By Ashley Bray
The holidays provide big opportunities for community gatherings and retail sales, and your sign shop should make sure your customers are getting the most out of their digital signage during this busy time of year.
Whether your sign shop manages a client’s digital signage content, is in the middle of selling content packages, or just wants to pass along some useful advice to the owner of a new digital sign, here are four tips and techniques to keep this season joyous and profitable for all.
1. Holiday Promos
The holidays mark the start of an out-of-the-ordinary time of year. Store hours change, new products are available, sales are everywhere, and special events are plentiful. Make sure your clients are advertising everything they have to offer during this time of year.
For example, is a retail or restaurant client offering a gift card special like buy $50, get $10 free? Advertise it!
Restaurants and bars have lots going on in November and December. Remind them to promote their event spaces, display special holiday menus, and inform the public if they’re open on holidays like Thanksgiving for reservations.
2. Supply Chain Issues
Gift giving is a major part of many holidays, and your retail clients are looking to cash in on a steady stream of shoppers this time of year. However, supply chain issues threaten to disrupt the availability of many products this year.
It may seem obvious, but remind your clients that they have a real-time tool to advertise their inventory. Does a store have a hard-to-find item in stock? Put up a message on the digital sign! Conversely, if they’re out of stock of a holiday must-have, they can advertise that on the sign to free up staff from having to answer the question, “do you have this in stock?” all day long. And, if they have a product that’s not selling or an overabundance of a certain type of inventory, have them run a message on the sign advertising a sale on that item.
3. Community Holiday Greetings
In a recent article on digital signage content management strategies, we discussed the importance of using digital signs for community engagement. It’s not always about sales—especially during a season all about gathering together.
In between promotions, recommend that your clients add holiday greetings to the community or information about community events like local tree lightings or food drives.
Depending on the business, your client may even be able to monetize these greetings if they reach out to local businesses and offer space on their sign for a business’ logo and greeting.
4. Social Media
Many media players allow for the display of social media content on digital signage screens. Your clients can take advantage of this by using a tool like a social media aggregator to collect posts related to a specific topic. Clients can also share posts that show users wearing the store’s clothes, using its products, or otherwise promoting it in some way.
You can also recommend that your clients couple social media with community engagement. Have clients create a special holiday hashtag and encourage those in the community to post using it. The feed displaying the posts with the hashtag can then be shared to the digital sign.
