3 Big Sign Management Mistakes that Can Hurt Your Business

Who knew that exterior and interior signage at your organization’s physical locations could be such a time-consuming and complicated consideration?

Well, we understand here at Egan Sign. Many busy executives, operations managers, and other business leaders we’ve worked with through the years have wondered that exact point—often after we had rescued a signage project or rebranding process gone awry.

At a surface level, your signs certainly may seem like a straightforward component of your business’s overall branding and marketing strategy. However, if you’ve got multiple locations—even within a relatively small geographic area—managing your signs gets very complicated, very quickly.

Without assistance from an experienced outside resource, your team must handle coordinating vendors for design, permitting, prototyping, manufacturing, installation, and ongoing signage maintenance for every single business location you have—there are a lot of moving pieces in play when it comes to signs! This is why choosing an experienced and highly capable sign project management provider is critical.

Today’s post offers three significant decision-making errors at various points in the process that are common when you don’t have the right sign management resource working for your business. Don’t make these potentially costly and harmful mistakes!

1.  Choosing an Inexperienced Signage Designer

Designing great signage—especially exterior signs meant to draw new customers into your business—is a specialized skill set that not all graphic artists and designers possess. As we covered in our earlier blog post about the elements of effective signage, your signs need to be attractive and legible (among several other important factors), which is not as easy as it first sounds.

For instance, not all logos lend themselves to all signage formats, which can cause visibility and legibility issues when your business’s name and/or official branding is presented on a backlit white field, for instance. (See our case study on working with client Orscheln Farm & Home for more about that kind of design challenge.)

Because survey data suggests that poorly designed signage actually drives customers away from your business, your ineffective signs may be hurting your image and your sales. Additionally, what happens if your preferred designs don’t conform to local sign regulations? You could end up with lots of added time and cost into your signage project that you weren’t anticipating.

2.  Using the Wrong Project Management Resource for Permitting, Manufacturing, and Installation

When we developed our Egan Sign 360 process for complete end-to-end sign management, we were looking to solve so many of the issues that come with the complex tasks of signage permitting, manufacturing, and installation. Namely, though, we wanted to remove a major headache that plagues many project management processes: excessive change orders.

Unfortunately, change orders will tend to pile up when you work with vendors who are not dedicated to maximizing planning accuracy and efficiency from the very start of a project. This is what sets better sign management providers like us apart from the amateurs.

Unlike less experienced sign project management resources, we have the ability to quickly produce layout packages with solid recommendations, allowing us to build up complete and accurate costing in a timely manner. This is due in part to having access to better data, as well as a nationwide network of dependable partners that we’ve vetted over the years, so you don’t have to.

3.  Disregarding Ongoing Maintenance

Many business owners and managers tend to forget that installation of their signage is not the final step in the sign management process. This is certainly understandable, as these busy executives have a lot of other things on their minds. What’s unforgivable, though, is when sign vendors don’t seem to remember that keeping signage in good repair is essential for their clients’ success.

Here again, major survey data suggests that signage with visible damage like burnt out bulbs or diodes on digital signs—or that otherwise just looks a little “tired”—will drive customers away. This means that neglecting signage maintenance is harmful to your business.

Great Sign Programs Don’t Just Happen

We’ve said it many times because it’s true—great sign programs don’t just happen by accident. They require:

• Extensive planning
• Thorough project management that minimizes excessive change orders
• An intense focus on meeting deadlines
• Willingness to push the process forward when obstacles get in the way
• Nothing less than an unwavering commitment to finishing the job on time and getting it right

This is why your business requires only the best sign management resource. Want to learn more about how Egan Sign can alleviate all the hassles that you’ve likely experienced with attempting to manage your signage on your own? Get in touch with us today!