Your digital signage provides you with many opportunities along the customer journey to make a difference. Firstly, it helps to start the journey by attracting a customer. Then it can inform and guide them as they wait for service. Lastly, digital signage helps to build loyalty at the very end of the journey. Your digital signage content loop is different at each of these stages.
We’ll now go through each of them and establish the ideal duration, content, and longevity of your content rotation to ensure the best results. With specific examples of content elements, you can easily use this information to quickly build a strong digital signage content loop! Let’s start at the beginning of the customer journey.
1. The storefront
The storefront is all about catching attention and bringing people into your place of business. Therefore, it must be exciting, easily comprehensible, and short.
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Duration of the content loop
The storefront sees the highest foot traffic in your establishment. However, most viewers at this location do not spend much time observing the screen. At best, you have just a few seconds of their attention. Because of this, the content loop doesn’t need to be excessively long as it’s highly unlikely anyone will see the same content twice in a short period of time. It may loop every minute or two. This needs to be an eye-catcher, maybe in distinguishable colors, maybe with moving animation. Most importantly, the content needs to deliver its message at a glance.
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Contents of the rotation
The aim of the storefront display is to catch attention. The message you put here needs to invite the passerby to step inside. Apart from clever engaging ads, your content here needs to show something the target consumer values. Bank clients value low interest rates and competent service. Gym goers value a variety of exercise equipment and fitness programs. Shoppers, of course, value low prices, discounts, quality products, new products etc. Many customers appreciate businesses with strong communities. So figure out what is your unique selling point, and what your potential clients value most.
The main rules of digital signage dominate here, so be sure to read up on how to get your message across quickly. You can find more guidance and learn about creating the perfect digital signage setup for your storefront and choosing the right fonts to ensure the content is easy to read!
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When to refresh the content rotation
The storefront content rotation doesn’t need to be updated every day as you want the typical pedestrian to see the relevant content more than once. You want them to remember it, think about it, and then when they have seen it a few times, they might respond to it.
Look into updating the content rotation every few weeks or weekly if you have hot new arrivals. Of course, as your discounts and special offers change, the content rotation should match that information. Yet, not all content in the rotation needs to be refreshed continuously. Content which is built to catch attention only works for so long. It loses its power after it’s seen a few times over. That’s when it needs an update. Meanwhile, content which aims to inform is different. Messages featuring the best priced packages and your unique selling proposition can continuously be present in the rotation because that information doesn’t change. To avoid repeating it too much, have it appear sporadically. For example, show the “competent service” message in every third content rotation so it doesn’t get repetitive.
2. Lounges, lobbies, and waiting areas
Places to lounge are where the visitor spends the greatest amount of time on their own. A perfect opportunity for displaying a variety of content. Waiting and lounging areas need content the viewer can enjoy.
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Duration of the content loop
Your guest will spend a significant amount of time here, either because they want to hang out or because they need to wait for you to attend to them. The content loop should be slightly longer than the usual wait time. If the time for the next available clerk at a bank is roughly 5-10 minutes, create a content loop 10+ minutes long. This will ensure the client doesn’t see the entire content loop from start to finish. Even if they do reach the end at one point, it’s acceptable as it’s unlikely they’ll see it for a third time in a row.
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Contents of the rotation
Compile a variety of elements that aim to lower perceived waiting times. Entertainment is vital here. Interactivity is also welcome. You’re entitled to ignore some rules of digital signage here and produce content which is longer than just a few seconds. Show fun videos, images, local news, or anything else your customer will find entertaining. Browse through our apps and use a variety of them to ensure fresh and rich content every day. OnSign TV’s fun fact apps, RSS feeds, and social media apps will be particularly useful here. Testimonials are best used in waiting areas as visitors have enough time to read through them.
Advertising and promotions are also possible here, as long as they don’t dominate the content loop. If the ad is short, you may even be forgiven for using it more than once in the rotation. It’s best to have different versions of the ad itself.
You already have the viewer’s attention, so use campaigns to divide the screen and show several pieces of content at once. For example, put the time in the smallest corner, the daily weather in the second smallest, and reserve the largest part of the display for your main content. Experiment with what fits your business best with screen division. A bank, for example, will want to show the currency exchange. Whether an entire display is needed for that or just a small part of it is up to you!
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When to refresh the content rotation
Ideally, the content needs to be fresh by the time your customer visits again. This might sound like a lot of work, but it’s really easy to set up when you have digital signage software at hand. Apps continuously keep the content fresh, so they’re a valuable asset. The only content that needs to be made from scratch are custom ads. Discounts, promotions, and special offers you create using our software can be updated by just changing the information. Content like weather, news, RSS feeds, and social media update on their own and will always be fresh sources of content. The library of our fun fact apps are so vast, they’ll last a long time. Use them!
3. The checkout
At the point of sale, the checkout counter, or a direct consultation, there might be room for digital signage. When is this the case? Whenever there is a line of people waiting, the customer isn’t doing anything, or they’re waiting to be attended, digital signage finds a use. This can be at any checkout desk, or a consultation where the client waits for a service to be completed. This refers to undesired waiting, of course. No one wants to look at a display while they get their hair cut.
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Duration of the content loop
Just as before, the content rotation should be slightly longer than the time the consumer spends here. This depends on your business and service time. It’s important to be honest with yourself. If the waiting time is long, it’s long. Don’t highlight this flaw by creating a short content loop which will only make matters worse.
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Contents of the rotation
What should your customer know at the very end of their journey? Loyalty programs, special refill coupons, social media, or other content to take them online are great choices for this content loop. Ads for products are an option, but only advertise things that are accessible at checkout and can be quickly provided. You don’t want to hold up a line any longer by having to go back and search for the product in the store.
In terms of interaction, as the user waits to be serviced, give them an opportunity to rate the service, the products, or the business as a whole. A separate interactive display or tablet within arm’s reach might be ideal for this or include a QR code in the corner of the display which takes the user online to provide feedback.
If there are longer waiting lines and your aim is to lower the perceived wait time, include entertainment into the rotation. Take this as an opportunity for optimization, too. Reflect why the wait time is so long. Can you inform the customer in advance of the process to make it faster? For example, funnel cash-only and credit-card-only transactions to different checkout slots or inform the customer of a specific receipt they should have in their hands ready to present.
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When to refresh the content rotation
As most of the content here provides information, it is entirely tied to the accuracy of that information, i.e. display a discount message within the rotation for as long as the discount lasts. Other content, such as social media posts or entertainment can be easily updated daily with digital signage software.
It’s important to stay on top of your content rotations and keep them fresh, exciting, and engaging. With digital signage software, it’s really easy to do so as there’s so much self-generating content. The best part is that it’s well-made content which uses live sources of information to update itself. It really is that easy. If you’re not using this advantage yet, you’re missing out!
