The 10 Top Tips for Digital Signage Content Creation

We live in an exciting era where signage has never been more innovative or fast-paced! Thanks to powerful digital technology, you can use digital displays to present content about your store, restaurant, or organisation with ease.

Whether you’re brand-new to digital signage or you’re just looking to overhaul your existing solutions, we hope this digital signage content creation guide gives you the guidance you need.

And now, onward to our 10 top tips on creating effective and persuasive content for your target audiences!

Planning Your Digital Signage Content Creation 

Before we dive into the tips, here are some of the fundamental questions we often get and that you’re likely already asking:

• How can I use my existing content, and how do I know if it is enough?
• How do I upload my information onto the screen?
• How much can I show and for how long?
• How often can I change the information?

The answers to these questions rest on many factors that govern what the best outcomes

will be – so with the above in mind, here are our 10 top tips for digital signage content creation!

1. Think About Viewing Distance

First of all, think about how close or far away your target audience will be when viewing your content.

For example, do you want your audience to be close to the screen to read a lot of information or interact with your content in the form of a touch screen? If so, a closer viewing distance gives you the option to include more text or interactive prompts on the screen.

If your content should be viewed from a distance, though, it’s best to keep it dynamic, clear, and brief. Something as simple as viewing distance can completely change what kind of content you choose to create.

2. Consider Screen Size

Screens are available in a variety of different sizes. Orientation (landscape or portrait) will

change the identity of a screen size, so consider carefully how much space you want the screen to command in its local environment. 

Small format screens are great for audiences looking for something specific – such as information or navigation – while large-format screens work extremely well for grabbing attention.

3. Be Mindful of Audio

Sound through digital signage content brings into play another one of our senses: hearing. 

This is powerful, but it should be used cautiously, as it can be expensive to produce. And since it’s yet another facet of content beyond the visual, you also need to ensure it achieves the desired result.

Through audio, you can get a lot of information across very quickly and in a short time, but be mindful of background noise that could hamper the message you’re trying to convey. Audio

tends to work better within indoor displays, but outdoor audio can work if you approach it thoughtfully.

Either way, it’s probably a good idea to incorporate subtitles or other visual cues so that your content can still do its job without audio.

4. Maximise Line of Sight

A clear line of sight, without distractions, will greatly enhance audience engagement with your display. 

If there is other ‘visual noise’ or physical distractions, your content needs to be even more visually and emotionally engaging to ensure it keeps your audience’s attention. So, keep it short and sweet with a drop-dead simple call to action, in a place where your audience can truly see it.

5. Choose Well-Trafficked Locations

If you want results from your digital displays, it’s all about dwell time. How long is your target audience going to be in front of your content? And when it is, are they sitting, standing, walking, or driving?

Your content needs to be carefully crafted and visually engaging to achieve the maximum impact. If you have a captive audience, what are you wanting to offer them by way of content? Should it be something entertaining, informative, stimulating, or persuasive? 

The longer people will be in front of a screen, the more comprehensive your messaging can be – for example, telling a story rather than using bullet points or quick phrases. If your audience has a limited opportunity to see your message, then make it as dynamic and striking as possible.

6. Embrace Simplicity

Make sure your target audience can pick up on your message with ease. If it’s something that they haven’t seen before, you’ll need to draw them in quickly. Simple messages resonate better for most displays.

Complicated information is best delivered through video, as this provides more on screen time for an audience to process and understand the content. But do not bore them – aim to make your content as simple and concise as you can without diluting the information you need to share!

7. Keep It Timely and Frequent

Are you running a promotion or offer with a time limit? Perhaps you have a product with a 

limited shelf life? If your timeframe is short, create a series of simple messages to drive the point home.

This kind of content should appear more frequently on the display while the time limit is active – and you may consider adding a countdown timer to help drive home the all-important call-to-action.

8. Communicate Your Call-to-Action (CTA)

Get the audience to understand as quickly as possible what your message is supposed to achieve. Every piece of digital content you place in front of your audience should serve a purpose – and when relevant, should also feature a CTA that supports this purpose.

Common examples of calls to action could include making a purchase, learning more about a product, visiting a webpage, or entering the store. Once you know the desired action, you can back up from there to create deliberate content that will move the customer toward it.

Quick Tip: Include a QR code in the display content if you want your audience to walk away with some next steps to engage with your brand.

9. Test, Test, Test

Any time you have new content to debut, be prepared to show it to your audience frequently and monitor its performance. 

It may not always be possible to compare two different pieces of content at once, but you should be able to detect differences in variations to help you get better results over time. 

One reason testing is so important is because once your message has been seen more than 12 times or so, it starts to go stale – and you run the risk of people ignoring your out-of-date content altogether!

By continuously testing different hooks, copy, and visuals, you’ll always have something fresh on hand to attract people’s attention.

10. Elevate Your Brand Authority

Above all else, you must build trust with your content. Think about how the digital signage content you create will reflect on your brand. Is it informative? Is it entertaining? Is it valuable? 

Always put yourself in your customers’ shoes – what would your target audience want to see?

Yes, you can sell screen space to third parties, but you should still make sure whatever you put out is local, trustworthy, and relevant to your audience. Otherwise, you can hurt your brand and cause people not to engage with your digital signage content in the future. It’s not worth compromising your brand’s integrity by promoting an unsavory or irrelevant brand. 

Remember that engaged audiences are more likely to make those third-party advertisers happy as well, but it’s a balancing act to provide content that the audience will appreciate!

Wrap-up and Next Steps

Well, as you probably noticed, there’s a lot to remember when it comes to creating effective signage content for digital displays. But hopefully these 10 top tips – from distance and line of sight to brand authority – will help you get your message across effectively!

Of course, even keeping these tips in mind, actually sitting down to create content for digital signage is a massive undertaking! There are also many pitfalls to be aware of.

That’s why we would love to discuss how you can maximise the impact of your digital content. Please reach out to me, James Hogg, if I can be of service in finding you the right digital signage solution for your business or getting you get started with signage content creation!