so overly decorated with messages that it becomes difficult to pick out what the product actually wants to deliver. This leads to failed advertising and ultimately a failed product. Humor on the other hand, is simpler to grasp and understand. Humorous signs may increase the likelihood of the consumer to buy your product as it creates a positive vibe and a more personal connection.

Conventional outdoor advertising is losing its spark in today’s world. In order to regain visibility of our business, it is important to come up with innovative ways that are easy to attract and encourages buying decisions of the consumers. Humorous advertising, if done correctly, can reap fruitful trophies for your business.

Research Study Reveals Digital Billboards are Attractive

Owing to the growing glamour of “digital billboards” around the United States and the world at large, the Outdoor Senior Research Architect- OAAA commissioned Diane Williams from Nielsen in 2015 to do an on location survey that would justify to media sellers or advertisers that digital billboards create a positive impact on consumers. Nielsen conducted exactly 1,256 online surveys with residents age 18 and over from five major cities in the US. The study outlined the straightforward benefits of using digital billboards to advertise businesses through benchmark research. The following were the findings of the research:

How Often Do Travelers Notice Digital Billboards?

Nielsen conducted the research in a busy market for a month where digital billboards are widely seen. The researchers mapped the signage in the test market and screened the survey respondents that noticed the billboards.

After the survey, three-quarters of the travelers reported that they recalled digital billboards that they saw in the past month and 6 in 10 respondents recalled seeing those digital billboards in the last week. This wasn’t all. Of the respondents who recalled the digital survey, 55% also also noticed the message displayed on the screen.

Can Viewers Recall Some Specific Ads On Digital Billboards?

According to the research, the answer is yes. For the benchmark study, Nielsen tested about 30 billboard campaigns, in which six brands with regular rotating ads on the billboards for each market were picked. The survey showed that 80%, 77%, and 89% of the local travelers of Atlanta, Phoenix, and Tampa respectively, noticed at least one of the six tested ads in the past months. The ads featured a sports television broadcast, a local casino, and a local lottery in their messages. Other markets were also targeted in the research.

In a nutshell, the findings revealed that the most of the respondents noticed particular messages as opposed to digital billboards that they saw in the last month.

Do Digital Billboards Engage Consumers?

Some of the subjects of the study showed results that weren’t even expected as much as they showed up, or more explicitly, ended up as “Breaking News”. Over 50% of the total respondents were asked about the effectiveness of digital billboards, and they responded with statements such as “cool way”, “good way to learn”, or “visually appealing”. Boom!

As far as consumer engagement is concerned, the study showed that about 36% of the people who noticed digital billboards in the past month either passed the information on to their acquaintances or recommended them after actually visiting the business, restaurant, or store that was advertised. It’s not only that people attended the event or visited the venue but they also followed the suggestion and made a purchase.

The study also showed that although digital billboards are an offline medium from the consumer’s point of view, they actually do prompt viewers to take online action, as around 16-18% of the digital billboard viewers in the last month actually visited the businesses’ websites. This shows that digital billboards are not only trending these days but also bring real-world benefits in the long run.

Tips to Keep Your LED Sign Updated

LED signage is a fun and cost-effective way of marketing a business enterprise today. If you as a business owner want to stay ahead of competitors, you must use the right promotion tools to market your business. LED signage will do just that in a very fun and effective way, boosting sales and helping you grow your consumer base.

However, the general perception towards LED signs is that they are a ‘one-time fix’ – this is far from the truth. They require constant involvement in terms of content, color adjustment, and the right graphics to position your brand just right and drive sales.

Following are some key areas that you need to work upon and tips to keep your LED sign updated to make the most of them.

Invest in the Best: Make sure that the hardware you are purchasing for your signage is of high-quality. Purchasing cheaper signage to save money will only become a pain later with all the additional repairs and maintenance to keep it operational. Good LED signs come with better power supplies, quality pitch, and have a relatively longer lifespan which will save you from the trouble later.

Regular Checkups: If you have decided to invest in dynamic signage options, ensure that sufficient care is being taken to keep it running optimally. Inactivity of an LED sign can be the death of your business. You cannot ignore repairs and maintenance if you are looking to grow your business in terms of market share. There are times when, due to some electrical or digital failures, the sign stops functioning. Conduct immediate repairs; non-operational signage may give the impression that your business is closed.

Creative Content: When it comes to boosting sales with a LED sign, this particular aspect is stressed time and again. Content is king – fresh, regularly updated, and interesting content goes a long way in engaging potential customers. Going for themes that can be frequently updated will be appreciated. Your local sports team won? Show support with your LED signs. A disaster struck? Signs that say we are with you will help you form a bond with your customers on an emotional level. Also, don’t forget to put an appropriate call to action in your LED signage to drive sales further.

