There are so many components that go into a new digital signage project. What brand of screens to purchase, what size, and where to place them. If content design is responsible for 80% of the experience, why is it often an afterthought?
Installing displays and choosing a reliable digital signage CMS is only part of the puzzle. In order to create a memorable digital signage experience, we must be purposeful and thoughtful with our content design strategy.
According to a study by market research group Nielsen, American adults spend more than 11 hours per day watching, reading, listening to, or simply interacting with media. With this in mind, How do we create digital signage content that works and doesn’t just become noise amongst all the other distractions screaming for our attention?
We understand that not every organization has the budget to hire a big-time design agency. In this article, We take you on a journey from typography to photography and everything in-between. We’ll explore how every design decision can affect the success or failure of your digital signage strategy.
1. Discover what inspires you and your audience
We all have brands that we admire. Find a brand in your industry that appears to be doing things right. Study their campaigns and take notes on how they communicate to their audience. Learning from successful brands in your industry is a great way to help understand how your audience is currently being targeted.
You know your product or service more than anyone. Step outside of your head for a moment and think about your customers. Who are they?, What attracts them?. A discovery process for each customer persona will help you make better design decisions. This will ensure that your content is relevant and not just pretty.
2. Stay on brand
Digital Signage is a great way to extend the presence of your brand. A successful brand objective will help support the identity, recognition and awareness of your business to your audience. Consistency across all marketing channels is important if you plan to build a solid brand that sticks. If you don’t have an existing style guide, we recommend you create one.
3. Quality photography makes all the difference
Hiring a professional photographer to capture photos of your product is worth the investment. If you don’t have the budget, many high quality stock photography sites can help fill the gap. (istockphoto.com, stock.adobe.com or free resources like http://thestocks.im/)
If you lack the experience, It’s not always the best idea to take these photos yourself. There is a large amount of thought and preparation that goes into making food in advertising attractive and it’s not always what you think.
4. Use Premium fonts when possible
Times New Roman, Ariel, and Papyrus all are great fonts. They’ve been accessible on almost every computer, they are easily identifiable and tend to be overused. Premium fonts can give your design a high-end look. There are many great resources for high quality fonts on the web: (Google Fonts, FontBundles.net, Adobe Type or fonts.com.) This video does a great job illustrating our point.
5. Screen size and mounting location matters
Mounting any digital signage display won’t always guarantee results. Identify where your audience will be standing and choose a display and font size that’ll be large enough to be readable from that distance.
6. Separate your content into Zones
People tend to digest content in chunks. Breaking your screen into zones will help separate the content into more bite-size portions. This will give your audience more breathing room as they read through your offerings.
7. Animation captures attention.
Animation captures attention and encourages engagement. From rotating playlists to the subtle shaking of a product, you can use animation to quickly draw attention to any area of your display. If you’re strategic you can help guide them to your best sellers.
In closing, Good digital signage takes work, but if you focus on making content a priority, your customer experience will dramatically improve.