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Digital Signage Content For Success
Digital signage at events, within stores, and even around the office is an excellent way to not only liven up the environment but convey essential information and increase engagement. However, just because you’re spending money on digital signs doesn’t mean you’re getting the most out of them.
If you want to maximize the potential of your digital signage, you’ll need to put some effort into the content displayed on it. When it is done right, digital signage is eye-catching and memorable.
Unfortunately, many companies use their digital signs to present ideas and content the same way they would on printed signs. Using digital signage in this flat and non-dynamic way completely defeats the purpose. Why not go for some old-fashioned printed signs and call it a day?
Because it’s 2022 and video is the thing! Why? Because it’s dynamic, engaging, and a lot more interesting than print digital signs. As long as you make it your priority and keep testing and adjusting your video content for maximum effectiveness, it will definitely pay off in the long run.[
So, what are the steps you can take to produce interactive, dazzling content to engage your audience or even your employees? This guide will teach you how to create top-notch digital signage content, as well as a few common mistakes to avoid. Read on!
Creating High-Quality Digital Signage Content
Here are a few concrete tips to keep in mind as you create and display your digital signage content.
1. Simplicity Is Your Friend
While this tip might sound strange, as we talked about how it was essential to take full advantage of your digital signage with engaging content, bear with us for a moment. There’s a lot of middle ground between static images and overcomplicated eye-popping CGI.
While you may be tempted to employ a collage of colors to showcase the full capabilities of your digital signs, catching the eye of everyone in sight, you should focus on cleaner, more basic ideas, at least in the beginning.
This means sticking to a simpler color scheme, maximizing the use of clever contrast, for example, placing light text on a dark background or vice-versa. To make your content extra visible, we recommend going for sans-serif typefaces. These are easier to read, and their classic look will likely appeal to a broader audience.
Once you have a font and color scheme picked, make sure to take a good hard look at your display from various angles and distances to see if the message is clearly conveyed.
2. Have a Professional Edit and Proofread the Content
After creating content personalized to your audience and industry and going through all the options at your disposal, make sure to have the material looked over by a professional proofreader, or at the very least, someone very knowledgeable in grammar and spelling rules.
Nothing will ruin your hard work faster than a poorly structured sentence or a misspelled word. An expert proofreader should be able to tell you if you’ve selected the optimal terms for the message you’re trying to deliver, as well as if you’ve committed any grammatical transgressions.
Your prospects are likely not “grammar Nazis,” showing a high level of care will do wonders for your brand image. Why not save yourself any potential ridicule if a quick check can help it?
3. Use High-Quality Graphics and Designs to Support Your Message
Today’s audiences have been spoiled by the incredible amount of detail presented in the graphics of animated films and high-budget video games, so you will also need to step up your game when it comes to the graphical fidelity of your digital signage content.
It doesn’t need to be Hollywood-quality, but try to use all helpful resources to draw your prospects’ eyes with a few accents and make things look interesting without going overboard.
If you provide a product that requires a few visual aids to be fully understood, pair your message with a video. That’s the beauty of digital signage — it can do whatever you need it to do, depending on the product you’re promoting.
When it comes to colors, focus on your company’s visual identity and stick to the colors used in your company logo or whatever color combinations your brand is already known for. For those without design skills or an in-house design team, you can always find some good graphic design companies to hire for the work.
4. Keep the Content Fresh
Even your favorite TV show gets old after a while if there are no new episodes coming out. Likewise, your audience is more likely to check out if you keep playing the same content on your digital signage. You will have a much better chance of holding their attention for longer if you make an effort to share freshly created and optimized content regularly, rather than showing the same stuff over and over again.
A neat trick to keep things fresh is rotating the content that shows up within a certain period of the day. That way, people who walk or drive by your digital signs at 5 p.m. every day will not always see the same content. Obviously, you should also make sure that the content you’re showing is up-to-date and still accurate.
5. Implement Social Media
Nobody can deny that social media has become a massive part of our daily lives. For better or worse, it is here to stay, so you might as well take advantage of it in your marketing efforts and implement social media into your digital signage content.
You may find that some of the content you wish to display is too long for a digital signage screen. When this happens, it is a good idea to tease the content on the sign and include a call to action to your business’s Instagram or Facebook page, where interested prospects can learn more.
You can also use YouTube for visual content such as behind-the-scenes videos on the inner workings of your company, information on new products, tutorials, and testimonial videos. Your customers or employees may have other ideas on how you can maximize your use of social media — take their advice and don’t be afraid to get creative.
What to Avoid?
Now that we’ve covered a few things you should always try to do when creating digital signage content, we can briefly touch upon the things you should avoid at all costs.
● Using Your Screen Like a Printed Sign
If you’ve been reading this post carefully, you’ve probably gotten the message by now, but it doesn’t hurt to repeat it. Please, do not fall prey to the common mistake of using your digital signage as printed billboards — we know it is easier, but that’s precisely why you should avoid it.
We also know there is a learning curve to designing screen content, so you should give yourself and your design team some time to generate high-quality content.
● Forgetting Calls to Action
Forgetting to add a clear-cut call to action to your digital signage content is another rookie mistake we often see. You could have the best content in the world, but without a call to action, it is likely to fall flat, like a joke with a great setup and no punchline.
Make sure to include actionable information that the viewers can use to take the desired action.
● Cramming in Too Much Content
You’ve probably driven past a few billboards packed so full of content that you couldn’t even see what it was supposed to depict, let alone the intended message.
As you might imagine, cramming too much content is a problem regardless of the type of sign you’re using. Still, it is perhaps most noticeable on a digital sign because the image or text will scroll away before people have a chance to finish reading it. Make the important part of your message stand out, and get rid of the rest.
Conclusion
Learning how to create the best content for your digital signage and use the technology properly may sound like a daunting task. We’re not going to lie, there is a learning curve involved, but like any other tool, it’s all about having a clear idea of what you want to do with it.
Once you’ve set actionable and measurable goals, you can get the equipment you need and utilize it to reach your target audience. Use the dos and don’ts we outlined above to avoid making any unnecessary mistakes, and you’ll be attracting new customers with your digital signs in no time.
