A great retail sign should capture the customer’s interest enough to read it; just like a great email subject line gets someone  to open it, or a compelling headline in a newspaper gets someone to read it. Here are seven tips to create compelling retail signage:

Get to the point.

We communicate more efficiently than we did 5 years ago. Twitter is 140 characters. Snapchat – 10 seconds. Vine - 6 seconds. Attention spans are short. Make sure your sign respects that.

Make sure the fonts you use are easy to read

Some retailers can get away with crayons on a chalkboard, but driving sales should be Copy of Wine Discount 69414 (3)your priority. Clear font characters – without curly-cues and multiple colors – let the customer’s attention first gravitate to your message and then to your product. If customers can’t quickly read it, they’ll move on. And as Baby Boomers age, smaller signs are harder to read.

State the customers’ reasons for buying your product or service.

What is the customer buying this for? To be a hero to his son? To look fabulous for a date? To have easy-to-manage hair? Then tell them, “Be a hero with this.” “Make heads turn!” “Manage curly hair with this.”

Use the words you or yours.

Customers buy when they start visualizing themselves using your products. One way to help them is to incorporate the words you or yours. Notice how much stronger the above signs become with the addition of you or your. “You’ll be a hero with this.” “You’ll make heads turn!” “Manage your curly hair with this.”

Less is still more.

A recent article said people were shortening text messages down to a of couple words, a couple of initials, or a single emoticon.  We are all getting used to short, succinct Business Monument 015messages. Edit your copy ruthlessly until the meaning remains but the fluff is gone.

Test your sign.

It’s fun to have a new sign on the top of a window display that you feel is perfect … until you notice it is too faint to be seen through your tinted window, or the font is too small to be seen by cars going 25 MPH. If you are on a busy street, have a friend drive by and tell you what your sign is about. If they can’t get it – edit, edit, edit.

Have fun

Boring signs are, well, boring. Remember, your goal is to grab a casual browser’s attention. Double entendres, puns and jokes are great ways to show you are a fun business. Yes, some people will say you’re not funny, but the bulk of your customers will appreciate it. They might even take a picture and post it on Facebook.