How to Create Effective Content for Your LED Display

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.

1. 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. 
2. 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.  
3. 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.  
4. 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. 

How to Link Digital Displays with Social Media

When you look back at other types of technology and compare them with technology used in social media and digital signs, the two are mere infants. However, as these two young technologies grow and develop together, they can bring about tremendous opportunities especially for businesses in the aspect of branding and customer engagement.

Digital signs, with their many strengths, will never quite be able to deliver large amounts of content to customers. This is to say that businesses cannot really count on them to deliver detailed information and they are not meant to. These signs are most effective when they contain limited word usage and content. On the other hand, you have customers going online to do research before they even endeavor to get in touch with the company – and this is where social media comes in.

The Numbers Tell the Story

A survey conducted by the Merchant Confidence Index last February 2011 showed that among 8,500 local and small businesses in the US, 70% utilize Facebook for their marketing activities. The same study showed that Facebook ranks higher than Google in terms of marketing method used by local business owners. Looking at it this way, it just makes sense that social media go hand in hand with electronic signs as a way for consumers to get their hands onto more detailed information regarding a business using different computing devices.

Smart Practices to Consider

1. Broaden your existing customer base – It is a good idea for businesses to include social media icons on their digital sign boards to build Twitter followers and Facebook fans. By broadening your follower base, you can establish more concrete relationships with your customers and strengthen loyalty. Once you get people to follow you on social media, you can inform them about sales, promos, and other events and offers without spending a dime.
2. Guide customers to additional info located in social media accounts – Digital signs are indeed limited in terms of the amount of detailed content they can deliver but social media is not. Using your accounts, you can link product spec sheets, photos, flyers for sales, and even coupon codes among other marketing information.
3. Play up your strength using the right social media platform – Take a good look at your business and it will be easy for you to see which social media channel will benefit you the best. If you own a car dealership or a catering company then your business is highly visual and you will do well to use social media sites like Instagram or even Pinterest. If you have sales and new promos frequently then Twitter will suit you best. For real conversations to build your brand, Facebook will be your best option.

Establishing a presence for your business in social media will not take long but you have to really work hard at it. You have to really pay attention to what you post and when you post - it is hard work but it really does pay off and helps you get more out of your digital signs.