5 Considerations with ATM Signs for Financial Leaders
Financial Brand and Facility Managers — Are You Covering All of Your Bases with Your ATM Signs?
Banks and related financial institutions have a variety of brand assets installed at each location throughout the organizational footprint. These include street signage, building signage, wayfinding signs, digital signage, vinyl graphics, ATM signs, and countless more. It can be easy to get lost in all of these various brand touch points, but don’t forget that ATMs and their supporting assets are experienced consistently by customers every day.
From simply ensuring that they are visible for patrons and guests to identify and use them to keeping them well-maintained and functional to maximize their lifespan, it’s critical that ATM signs be high on your priority list. But these are just a couple of the many important considerations that brand and facility leaders for financial organizations need to keep in mind when dealing with ATM signs.
Here, we’ll go in depth into various ATM considerations to help you make the most of this brand asset — both for your customers and for your organization.
- Start at the top: Get a complete overview of ATM branding here.
Keep These ATM Sign Considerations in Mind as You Plan Your Branding Strategy
1. They’re part of a greater branding strategy.
While ATM signs are a fundamental brand asset for your financial institution, they are still part of a larger program. As mentioned above, there are countless assets that must be designed, implemented, and maintained inside and out of each location. Understanding how all of these parts and pieces work together to accomplish your branding goals is essential to success. An effective program management team and strategy will be needed to oversee signage production, warehousing and logistics, and the upkeep and performance of assets — particularly if they are powered.
2. Don’t overlook the power.
Proper electrical installation makes all the difference for assets such as illuminated ATM signs, panels, surrounds, kiosks, directional signage, and more. This is often done as part of the construction of remodeling of a facility — which is why accurate wiring and configuration of the electrical components is so important. Repairs and re-dos can be very costly if not done correctly the first time. Learn more about electrical implementation and its importance to a branding program here.
3. Get control over your energy usage.
ATM signs and other building assets are likely to remain on both day and night. This is essential so that your customers can use these assets whenever it’s most convenient for them. However, prolonged usage is a significant energy expense. This is multiplied by the number of locations throughout your footprint. Because of that, it’s important to have corporate control over powered assets to ensure they are powered at the right times or only when demand justifies it. Utilizing an energy management system will help you get analytics and make strategic decisions about your expenses in this area.
4. How ATM signs are produced matters.
Consider this: let’s say you have a couple hundred locations throughout a five-state footprint. When signs are needed, are you working with manufacturers near each location? If so, it may be worth looking at the appearance of your ATM signs and other brand assets produced through those partners. Are they consistent? Are the colors on par? Are there subtle differences that would be noticeable if side-by-side with other assets? Consistency is critical in branding, and the last thing you need is your customers noticing variations in the event that they use multiple locations. When it comes to your ATM signs and other signage assets, strongly consider working with a single partner that can support multiple locations.
5. They must be able to withstand high use.
We’ve touched on this already, but ATM signs receive consistent foot traffic both day and night. Customers are interacting with them, driving up next to them, and more. Many ATM assets are also out in the open, giving them consistent exposure to the elements. It’s essential to have a preventive maintenance strategy in place. This ensures that these high volume assets receive consistent repair and maintenance attention on a set schedule. Issues such as damage, dirtiness, power outages, and more can be addressed proactively before they lead to more costly and time consuming problems. Learn more about proactive facilities maintenance solutions here.
Deliver a High Touch Experience at Your ATMs with Stratus
At Stratus, we’ve been partnering with major financial brands across banking, investing, insurance, and more for decades to design and implement branding programs for anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred locations — or more. Our expert program management team partners closely with you to design your program and ensure efficient implementation while keeping you updated with advanced reporting at all times. And thanks to our national network of more than 4,000 field partners, that implementation is often done simultaneously across numerous locations — reducing time to completion while also ensuring consistency across the board.