We are often asked for our lowest price on a sign as if a customer’s most important marketing vehicle should be treated as a commodity. Sign Clemente is all in favor of saving money—we work to keep our costs down too, especially in this economy. But signs help make a first, and therefore most important, impression. Who would go out and get the cheapest haircut they could find, and buy the cheapest suit of clothes they could find before going on a job interview, or before trying to land that big sale?

Your sign sells for you 24 hours a day, every day of the week. It needs to compete favorably with all the other signs in the area. It needs to proclaim who you are and what you have to offer. So does it make sense to go on the cheap when it comes to signs? Restroom signs maybe, but not a building sign or a lobby sign.

Since 1997, a group of 488 Southern California Businesses have annually polled their collective 7,200 first-time customers asking the question as to how the new customers found them. Their results are consistent year after year:

Their signs: 46%

Word of mouth: 38%

Newspaper ads: 7%

Yellow pages: 4%

Radio commercial: 2%

Two conclusions jump out—their signs were productively speaking to potential customers and signs are the most effective form of advertising.

Need more proof? Who are some of the most successful big box stores? Ikea, Best Buy, Staples, Home Depot. Who has some of the biggest signs you see? Ikea, Best Buy, Staples, Home Depot.