Outdoor vs. Indoor Signage: What’s the Difference?

With businesses moving towards online platforms and adverts to attract new consumers, it’s easy to overlook digital signage. Traditionally, businesses have relied heavily on signage, such as outdoor advertising, to promote their services or products.

Although online advertising channels are more cost-effective than traditional adverts, the impact of the latter is phenomenal. Actually, if you decide to use signage, you’ll have to choose whether you want indoor signage, outdoor signage, or both.

The simplest way to make a decision is by pitting outdoor vs. indoor signage to understand the differences. These differences include the following:

Outdoor vs. Indoor Signage Differences

1. Weather

As the name suggests, outdoor LED signs are propped up outside for days, weeks, or even months. The outdoor signs need adequate weather protection to withstand the different types of weather conditions. If you expose your signs to the elements for extended periods, you can expect massive potential problems.

Therefore, before investing in higher-resolution digital displays, check if the company includes weather-appropriate hardware. Also, schedule regular maintenance to prevent any long-term damage.

In contrast, indoor signages aren’t heavily affected by the element, considering they’re not exposed. Temperature drops or increases can affect the signs but can remedy the problem by investing in custom indoor signs.

2. Target Audience Differences

How many times have you watched ads on Times Square? If you have watched hundreds, how many of these do you remember? Did any of these outdoor advertising mediums prompt you to buy from the brands? If not, the ads didn’t stand out enough to capture your attention.

Outdoor signs have competition from other types of signage, outdoor video screens, and more. People will run into your sign, but you have limited time to make an impression. What’s more, your outdoor digital signage needs to grab the passerby’s attention and keep the person interested long enough to pass your message.

On the other hand, when it comes to indoor digital signage, the primary target audience is your shopping center’s foot traffic. These people won’t accidentally stumble on your sign and read it. They’re consumers in your shop willingly; thus, the message displayed on your signage should be concise.

Your target audience already knows the kind of products or services you offer. Plus, you have their attention. Therefore, your message should be more on a personal level.

3. Accessibility Differences

Outdoor signage targets a larger audience than indoor signage. You can add some degree of personalization to improve accessibility but not at the same level as indoor signs. The latter gives you more freedom to customize the experience. For example, if you want signages that users can interact with, it’s hard to do that outdoors.

However, when indoors, users can interact with signs through touch, VR, gesture, or motion tracking. A good example is deploying a sharp display with touchscreen capabilities. Customers who enter your shop can interact with the screens and browse any information they need or make orders.

Meanwhile, you can implement similar options outdoors but at a higher cost. For example, you can try augmented reality and visual recognition. You’d install cameras close to your digital display for visual identification. The information would be relayed to a computer that would tailor a marketing campaign based on whoever is standing close to the display.

4. Brightness

An outdoor LED sign needs to be brighter than an indoor sign. The former is often viewed under direct sunlight; thus, it needs a ton of features to compete with the sun. These features include UV and anti-reflective filters that make it easy to continue viewing the images on the display even when the sun is shining bright.

Nevertheless, indoor signs don’t need sharp displays packed with bright LEDs in every pixel. If the indoor signs are too bright, they might become a nuisance. Therefore, the brightness for the two types of signages should be appropriately processed to avoid impacting the viewing effect.

Indoor vs. Outdoor Signage: Which Display Should You Use?

Investing in digital signage isn’t about choosing the flashiest option that will impact your target audience. You have to consider what your business needs. For instance, if you’re running a private hospital, you can benefit from both indoor and outdoor signs. You can use outdoor LEDs for advertising to passersby and indoor LEDs as wayfinding signs.

Above all, retail centers, commercial property companies, sports arenas, and gaming centers can benefit from outdoor advertising displays. They can afford the cost for permits and approvals of large format displays that can cover an entire block.

Indoor signs offer a wide variety of options that any business can utilize. For example, wayfinding signs are common in large establishments such as grocery stores and shopping centers.

Small businesses can use lobby signs to welcome customers to their establishments. In addition, businesses can use banners and posters for advertising their latest products, services, exclusive deals, promotions, etc.

In conclusion, you can choose multiple signage options to enhance customer service, advertise products and improve employee morale. That said, don’t forget to consult a reliable full-service signage company that will guide you through the selection, customization, and installation process.