Often a sizeable presence along the curb, mounted to the building, or both, I think of traditional veterinary practice signs as landmark signs – Route 66 style, lit or not. They announce your presence and mark the way. At minimum, an outdoor sign includes the practice name and maybe the location’s address and phone number.

Simple awareness remains important, in our increasingly mobile society. According to Signtronix, a sign company with many veterinary customers, about 20-25% of a community’s population changes each year. That’s a good chunk of potential clients getting the lay of the land all the time. Signtronix research also shows that 46% of new clients found a business because of its sign, compared to 37% from word of mouth.

As expectations increased as marketing pressures grew, we had the option of marquee signs too. Once reserved for theaters and other entertainment venues, many signs from the 1970s and 1980s featured lights and slats that held the letters. The problem, however, was that veterinary staff members got tired of slogging up a ladder, in all kinds of

Anatomy of a Good Electronic Message SignArticle by Roxanne Hawn

weather, to change the sign. So, often the messages remained the same for a long time.

Signs that remain the same for too long are overlooked. That’s where the newer LED message signs come into play. These new signs enjoy all the perks of a marquee sign without all

the climbing. Equipped with wireless computer controls, it’s much easier to change the message and to rotate through a series of messages – if allowed by local ordinances.

According to Signtronix, more than 80% of small business clients live or work within a five-mile radius of the business. These clients – or potential clients – drive by the business three or four times a week.

Today, like it or not, we live an always-on life with phones and other mobile devices constantly pinging us. It’s the new norm, so signs now must do so much more than merely raise awareness and mark the way. They can become another way to “talk” daily to your clients and potential clients.

Let’s start with a little sign history. Typical outdoor signs fill two roles:• Public awareness: “Hey, that’s a veterinary hospital!”• Client way-finding: “There it is. It looks like I turn here.”

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Dynamic MessagingIn addition to giving you the chance to deliver several messages, the dynamic nature of LED message signs can convey your team’s vibrant nature as well as the practice’s high level of activity.

Joe Brewer, a regional sales manager with Signtronix, calls these new LED signs “electronic message centers.” He explains, “People judge the inside of a business from the attraction you have on the outside … you want to tell them who you are, where you are, what you do, and how well you do it.”

Awareness is one thing, Brewer says, but the key is to be attracting, not just attractive. In other words, signs should attract pet owners to you. No matter how great the sign, people will ignore it, if it doesn’t change enough.

Before choosing an electronic sign for outside your practice, research the local ordinances. Some limit a sign’s size or

Going BigThe bigger electronic signs function more like outdoor TVs, with greater image capability in addition to text. That’s the new frontier in outdoor signage, according to Michael Friedland, account director for Access TCA, a company that specializes in event and exhibit hall marketing.

Friedland’s whole job is about helping companies of all sizes get noticed. The newest LED and other digital technology can do that. “It’s just like buying a TV,” he says, “You’re walking into a store. You want the biggest, brightest thing.”

Across all the businesses Friedland helps, he finds that nothing works better for veterinary hospitals than what he calls “lifestyle imagery” – photos of pets, people and pets, staff and pets – that convey happiness, health, compassion, love, connection, and a sense of family.

If your outdoor sign is capable of including images, Friedland advises you make the most of it. “The picture should be larger, with whatever text minimal or bulleted,” he says.

Friedland also isn’t a fan of shuffling too many messages, too fast or too much. Variety is good, but you want time for the image to make an impression.

brightness. Some dictate whether or not the message can flash and how often the message can change (usually referred to as the “hold” time).

These newer signs also allow for scheduling, which gives you the flexibility to:• Display one set of messages on weekdays and another on

weekends• Run certain messages when the hospital is open and others

when it is closed• Preplan holiday messages

Training People to LookYou know how bank signs often flash the local time and temperature? All of us look. There’s an obsession about it. That’s how electronic signs can help. You can use them to train people to look at your sign, which in theory gets them to notice your practice and to like it – whether the person currently has pets or not.

It’s a top-of-the-mind-awareness thing, Brewer tells me. If someone thinks about veterinary needs, we want them thinking about you.

