A Review of the Sign and Graphics Industry in 2017

Today’s post reviews signage industry sales trends, hiring troubles, and sector growth for 2017. Read on to learn whether the time is right to start your sign company.

All signage sectors are poised for growth in 2017. Strong growth in advertising expenditure and a sizeable uptick in business formation has increased the demand for all signage products for downstream advertising and brick-and-mortar businesses across multiple industries. Whether you choose to specialize in banners, digital signage, wayfinding, promotional point-of-sale signs, or all four, you’ll have chosen an excellent time to get involved in this market.
Demand for indoor signage continues to climb. After decades of close competition, it seems as though the demand for indoor signage has finally begun to outpace that of outdoor signs. Indoor signage demand is expected to increase by 1.2% in 2017, while outdoor signage is predicted to dip by 0.4%. This changing demand is correlated to the value associated with point of sale graphics in regards to increasing conversions. In other words, indoors signs are more closely connected to sales conversions, whereas outdoor signs are more about generating impressions, leads, and prospects. As a result, business owners have begun to associate indoor signage with better ROI with their marketing budget.Of course, this is not reason enough to dismiss outdoor sign production entirely. Best results will always be achieved through a combination of indoor and outdoor signage. With that in mind, sign company owners should always be looking for opportunities to cross-sell indoor and outdoor packages. Don’t look at the surge of indoor signage popularity as a reason to slow down outdoor sign production, but rather as something to piggyback other sales off of! For example, you might consider offering discounted rebranding services for outdoor signs whenever indoor point-of-sale graphics are ordered.
Finding skilled workers remains one of the greatest challenges for sign company owners. Industry analysts conducted research to identify the top-4 workforce issues faced by sign world companies in 2017. Over the course of their research, they determined that 67% of sign company owners complained about the difficulty of attracting skilled workers. This makes sense given that the majority of sign companies are expected to custom-built their signage, which requires more skill than working with modular parts and templates.As a result, most sign companies are constantly expending time, energy, and resources trying to hire new talent. The majority of these efforts are conducted via online job posting sites, which means more time spent drafting job descriptions, filtering through enquiry emails and cover letters, then scheduling interviews. Though the sign industry is vibrant and showing resilience, self-starters getting involved for the first time must understand the realities of the hiring problems they may face.
At Signworld, we circumvent skilled worker hiring issues by taking training seriously. Rather than spending time and energy connecting with skilled workers who demand high salaries, we attract talented learners and shape them into Signworld experts through our renowned training process. This allows us to keep our staff engaged, excited about learning new things, and loyal to our brand, all while saving our franchisees time and money on the biggest sinkhole in the signage world: hiring. At Signworld, we don’t find skilled workers, we create them!