Let’s dispense with the idea that you are going to put digital signs up around town. That you are going to feature a 3D sign on the side of a building, put standing signs in a downtown mall, or add signs to the side of bus stops, billboards or dangle them from drones. The advice you read in other articles seems to assume you have Warren Buffet money and that you can throw up signs like you were throwing Halloween candy at a school bus. This article focuses on companies that want to improve their business presence while still being able to justify their expense on a cost-benefit level.
Replace Your On-Site Posters
Many retail businesses have posters on their walls. They may seem like a cheap way of spreading your brand message or news of your offers, but they are slow to design, slow to print, and you have to put them up and replace them every few weeks.
If you put up digital signs instead, then instead of printing up new posters, you simply use a program like Kitcast, and have your content flip every few minutes. Over the course of a year, you could display several hundred different marketing messages on the same digital sign without the expense of printing. Even the cost of designing is lessened because sizing considerations and layout considerations are less important. If you design an offer and the text is undersized, you just hop on your computer, adjust the sizes, and then re-publish on your digital sign.
The Magic of Movement in Your Window
People are instinctively drawn to movement. That is why Las Vegas is lit up like a Christmas tree. They know that people cannot help but look at things that are moving, especially if they see them in their peripheral vision. Add digital signs to your windows and feature video content. However, don’t create flashy and fast-moving content. Instead, add content that is fairly stationary, but that moves from time to time. Have you ever seen those signs that show something like a lit-up poster, and then it has a slow-moving screen wipe as its transition? This isn’t an accident. The slow-moving screen wipe, going from stationary to moving, is what causes people to look.
Some people say that movement and sound is a good idea too but be careful how you implement such a maneuver. Firstly, sound doesn’t matter in your shop window. However, if your on-site signs have sound, then your staff may quit after hearing its soundtrack run over and over every day for a month or two. If your digital signs have sound, try to set the volume so they can only be heard if people are standing close. Don’t do what old TV stores used to do and have the sound turned up really high in one location because in most cases it just annoys people (the same people who are already present in your store and who are trying to make their purchases).
Urinal Magic and Toilet TV Blunders
There are plenty of European toilets that have digital signs in them. Many of them boast about upcoming events, others about the current performance, and in a post-pandemic world, many feature health cautions or health reassurances. Typically, the signs are placed near the entrance of the bathroom so that people see them as they are leaving. In some cases, the signs are in sight of the urinals so the men have something to look at while using the facility.
This is just another way of slipping a digital sign into a location where it draws attention without damaging the overall sales or service process. As you may expect, it still takes a lot of thought and nuance. For example, placing the signs so they can be seen on the way into the bathrooms is often a mistake because it slows people’s ingress. Also, having videos on these signs is often a mistake if you are dealing with inebriated people. Also, having them inside the cubicle stalls is a mistake. You have phone-less staff sitting in the cubicles watching the signs, you have people accusing them of having cameras in them, and you have drunk people sitting on the toilets staring at the flashing screen.
Again, don’t rush out and start putting digital signs in your bathrooms. Simply consider all the places where members of the public are standing/sat/waiting and think about putting a sign in there. While, at the same time, thinking of all the ways it may go wrong and guarding against such events.
Waiting Rooms and Till Queues and Service Areas
Running with the idea from the previous point, consider putting digital signs in your waiting rooms. Display informative content that has an educational slant, and then slip a few adverts and brand-building elements into the video feed. Do a similar thing with till queues, but beware of outright selling because you may have people leaving the queues, which will cause disruptions. Consider putting signs in service areas, such as if you run a fast food restaurant and people are standing around waiting for their order, you can put up digital signs with content that convinces people to come back again (The McRib is back in February, don’t miss it!).