Brewer recommends sprinkling time and temperature, which all the signs can do, into your other messages. For example, rotate through: • Five of your messages• Time • Another five of your messages• Temperature

One of Brewer’s customers bought the board game Trivial Pursuit, and used trivia questions on his sign (in addition to other messages he was displaying each day). This business posted the question on one side of the sign and the answer on the other. “On their way to work, people got the question,” Brewer explains, “and on the way home, they got the answer. So, what he did was train people to look at the sign. Then, when he did put something up there that was germane to his business, he got results. People went out of their way to see what he had to say.”

10 Electronic Sign Ideas If you’ve been treating your electronic message sign like an old-school marquee sign (same one message all month), try these ideas to get out of the rut:

1. Advertise hospital gift certificates during all gift-giving holidays throughout the year.

2. Announce pets you’re fostering and helping to adopt.3. Help promote local community events so that your messages

aren’t always about you.

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Roxanne Hawn is a professional writer and award-winning blogger based in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. A former writer/editor for the American Animal Hospital Association and the American Humane Association, she has written about veterinary medicine and pet topics for nearly 20 years. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, Reader’s Digest, Natural Home, Bankrate.com, WebMD, The Bark, Modern Dog, and many high-profile outlets.

Banners and Lobby Message ScreensIf your marketing budget can’t quite swing an LED sign, you can still do nice one-time messaging with outdoor and indoor banners. I saw a great banner photo on Facebook recently, where a veterinary hospital announced the addition of a new veterinarian to the team.

Banners are great for:• Team additions• Upcoming events• New service announcements

Many hospitals are also adding flat screens hooked to a PowerPoint slide loop that provides marketing and other client education messages in the lobby. This is a nice way to share messages about:• Products and services• Your team’s expertise and credentials• Recalls that may affect your clients’ pets• Upcoming events

Because these screens are so much better at images than an LED sign, it’s also a great way to share “lifestyle” imagery – photos of animals and people together. If you have a solid puppy / kitten photography program in place, you could simply intersperse those cute pictures with your other marketing messages. Everyone loves a good awwww moment.

4. Welcome new pets by name, on the day of their first appointment.

5. Wish long-time clients happy anniversary.6. Congratulate current clients on new pets.7. Be sure to promote your emergency hours or emergency

referral location. 8. Include “lifestyle” messages that promote the human-animal

bond and compassionate veterinary care. 9. Promote any wellness plans or packages, year round,

whether they are at a discount currently or not.10. Announce new equipment and services (even long after it

isn’t so new anymore).

Often practices choose to go with humor – on both marquee and electronic signs. Some pet owners love that. Others don’t, particularly if they have elderly or very ill pets. The humor can feel misplaced if someone is coming to the hospital often and

frequently getting bad news. So, tread lightly. However, if you’re known as a witty team, then humor makes a lot of sense in your sign marketing plan.

Your Sign, Your ControlBrewer only half jokingly refers to other forms of advertising such as print, radio, and billboards as “blackmail” advertising. “You pay for it once,” he says, “you get it once. If you want it again, you’re going to have to pay again. A sign, you pay for it one time, then it’s paying you forever.”

With changes in social media, where things that were once free are no longer free and where access to your own fans / followers is deliberately being limited unless you constantly fork over ad dollars, onsite sign advertising where you have total control is sounding better and better to me.

Costs, LocationThese new signs can be pricy (starting at $15,000, up to $50,000). Maybe this comparison will help. Fast food chains spend an absurd amount of money on their outdoor signs. Now, compare the average transaction for a fast-food meal to the average transaction at your practice. Sure, their budgets are silly big and their product is more prone to cause impulse purchases, but transaction for transaction, an electronic sign might make sense for your long-term advertising plans.

Keep in mind that clients think about advertising costs too. When I asked what my blog readers and Facebook fans think of these electronic message signs, one person clearly objected. Essentially, she said, she would much rather her hospital spends that money on things inside the hospital that improve patient care.

Michael Friedland, account director for Access TCA, recommends basing sign decisions on your location and your community. As he travels the country, Friedland notices the sign pollution in larger cities and the real pop of signs in smaller communities. “You have to look at the sign landscape around the hospital,” Friedland says.

Good signs in mid-tier cities and smaller towns tend to get more attention and to be more successful.

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