The Right Color Codes: With every business today opting for digital technologies to advertise, you will need to employ appropriate color schemes to stand out. .From a great distance, people get to see high-contrast messages clearly, while messages with low-contrasting colors tend to blend together and are hard to read. What are contrasting colors? Think colors on the opposite side of the color wheel such as:

• Blue on Yellow
• Red on Blue

Or use a color with a neutral such as:

• Yellow on Black
• White on Blue

If you still want to use low contrast colors, outline the letters in white or black, however, the high contrast colors not only make for easy to read messages they attract attention. This is the key to get the most marketing power out of your color choices. Appealing content will be of no use if the consumers are unable to see it properly. Therefore, do your research well and put a lot of thought into choosing contrasting colors.

Wrapping up, LED signs are a great way to attract attention of passersby, so make sure you succeed in creating the right impression.

The Importance of Restaurant Signage

The main purpose of LED signage is achieving communication results with patrons that go far beyond non-digital efforts. Human brains are attracted to bright flashing lights and our eyes are automatically drawn to moving objects. Digital signs displaying full-of-motion videos and eye-grabbing graphics are dynamic, not static. They tap into something that is innately human to demand attention and hold it. Businesses cannot thrive if the prospective consumers are not aware of their products and services and the LED signage gives a modern and attractive solution to provide that indispensable information.

Like all businesses, restaurants were quick to catch on and incorporated the use of LED signage, both indoors and outdoors. Here’s how a restaurant benefits from installing LED signs:

1. Display Updated Menu
The restaurant business is one of much competition and people are constantly looking for sumptuous fare at the best prices. Your restaurant might have the best prime ribs, but unless you show the customers what you offer, chances are they wouldn’t find out. Restaurants are making excellent use of the LED display board, using their sharp, clear colors to display images of daily specials and to attract patrons inside. (Even for a non-famished food aficionado, it’s hard to resist mouthwatering pictures of succulent hamburgers or strawberry cheesecake).

At one glance, customers would be able to identify what they want and know the associated prices. The flexibility of the LED signs allows the content to be updated with simple software, instead of laboriously replacing the board. Restaurant owners can even set the screen to automatically display a breakfast menu in the morning and switch to a lunch menu in the afternoon, with no extra effort required.

2. Display Specials
Most restaurants boast a special menu available only for a specific period of time, within a deal or a day, such as “the Soup of the Day” or “Beer of the Day”. If your restaurant wants to flaunt a specific special, it can be promoted by a display on an indoor LED sign instead of plastering posters everywhere. Enticing food pictures can be incorporated within a tempting text to attract customers in to trying that fare. Using a visual commercial always works wonders in boosting sales. Besides, it would help the new customers order as they would be acquainted with the eateries specialty.

3. Cut Down on Wait Time
Customers hate to wait in line and long impertinent lines on a busy night, result in unhappy customers. There are two ways to use LED signs to manage the waiting lines. Firstly, an over-the-counter LED sign can count down the estimated waiting time and indicate to the customers how long they are expected to wait. Secondly, they could display entertaining information, such as news bulletin, weather or sports score, to divert the attention of the customers.

4. Boost Sales
Business owners that are willing to invest in an indoor LED sign for their bar or restaurant can expect to see an increase in sales. While effective use is most important, just the mere presence of an indoor LED screen will show the customers your bar or restaurant is savvy enough to be willing to use digital technologies as a means to advance the brand. Digital technologies are attractive to the modern audience and will serve to help your customers feel as if they have made the right choice by coming to your establishment.

How Poor Quality LED Signs Can Affect Your Bottom Line

When deciding to look for a new LED sign for your business, it is important to consider several aspects to ensure that you get the very best one. Ask yourself' “What is the best product?  What will give you the best value for your money? What support does it come with? Does it come with a warranty?"  When it comes to buying other things like, say, TVs or microwaves, you can easily check for reviews online and it makes the job of choosing that much easier. When it comes to LED signs though, it becomes much trickier since there are actually very few reviews.

What happens is that you will have to rely on your own research, your gut, and the information fed to you by an eager salesman. Many times, you will find offers for products that allow you to “buy direct” or “get the same sign at half the cost” and they are tempting, no doubt about that. But they are inferior products. 

Inferior LED Signs

Most people would settle for poor-quality LED signs thinking that they could use the money saved on the purchase to buy a new one when the one they have breaks down in a year or two. But poor-quality LED signs do not wait one year or two to stop working. No, they break down continuously until they just finally die. Check out some of the costs associated with poor quality LED signs below

Service Costs

Digital signs are not like your mobile phones or cars where you bring them to the shop and they can fix them for you in a jiffy. These signs are high up in the ground and you will need a truck with a bucket to get to them and fix them. Average costs are listed as follows:

• Charge for standard bucket truck with technician - $150/hour and usually takes 2 hrs.
• Extended bucket or crane with technician - $250/hour and usually takes 2 hours.
• Service for sign troubleshooting - $450-$750 and usually takes 2-3 hours.

