Digital displays aimed at your customers and staff have so very many purposes, from directly shaping purchase decisions or educating on standard procedures to quietly setting a desired mood. Your content varies to the same extent from generic templates with essential information, to unique uses with unique content. In this post, we’ll talk about one of the more unique and personal ways to create a stronger connection to your target audiences. The best example among them is creating fun facts for your digital signage.
What are data feeds?
One of the most versatile features of our software is the ability to source from data feeds. These spreadsheet-like collections of data can act as the basis for many apps. They provide changing information to menu boards or product display apps, and can even source image or video elements as shown for our Dynamic Composition tool.
The best part about connecting data feeds to apps is the speed of updates. For example, if you rotate your product or service offers daily, simply ticking the right boxes in the data feed will update all apps or compositions tied to that data feed. This type of updating isn’t only convenient, but can quite literally save you hours if you’re running many apps, especially across multiple locations.
Create lists of fun facts for digital signage
If you’ve used our platform, you may have come across our fun fact lists. Currently supporting a handful of categories, including facts about animals, health, and sports, these apps rotate through interesting facts via a short text pop-up with a background image. While these have been carefully curated to contain simple yet interesting facts for everything, you can take it a step further and create your own.
Using the same principle, you can tie a textbox placeholder and the background image to your own data feeds, and display fun facts for your digital signage about your industry, business, or even feedback and opinions from your customers.
Show off progress reports and upcoming announcements
Another great bit of info to include in this format is the progress on your goals or key milestones your business has crossed. For a start, the date your business first opened its doors is an important moment to capture. Document major achievements, such as “Only a year after opening our doors, we’ve served our 1,000th customer!” Share the dates of product launches, or expansions to a new location. As you build this content, keep in mind to write text in a way that it is not overly time-sensitive. For instance, instead of saying “This year,” enter the number of the year, so this snippet may be reused for future instances.
Build data feeds for short-term progress reports. If you set a goal for the year for example, progressively update the data feed to showcase progress reports in this format. These reports can be as personal or professional as you see fit.
Build data feeds for quick-messaging actions
If your business rotates through changes which are not on a strict time-schedule, and cannot be planned ahead, build them into a data feed list so you’re always ready! Then enable or disable the specific messaging as needed.
Let’s say your inventory isn’t moving as fast as expected. You may want to run a sudden clearance sale or push more reminders to the target audience. Include a simple note “Clearance sale running until! Save 30%!” in your data feed, and tick it when needed. It will be added to the content rotation of the apps you set up without needing to manually publish anything. Also consider these sorts of flash sales if your campaigns are underperforming halfway through. Temporary price cuts can happen in other conditions. You may need to push perishable items more quickly, for example.
Messaging of this sort provides additional grounds for experimentation in all fields. You can test out short-term marketing strategies in real time and use them as grounds for bigger campaigns. For example, test how flash discounts on specific items perform in this setup. On another end, experiment how the consumer base responds to a more personal touch. Fun facts were just the start. Ask your staff to share their favorite order, food, drink, or whichever product you provide. Observe if customers ask about those items and how they respond to more personal content, versus content that is driven solely on pricing and features.
Explore other data feed enabled apps
OnSign TV offers a large selection of tools and apps, many of which can be tied to a data feed. Build your own data feeds and fun facts for digital signage from scratch or import data from already-existing sources such as RSS feeds, Google Sheets, or even for other data feeds. Start experimenting and create engaging content for your staff and consumers right away for free! Once you log into the OnSign TV platform, follow the path from the to orange button New > App, and explore the “Entertainment” tab for examples of fun fact setups!
Cover image by Nathália Rosa.
