Despite the growth in social media, online advertising and pay-per-click marketing, UK business decision makers still believe that an exterior sign is a better use of marketing budget for a start-up according to a new survey by Signs Express.
The company, commissioned an independent research company to survey more than 1000 business decision makers to find out what challenges they are facing and better understand the role that signage plays in overall business marketing and branding strategies.
The research showed that 78% of business decision makers believe that signs, graphics and displays play an important part in their marketing activity and 98% think that good quality and attractive signs and graphics help to give a good impression of a business.
When asked to select the best three marketing tools for a business being marketed from scratch, from a list of 12 options, respondents said: a website (77%); an exterior sign (47%); printed brochures or leaflets (43%)
Craig Brown, managing director at Signs Express, said: “There is no doubt that company websites are the shop window of businesses today. But our research proves that exterior signs are still a vital part of the marketing mix.
“We first carried out this research in 2011 and repeated it to see if opinions have changed in the past three years,” continued Brown. “Whilst pay-per-click advertising takes its place as number six on the list of preferred marketing tools, it still comes below signs, printed leaflets and vehicle graphics. We were also interested to see that press, radio, yellow pages and outdoor advertising have remained at the bottom of the list but with even less respondents selecting these than in 2011.”