There are others involved but as you can see, it gets very pricey and there goes all the money you saved on your poor-quality LED sign. Some of you might insist that you get your cheap signs from companies that do not charge for service, but what if they go out of business or are slow to respond? You will be left with a sign that does not work.

Other Costs Related to Poor-Quality LED Signs

If you are using your signs in your business and your signs go on the blink, you will essentially lose money because you are not drawing people into your business with your signs. Time is money in business, and when your sign is on the blink and you waste time getting it fixed, then you will be wasting money all the same. First impressions are everything in business and if you have a sign that is not working for periods on end, what impression does that give passer-bys about your company? Nothing good I can assure you. Keep in mind that cheap is not always best and spending a little bit more can help you save a lot of money and headaches.

How to Create Effective Content for Your LED Display

Content is King, or so says Bill Gates. How as a small business owner, can you make sure that your ads are getting enough attention amidst all the competition? What factors will affect the efficiency of your ads? Below are four of them.

1. Duration

How many seconds do you need to get your message across? That actually depends on your product or the location of your LED screen. If you’re targeting pedestrians and you’re addressing passersby in front of your store, chances are, you can display your ads a little longer. Keep it under 30 seconds. If your targeting drive by customers, the ads should be no more than 15 seconds to make sure that your ads can be seen from start to end while passing by. Longer ads are pointless because your target  won't see the entire ad from start to finish.

2. Format

Can they clearly read your LED message board? If you want to make your ads effective, it’s great to determine what is the right size, and font style you should use in your ads. Always try to achieve balance and let people focus on the more important details down to the least important ones.

1. Make Letters Big! Letters should be easy to read, so make them big, at least 1/4 of the screen. Small text might look nice on your computer screen, but it won't when broadcast on the LED screen. 
2. Do Not Apply Shades on Text.  Fancy fonts might look nice on the monitor, but they won't on the LED screen. The reason for it is that, despite of its large size, the LED  display has less pixels than you PC monitor.  
3. Plain Text is Better. Use Sans-Serif fonts such as Verdana or Tahoma, as they appear much more crisp and readible. Serif fonts (ie. Courier, Times New Roman etc) look very nice on the PC monitor,  but they have the serifs which add pointless "noise" to the text and make it look blurry. Recall point #2 above, that the LED screen has less pixels than you monitor. This noise will be amplified even more if your screen uses virtual pixels.  
4. Use Contrasting Colors.  Over 20 years ago Ms Karen E. Claus published a table, indicating the colormatch with the best contrast ratio. She did it for the classic static signage, but the principle is still valid today. According to her research, the best matches are the following: Black on Yellow,  Black on White, Yellow on Black, White on Blue, Yellow on Blue, Green on White, Blue on Yellow and  White on Green. Avoid color combinations such as Pink on Red. 

3. Design

An ad with sloppy, cheap design will never have a chance against your competitors. With good design, your ads will sell themselves. You have invested a lot of money in this advertising tool. Don't put up up mediocre content and let it go to waste. Sit down and take some time to decide how you want your LED screen to look. There are many pre-made graphics that can be loaded or purchased at a reasonable fee or hire a graphic designer to create custom ads for a strong presence.

4. Content

Do you need text heavy ads or should you go for image driven content? If you’re in a business that relies on visual signals like the auto industry, real estate, or a travel agency, definitely go for large and vivid images. Otherwise, you can use short, witty tagline to represent your brand and your product. Displays with text only are highly effective too. Keep the content fresh, updated, and useful. Display public notices, weather reports or up coming events. Make your sign a community center piece, not just an advertising portal, otherwise people will get accustomed to the LED screen and will stop looking at the messages. Ideally you should upload new content every day. Yes, every day! Don’t forget to infuse fun in your content to keep it light and easy for your readers. 

How to Link Digital Displays with Social Media

When you look back at other types of technology and compare them with technology used in social media and digital signs, the two are mere infants. However, as these two young technologies grow and develop together, they can bring about tremendous opportunities especially for businesses in the aspect of branding and customer engagement.

Digital signs, with their many strengths, will never quite be able to deliver large amounts of content to customers. This is to say that businesses cannot really count on them to deliver detailed information and they are not meant to. These signs are most effective when they contain limited word usage and content. On the other hand, you have customers going online to do research before they even endeavor to get in touch with the company – and this is where social media comes in.

The Numbers Tell the Story

A survey conducted by the Merchant Confidence Index last February 2011 showed that among 8,500 local and small businesses in the US, 70% utilize Facebook for their marketing activities. The same study showed that Facebook ranks higher than Google in terms of marketing method used by local business owners. Looking at it this way, it just makes sense that social media go hand in hand with electronic signs as a way for consumers to get their hands onto more detailed information regarding a business using different computing devices.

