Content is King, or so says Bill Gates. How as a small business owner, can you make sure that your ads are getting enough attention amidst all the competition? What factors will affect the efficiency of your ads? Below are four of them.
1. Duration
How many seconds do you need to get your message across? That actually depends on your product or the location of your LED screen. If you’re targeting pedestrians and you’re addressing passersby in front of your store, chances are, you can display your ads a little longer. Keep it under 30 seconds. If your targeting drive by customers, the ads should be no more than 15 seconds to make sure that your ads can be seen from start to end while passing by. Longer ads are pointless because your target won't see the entire ad from start to finish.
2. Format
Can they clearly read your LED message board? If you want to make your ads effective, it’s great to determine what is the right size, and font style you should use in your ads. Always try to achieve balance and let people focus on the more important details down to the least important ones.
- Make Letters Big! Letters should be easy to read, so make them big, at least 1/4 of the screen. Small text might look nice on your computer screen, but it won't when broadcast on the LED screen.
- Do Not Apply Shades on Text. Fancy fonts might look nice on the monitor, but they won't on the LED screen. The reason for it is that, despite of its large size, the LED display has less pixels than you PC monitor.
- Plain Text is Better. Use Sans-Serif fonts such as Verdana or Tahoma, as they appear much more crisp and readible. Serif fonts (ie. Courier, Times New Roman etc) look very nice on the PC monitor, but they have the serifs which add pointless "noise" to the text and make it look blurry. Recall point #2 above, that the LED screen has less pixels than you monitor. This noise will be amplified even more if your screen uses virtual pixels.
- Use Contrasting Colors. Over 20 years ago Ms Karen E. Claus published a table, indicating the colormatch with the best contrast ratio. She did it for the classic static signage, but the principle is still valid today. According to her research, the best matches are the following: Black on Yellow, Black on White, Yellow on Black, White on Blue, Yellow on Blue, Green on White, Blue on Yellow and White on Green. Avoid color combinations such as Pink on Red.
3. Design
An ad with sloppy, cheap design will never have a chance against your competitors. With good design, your ads will sell themselves. You have invested a lot of money in this advertising tool. Don't put up up mediocre content and let it go to waste. Sit down and take some time to decide how you want your LED screen to look. There are many pre-made graphics that can be loaded or purchased at a reasonable fee or hire a graphic designer to create custom ads for a strong presence.
4. Content
Do you need text heavy ads or should you go for image driven content? If you’re in a business that relies on visual signals like the auto industry, real estate, or a travel agency, definitely go for large and vivid images. Otherwise, you can use short, witty tagline to represent your brand and your product. Displays with text only are highly effective too. Keep the content fresh, updated, and useful. Display public notices, weather reports or up coming events. Make your sign a community center piece, not just an advertising portal, otherwise people will get accustomed to the LED screen and will stop looking at the messages. Ideally you should upload new content every day. Yes, every day! Don’t forget to infuse fun in your content to keep it light and easy for your readers.
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