When small business owners are first starting out, they are faced with the important question of how to spend their money most efficiently to build brand awareness. To help answer this question, we looked at a study from the United States Chamber of Commerce in which 2,475 consumers were asked how they learned about businesses:

• 50 percent learned from an on-premises sign
• 33 percent heard about it by word of mouth
• 9 percent read about the business in the paper
• 6 percent used the Yellow Pages
• 1 percent heard about the business on TV
• 1 percent heard about the business on the radio

  It follows then that the best way to promote your business and avoid failure is to invest in the best sign you can afford. Of course, this is in addition to providing excellent products and services to your customers once they find your business, so they will tell their friends and family to visit you.

Signage Is Also Cost Effective

  Business signage for your Bradenton or Sarasota business is an effective and inexpensive way to build your brand. To help drive this point home, consider comparing the cost to advertise in the local paper, the most common way to advertise, to the cost of good signage. The price for a full- page paper ad in an area with a circulation of 125,000 readers is about $5,000. If every single reader sees the ad, then the cost per impression works out to about four cents.   The cost of signage for businesses in the Sarasota or Bradenton area vary greatly depending on the project. For the sake of argument, though, let’s use a high-end monument sign and a matching channel letter signs on the building, both with LED lighting. This project might cost around