Rules of Thumb for Your Retail Digital Signage Content
Digital signage is a crucial part of the retail industry nowadays. As retail technology and consumer needs continue to develop, your business must be making the most out of its digital signage content and marketing to improve engagement and sales. There are some major benefits to investing in digital signage technology, rather than standard stationary billboards and posters. We’ve outlined these in a previous blog post, where we discussed how digital signage images affect customer engagement. In this blog, we will discuss in more detail the basic rules of thumb when it comes to deciding what to include in your digital signage content, and how to include it. Many retail businesses do not understand that the actual content of the digital signage can make or break the success of your sales.
Visual
Visually, there are a few important things to consider when deciding upon the content of your digital signage. Anything from the colours, words, text, and images chosen, will set up the retail atmosphere for the entire store. You should, first of all, ensure that your digital screens are high quality, so that any images you display will come across as clear and crisp. The images themselves should also be of good quality and resolution, ideally taken with a professional camera. If the images include any people, it’s important to display friendly and warm facial expressions and body language which convey a more positive environment. Bright and vibrant colours are known to attract more customers as they draw the eye toward the digital signage display. However, it’s important to note that the colour preference for your digital signage may change depending on your brand and the message you’re trying to portray.

Text
If possible, text on your digital displays should be kept to a minimum, unless the information is important like customer policies or Covid-19 information. Displaying too much text can overwhelm customers entering the store, and it’s important to remember that you only really have a few seconds to draw the shopper in before their attention is diverted. With this in mind, using visual images and colours should take up more of the focus so that your messaging is translated almost instantly. If you do want to include text, ensure it’s big enough to read from a distance and is kept up long enough for customers to read it in a clip. Some examples of important retail information you could display to draw customers in are promotional deals, for example, a two-for-the-price-of-one deal or percentage-off sales. Additionally, you could include short positive customer reviews or snappy brand catchphrases.
Videos and Audio
Videos and audio are another great way to draw customers in, as they are the most effective way to visually tell a compelling story that will grab your customer’s attention and keep them engaged. As mentioned above, videos should be high-quality, ideally done with professional equipment and include positive, bright imagery and people. There’s no need for the videos to be too long, otherwise, most customers won’t be able to see the whole clip, typically fifteen to thirty seconds is ideal. If you’re looking to include sound or music to accompany your videos, make sure it aligns with the atmosphere you want for your retail store and isn’t too loud and overwhelming for the customer.
The most important thing to remember with retail digital signage is to keep things simple and uncomplicated. This is true for everything from images, colouring, text, videos, and audio. The beauty of easy-to-use, cloud-based digital signage like Impress is that you can chop and change your content whenever and wherever you want. Typically, with static posters, you’d need to frequently swap them out whenever there is a new campaign, offer or brand change. The flexibility of digital signage means that if something isn’t working, or if there is a new campaign or brand change, you can easily update things. While it may be an additional cost to get started, investing in digital signage will have a great benefit for your business in the long run. At Engagis, we offer end-to-end digital signage solutions, including software, hardware procurement, installation, content creation and management services and support. If you’d like to read up more on digital signage check out some more of our blog posts or read up on the services we offer.