From restaurants to boutique retail stores to professional services like doctors and dentists, many businesses rely on physical locations as the primary space to conduct business. Despite this fact, many of these entrepreneurs will undervalue the importance of their storefront for the success of their venture. Your storefront is the first thing a potential customer will see when walking toward your store; it is the first impression they form about your brand and can have a lasting impact. A study by Morpace found that around 95 percent of surveyed people held that the exterior appearance of a store plays a crucial role in its selection.
Knowing about the importance of curb appeal and achieving it are two different things. Many businesses want to appear hip and attractive to young customers but don’t know how! If you are an entrepreneur in the same boat, this article can guide you. Here are some simple steps to instantly enhance the appeal of your storefront.
Use Eye-Catching Signage
When surveying stores, the logos and the signposts on the storefront are among the first things anyone notices. Something that is eye-catching and suits your brand’s identity will instantly enhance your business’s appeal to interested onlookers. What signage your business should use will depend on what product you are selling and what niche of customers you want to attract. That said, there are golden rules that all businesses should follow. Your signposting should be visible, easily readable, and manufactured with high-quality, weather-resistant materials.
Different brands will go for different aesthetics. If you are a fancy boutique store wanting an upscale look, you can search online for premium signage providers such as Signature Streetscapes. You can learn more about Signature Streetscapes by visiting their website and contacting them for more information. If you are a cafe for young adults and more hipster communities, adding neon lighting and funky signage can help achieve an aesthetic, likely to appeal to that niche. Enhancing your curb appeal requires understanding the demographic your business wants to attract and making your storefront a visual experience that will influence that group.
Focus On Maintaining Your Exterior
Retail cleanliness is crucial in determining whether potential customers will conclude business with a store and whether they will choose to become repeat customers. People want to shop in places they consider clean, and if they perceive your store as disorganized and dirty, this is very likely to detract business. A survey showed that 64 percent of surveyed shoppers walked out of stores due to their upkeep. Another showed that entryway cleanliness was among the top 5 cleanliness factors, due to which people stopped doing business with stores. Your storefront’s maintenance goes a long way toward determining how your store and brand are perceived.
To have a well-maintained storefront, you must regularly clean your store’s exterior, all the windows, doors, and signposts. Try to have a well-kept environment around your store, with clean sidewalks, walls, etc. Regularly inspect your storefront for any damage or excessive wear and tear so that you can seamlessly replace anything that impedes the cleanliness of your storefront.
Make Your Store Looks Accessible
People want to do business with companies that appear to be pro-customers, ready to respond to the diverse needs of different people. Making your store as broadly accessible to the differently-abled will help cultivate a brand image of inclusivity and friendliness that is likely to encourage conscientious shoppers to give your store business and platform it amongst their friends and families.
A few easy steps to your storefront can enhance its accessibility. Adding a ramp to your entryway makes your store accessible to the 3.3 million wheelchair users of the country. Using automatic doors means that people with physical disabilities will not find it challenging to enter your store. Using large print signage supplemented by good lighting allows people with visual impairments to engage with your brand and its messaging.
Use Your Storefront To Advertise Deals
The boom in online retail, and its reliance on deals and promotions to sell products, means that customers are looking more for good deals than for particular products. In such an environment, stores must respond by creating effective promotions and marketing them through their storefronts. It plays a pivotal role in customer acquisition and brand loyalty, which helps lead to retention and repeat business. Eighty percent of surveyed customers would be more likely to do business with a new brand for the first time if they found a good deal. Two-thirds said they made a purchase they didn’t originally intend to because there was a promotion or discount. It shows that a good deal, apart from attracting customers from your competitors, can generate demand for the product.
Creating signage that advertises limited-time specials on your storefront can attract window shoppers and onlookers who may feel compelled by a deal that is too good not to resist. It can be integrated with social media campaigns, where following the company’s Instagram page unlocks a discount or premium offer, which can help expand your brand’s virtual reach.
Greenery Goes A Long Way
Artificial, concrete landscapes dominate most shopping centers, creating a homogenous look and feel that becomes dull and unexciting. Some landscaping and incorporating natural scenery into your storefront can help your brand stand out and attract customers. Plants, flowers, and other elements of nature are known to have a calming effect on those observing them, and stores can use this to make their stores more appealing.
Depending on the amount of space you have, you can incorporate greenery in several ways. If your sidewalk is large enough, you can use it to create a small garden that you can decorate with different plants and flowers, one suited to your business’s aesthetic. If you are working with a smaller space, using potted plants near the storefront or hanging baskets of flowers above can help give your store a unique vibrancy and identity. Make sure this aesthetic is incorporated inside the store as well.
Conclusion
If you are a business that relies on a physical store, your curb appeal can be the difference between rapid customer acquisition and a failing venture. Customers need to feel compelled to enter your store. Your storefront must convince onlookers who know nothing about your brand or its products to enter and explore it anyway. By understanding your demographic and their general aesthetic preferences and applying the advice in this article, you can create a store with strong curb appeal that will attract the exact kind of people likely to do business with your brand.
