How Your Retail Business Can Benefit From Storefront Branding

By Tony Baxter

You’re walking down the street, it’s early in the morning and about time for a little caffeine pick-me-up. A quick look around and you immediately recognise the Starbucks siren and the blue and black Caffe Nero sign. (Disclosure: U.K.-based Caffe Nero is a former client of the author.) There’s also an independent coffee shop that you’ve never heard of before, too. Which one do you stop by to pick up your latte from?

The most likely outcome is that you’ll choose the brand that you’re most familiar with because they’re well established, other people also like them, and you trust that they’ll provide exactly what you want.

You’ve seen that green and white siren on every street corner for the past five blocks after all. Opting for the independent coffee shop, which you don’t recognise, involves a risk because you don’t know what to expect, and while that might be fine on a Sunday afternoon, you're not going to chance it on a busy weekday morning.

A Strong Brand Does More Than Catch Your Eye

A study from the Journal of Consumer Research found that consumers preferred to pick brands that they had seen before, rather than new brands or ones which they previously hadn’t noticed. A memorable logo, for instance, contributes to brand recognition, helps customers to recall the symbol each time they walk by a store, and makes them more likely to visit again.

When there are two brands that you do recognise, you simply decide which one appeals to you most based on your needs and values. In fact, you probably already know whether you’re going to walk into the Starbucks or the Caffe Nero.

A good brand does more than just catch your eye: it delivers a clear message, confirms the credibility of a company or product, and connects emotionally with target clientele. As a result, a strong brand motivates the buyer and reinforces user loyalty.

We see the dark colours and sophisticated font on a Caffe Nero and from the branding immediately expect high-quality, Italian-style coffee. A glance at the Starbucks’ storefront communicates a brighter, more social space which isn’t only about the coffee.

You Have Only Eight Seconds ...

The number one benefit of storefront branding is that you can connect with your target customers while they’re just walking down the street. It takes just eight seconds for someone to decide whether to leave a website, and you can bet that it’s a similar figure for someone deciding whether or not to walk into a store. That means you’ve got just eight seconds to make an impression, so the better your storefront brand is at making that connection with passers-by, the higher your traffic will be.

According to the FedEx Office "What's Your Sign Survey," as many as 76 percent of consumers will choose to enter a store they’ve never been to before just because they like the sign, and a massive 68 percent of customers say they’ve made purchases after a sign caught their attention. On the flip side, 52 percent of people are unwilling to enter a store that has a poorly made sign, and 60 percent won’t ever enter a business if the sign is missing from the storefront entirely.

A building’s exterior appearance is responsible for about 45 percent of a company’s marketing image, so getting the storefront front branding right can be extremely beneficial for business in the long term, too.

With so many retail fronts competing for attention, it’s important to have branding that stands out—but in a good way. The colour, materials, illumination, shapes, logos, and fonts used to design your sign are crucial. These elements are all part of creating a certain brand.

Get it right and your business could be miles ahead of its competitors; get it wrong and you could be looking at an expensive rebrand further down the line.