The Ultimate Guide to Commercial Outdoor Lighting

Everything You Need To Know To Light Up Your Business

You know commercial outdoor lighting changes the way a business looks, but the value it provides doesn’t stop there. During the day, sunlight provides natural lighting for shoppers to see you’re open for business, but nighttime can diminish that visibility and foot traffic into your store. When customers see lights around your landscape or on your building, they know you’re open for business, have a distinct personality, and are going to welcome them inside the store.

Haven Lighting’s smart landscape lighting system makes it easy to harness the full potential of commercial outdoor lighting. Here, we define what outdoor business lighting is, discuss its benefits, and share the various types of commercial outdoor lighting fixtures you can use.

Functional and Decorative Outdoor Business Lighting

Outdoor business lighting includes functional outdoor lighting and decorative commercial outdoor lighting.

You can use functional outdoor lighting to light up entrances and exits and decorative commercial outdoor lighting to create your desired mood or highlight an architectural feature on your landscape.

Outdoor business lighting serves a different purpose than indoor lighting. For instance, you may use bright natural white light inside your store to draw attention to a new display case. This light may be more focused. Outside, you may use a similar bright light to help customers see a parking lot safely, but this light may be more diffused to cover a wider area.

Benefits of Commercial Outdoor Lighting

There are several reasons to invest in outdoor lighting. Let’s break down four of the biggest benefits of outdoor business lighting here.

1. Competitive Advantage for Your Business

Every business has a distinguishing feature that helps it stand apart from its competitors. However, this unique selling point may not be immediately visible to your customers. In a marketplace packed with stores selling similar items and services, outdoor commercial lighting gives your business a competitive advantage.

Imagine walking by two similar stores that are next to each other. One is dark with an “open” sign, while the other is lit up in beautiful colors. You will likely gravitate toward the one with lights.

By simply illuminating your business building in inviting colors, you stand a stronger chance of getting more traffic to your store. Colors and lights are a great way to show what makes your company and products or services different from The Other Guys.

2. Opportunity To Own Your Business Branding

Speaking of differentiation, your business has an opportunity to create a personality of its own through various means. These include the fonts you use on your storefront, the decor of your business’s interiors, the way you welcome your guests, and more. Color is one of the most powerful ways to add personality to your business.

If you have specific brand colors you use on letterheads or for business cards, consider using those same colors to light up your building. Get more creative by lighting up an exterior feature like a water fountain. Whenever someone passes by your business building, they will be greeted by your brand colors.

The value of having someone identify your brand, even when your business may be closed for the night, offers an incredible opportunity for you to establish yourself in your customer’s minds.

3. Inviting Entryway & Easy Exploration for Your Customers

You may have noticed yourself walking by a store in the summer and feeling a blast of cool air. That comforting air is enough to make you want to enter that store even if just to get respite from the heat. Similarly, you can use outdoor business lighting to make your entryways more inviting.

Clearly mark the entryway to your store or office, so people don’t have a tough time finding their way in. The more easily customers can access your business, the more likely they are to want to shop or learn more about your services.

If you are fortunate enough to have outdoor spaces such as a garden, invite customers to explore sections of your exterior by installing path lights to create a route for them to follow.

4. Easier Navigation for Customers and Your Team

While aesthetics are an integral part of your business, commercial outdoor lighting is also a good way to prevent slips and injuries.

Landscape lighting brightens paths, entrances, exits, and the surrounding areas of your property. Customers feel more comfortable walking in patches of light that illuminate everything around them, including others in the vicinity.

Besides customers, your employees will also feel more comfortable coming to work and heading home at night when the parking lot, paths, and doors are clearly visible.

Outdoor commercial lighting provides an easy blend of form and function that benefits your business.

Types of Commercial Outdoor Lighting Fixtures

classic white lighting on town hall building

One reason you can do so many things with outdoor lighting is because of the variety of lighting fixtures. Floodlights, spotlights, path lights, and up/downlights are some light fixture possibilities. With a basic understanding of the different commercial outdoor lighting fixtures, you’ll know which ones you need to brighten your business.

Floodlights

Floodlights have an adjustable beam that covers wide areas like parking lots, walkways, and patios. The light fixture’s ideal for illuminating slip-and-fall hazards and providing an extra layer of security. Installing floodlights makes a great impression on shoppers because it lets them know you care about them seeing everything around them clearly.

Spotlights

Let the glow of a spotlight illuminate your inner artist. This light fixture creates a focused light that highlights the landscape and architectural elements. Install these around ponds, waterfalls, and stone features and watch the feature take on a whole new form in the evenings. When using this commercial outdoor lighting fixture, think about what feature or element you want to illuminate and what you want to leave in silhouette.

Path Lights

Make it easy for shoppers and guests to find their way along a walkway or pathway with path lights. These light fixtures are small posts with a built-in light, which is great for framing spaces and creating a peaceful mood. When used along with other light fixtures, path lights can become an indispensable part of your outdoor lighting plan, one you can’t imagine not seeing in your landscape.

Uplights and Downlights

white commercial outdoor lighting on building

Spotlights become uplights or downlights, depending on which direction you shine their light. When you want to draw the eye up along a landscape or architectural element, install an uplight. If you have a ground-level feature you want to highlight, such as a water feature or garden, illuminate it under a downlight’s beam.

Haven Lighting is here to assist you in every aspect of making your business building more inviting for customers. From designing to installing, we offer end-to-end commercial outdoor lighting services. Browse our products or get in touch with us today.

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