A growing number of businesses are turning to digital signage to build their brand and connect with customers. To be successful with digital signage, though, it’s important to have a well-thought-out content strategy in place before you begin—one in which the right message reaches the right audience at the right time.
For companies that are new to digital signage, this may seem daunting—but it doesn’t have to be. To create a winning digital signage content strategy, organizations must balance innovation with content that resonates with their audiences. This means leveraging cutting edge technology to support the creation and delivery of truly engaging content.
Whether you’re new to digital signage or looking to elevate the way you communicate, three areas of emphasis will help you focus and succeed: knowing your audience, easy and intuitive content scheduling, and timely content updates.
Know Your Audience
The first step to creating a successful digital signage content strategy is to know your target audience. When you understand their demographics, preferences, needs, and behaviors, it’s easier to create content that resonates and drives action. The environment in which you’ll be communicating with your audience is important, as the physical location, time of day, and pace of engagement should all impact the content you display.
Of course, it’s important to zoom out as well. In order to get the most from your screens, you need to consider how they fit into your overall content landscape, how they further your messaging, and how they will engage your audience. Digital signage is great for this because it enables real-time A/B testing of content and messaging. So even as you’re rolling out impressive digital content, you’re getting to know your audience even better.
Easy and Intuitive Content Scheduling
An effective digital signage content strategy is one that seamlessly integrates into your wider content landscape. To get the most from your digital signage, you must choose a technology that makes delivering and managing your content easy and stress-free.
One of the biggest benefits of digital signage is that it can be changed with the click of a button. What’s more, when content is scheduled in advance, it’s easy and intuitive to build a content flow that you not only feel confident about, but that adapts to your customers’ needs.
Content planning and scheduling empower teams to reach audiences across locations and time zones, which ensures they’re exposed to content at the time that is best for them. With the right digital signage tool, you can even set different schedules for different screens, so you’re not beholden to one rigid content strategy. This is great for global businesses and universities that have varied audiences with varied needs.
Naturally, content scheduling is easier when you choose a platform with a user-friendly interface. Having access to a large template library and having the ability to create great content in minutes easily ensures you have enough content to schedule ahead and keep up with the pace of the digital world. Additionally, a centralized portal from which you can upload, display, and automate content is ideal—particularly because it enables analytics that can help refine and improve your content strategy.
Timely Content Updates
Last but not least, having a mixture of both promotions and real-time updates is a great way to keep customers engaged. Integrating social media feeds, news headlines, and weather updates can prevent digital signage from getting stale. Relatedly, if you’re using digital signage for internal communications, it can offer real-time sales metrics to employees, increasing how informed and engaged they are.
One way to ensure content is dynamic is to set up content triggers that automate the display of specific content based on predefined conditions. For example, if foot traffic reaches a certain threshold, the signage can display a particular promotional video. Similarly, in the event of an emergency or crisis, the signage can prioritize information related to the situation at hand. Regardless of the situation, making dynamic content part of the overall strategy will ensure messaging is timely and contextually appropriate.
The Bottom Line
In a world where people are constantly bombarded with information, having a fully baked strategy for displaying digital content is crucial. When used correctly, digital signage can make your brand memorable and drive sales. But the only way to keep up and stand out is to create engaging, dynamic content that can be scheduled and managed easily—and this is all far simpler if you choose an intelligent, purpose-built platform with an easy-to-use interface. As digital signage continues to grow in popularity, having a well-thought-out content strategy will become even more important to cut through the noise.
The author, James Robins, is the CMO of Yodeck, the Intelligent Digital Signage Platform™.