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.