Smart Practices to Consider

1. Broaden your existing customer base – It is a good idea for businesses to include social media icons on their digital sign boards to build Twitter followers and Facebook fans. By broadening your follower base, you can establish more concrete relationships with your customers and strengthen loyalty. Once you get people to follow you on social media, you can inform them about sales, promos, and other events and offers without spending a dime.
2. Guide customers to additional info located in social media accounts – Digital signs are indeed limited in terms of the amount of detailed content they can deliver but social media is not. Using your accounts, you can link product spec sheets, photos, flyers for sales, and even coupon codes among other marketing information.
3. Play up your strength using the right social media platform – Take a good look at your business and it will be easy for you to see which social media channel will benefit you the best. If you own a car dealership or a catering company then your business is highly visual and you will do well to use social media sites like Instagram or even Pinterest. If you have sales and new promos frequently then Twitter will suit you best. For real conversations to build your brand, Facebook will be your best option.

Establishing a presence for your business in social media will not take long but you have to really work hard at it. You have to really pay attention to what you post and when you post - it is hard work but it really does pay off and helps you get more out of your digital signs.

What Size LED Text do I Need on my Display?

Proper selection of letter height is critical to ensure a LED display is legible to its intended audience. To make sure you select the correct letter height, LED Sign Authority has included a useful visibility chart that shows an approximate letter size required to be legible at a designated distance from the sign.  

Calculations based on an externally (or naturally) lit sign with all uppercase letters. Factors that may affect required letter size include: color scheme, font selection, traffic and weather conditions. Please refer to the complete study by the Pennsylvania Transportation Institute, Penn University and the United States Sign Council.

Is It Wise to Import LED Signs from China?

If you take a look at all the products you use, chances are you will find that a majority of them are made in China. It has become so prevalent that there happens to be hundreds of “made in China” jokes told every minute. However, there is a good reason for this abundance of China-made goods and that is they offer cheap labor which translates to more profit for companies that get products from them.

Getting more bang out of your buck is a great business ethic but questions are raised on what you are actually getting when you go for China-made goods. Any serious American company that goes to China for their manufacturing needs will always want an on-site quality engineer in the factory because as the saying goes about China-made goods, “You get what you inspect and not what you expect.”. Just read the book ”Poorly made in China” by Paul Midler, to get a better understanding of how things can go wrong when doing business with China.

LED Signage from China

This is not to totally discredit the quality of China goods but it bears something about the subject. When you factor in the fact that quality is 50-50 and the fact that you need to pay for shipping, wait for the cargo, and pay taxes—well, it seems more trouble than it is worth, doesn't it? It is for this very reason why more and more companies are bringing their manufacturing back to the good ol' USA.

This should be a heads-up for businesses and other people in charge that are thinking of getting their LED signs from China. It might be tempting to save several hundred bucks on your LED sign and get it from Shenzhen but what if it arrives and it doesn't work as it should? Do you have to ship it all the way back to China? Can you get technical support without communications difficulties? Try getting support at 2 pm in the afternoon on a Friday when it is 4 am on a Saturday in Shenzhen. Ever play phone tag? Communication can be bad enough even when people are in the same time zone. If you do manage to contact someone will you be able to understand them through the language barrier? Compare that to buying your LED sign in the USA. If there is a problem you have someone you can speak to within hours not days to get your sign back up and running.

Things Can and Do Go Wrong

It is hard to talk about LED signs from China and not sound like a complete black propaganda instigator but the fact stands that when you order LED signs from them at deeply discounted prices, you get what you pay for. You will be surprised at how creative they can become in using old parts for “new” LED signs just to save dollars and cents from the total cost.

Lets talk design. In China the LED signs are designed to be mounted within in a waterproof surround on the side of a building. This is much different than in the US where signs are set out on a pole and expected to withstand the elements of rain, wind and snow. Signs for the US need to be designed to shed the water away from the the electronics with minimal holes to prevent water intrusion. Cabinet finishes are have to be  durable and long lasting to preventing rust and deterioration. Using a sign not designed for the correct environment will lead to sign failure, as has been found by many distributors (and customers) of China products.    

This is not to say that every LED sign they produce is bad but there can be issues, and most of the time, there are. Sure, there are excellent China-made components that are used on US-made LED signs and there is no denying that they are truly world-class but when these world class components are used in a wholly China-made LED sign that has poor design overall, you get yourself a bad deal.

To really drive the point home, one LED sign is not the same as another LED sign especially when comparing US-made and China-made LED signs. If you want quality, ease of use, and excellent support, choose US-made LED signage.