One of the many benefits of digital signage, beyond its engaging nature and versatility, is the option to upgrade and keep content fresh. In fact updating content with regular new displays is not just a nice touch, it’s also important as a way to keep people engaged and interested.

Whether you’re using digital signage as a public facing display, or for internal communication in the office, having a process to update your digital signage should be part of your weekly or monthly processes.

Why do you need to update digital signage content?

Digital signage content isn’t set-it-and-forget-it. If you display the same content over and over, people will eventually stop noticing it altogether.

You see this happen in advertising too with a phenomenon called ad fatigue, where viewers are exposed to the same message so often that it loses its impact. 

With digital signage content, engagement drops, attention shifts elsewhere, and the content no longer drives action. To keep your screens working effectively, your messaging needs to feel fresh and relevant every time someone sees it.

Here are more reasons why you need to keep your content fresh and updated.

Customers and visitors (not to mention co-workers in the office) have a limited attention span. In order to capture their interest and keep it, digital signage content needs to be relevant, attention-grabbing, and fresh. 

Regular updates ensure your content remains appealing and engaging and keeps your audience both engaging and guessing. 

2. Stay relevant to time-sensitive content

Digital signage often carries messages that are time-sensitive, such as promotions, special events, or seasonal messages. And while these can be a great way to build excitement or anticipation, leaving these messages to age can be detrimental to the overall impact of the event. 

Ensuring you update your signage displays ensures the information remains accurate and timely.

It can also help with avoiding any confusion or misinformation for your audience. For example, still running your Black Friday promo content in December? Or running announcements about ice and snow safety as the clocks go forward is just going to confuse people.

For many businesses, as the brand grows, things change. This might be the branding, the company font; or any business milestones or updates to the company mission.

Consistently updating the content on your signage ensures your brand message and branding remains up to date. 

What sort of content is most engaging on digital displays?

Like any form of display content, capturing and keeping the attention of your audience is an artform in itself. Digital displays can increasingly look like part of the landscape, especially in busy retail environments where there is a lot of signage.

If you haven’t already, check out our guide: How to design signage content.

To avoid display fatigue, or ad fatigue if you’re running ads, creating engaging content is the best way to stay fresh and engaging.

It goes without saying that visually striking images and videos attract attention and stimulate the required response. Beautifully shot images of your products, exciting videos of your last business away-day, or emotive images or video to get people to donate to your chosen charity.

However, you also need to ensure that your choice of images is quality. 

While this might all sound like obvious advice, it’s something that can easily be glossed over in a rush to get content out.

One poor quality image amongst your digital display can totally undermine your efforts, so run a quality check.

Sharing information is good. Facts, stats and data are all great content that people love to engage with and will even focus on the screen after this information has been shared.

Presenting complex data in a visually simplified style makes it easier to understand and digest. This means pie charts or bar charts, as opposed to numbers on spreadsheets.

If you have a lot of information to share you can display groups of data, or individual statistics, on individual slides. This makes your data easier to digest than simply cramming all of your data onto one screen.

Using real-time information, such as live weather updates, news headlines, or social media feeds, is a great way to keep content relevant and timely.

Even if you feel that it’s not really relevant to your display or location, it can be a highly impactful way of drawing the eye and keeping attention. And people might be more likely to digest the other information on your digital display if there is locally relevant data too.

By using ScreenCloud you can overlay additional relevant data to your display. For example, stream your recent business performance statistics or advertising content, with a breaking news or sports scores ticker along the bottom.

Being able to engage with content is always going to be a crowd puller. While this might mean touch screen displays, there are other ways to make content interactive.

Using augmented reality or AR through their devices

QR codes on displays to access more information

Wayfinding or directional signage can also be used as interactive content. Think treasure hunts, gaming style Easter Eggs and unique or surprise content in certain locations.

How often should you update digital signage content?

Determining the ideal frequency to update your digital signage content depends on several factors, including the specific goals of the display, audience expectations, and the nature of the content. To strike the right balance, consider the following questions:

Is the displayed content time-sensitive or evergreen?

How often do customers visit your location or are exposed to your digital display?

What update frequency will keep your content engaging without overwhelming your audience or overwhelming your content creation team?

As a general rule, it's better to err on the side of updating your content too frequently rather than too infrequently, ensuring that your display remains visually appealing, relevant, and engaging.

While this can be time consuming, and another thing in your to-do list, tools such as ScreenCloud templates can greatly help to speed up new content creation.

Another idea is to create a content matrix . This is a process which can help you come up with lots of great ideas rapidly, saving you a large amount of time and helping you ensure you always have something useful to post.

If you’re looking for some inspiration, or content ideas for your digital displays, there are certain types of content that go down well. Whether you’re running in-store displays in a retail setting, or looking for ways to offer great content in your office or business location, these are all excellent and useful elements as part of your digital signage content strategy.

Switching your digital display to align with seasonal changes, holidays, or special events keeps content timely and relevant. This might be one of the more obvious digital signage content ideas, but it’s definitely one of the most effective. 

You don’t even have to limit yourself to Halloween, Christmas or other popular holidays. Add things to your calendar such as International Women's Day, Black History Month or International cat/dog/obscure pets day… 

This way you’ll never run out of fun seasonal content!

UGC or user generated content has come to be seen as one of the most important and engaging content forms on social media. It also works really well as part of your digital signage content strategy.

Incorporate customer reviews, testimonials, case studies, or social media posts that showcase your brand or products for an authentic touch.

Highlighting employees' achievements or introducing team members humanizes your brand and helps build rapport with customers or staff.

You’ll often see content in gyms where the personal trainers offer their advice or inspiration. This can work well for any other situation where an individuals personal input or advice might be valued too.

Offering a glimpse into the inner workings of your business, production process, or product development can generate curiosity and interest.

Whether it’s video, photo collages or a gallery, insight into the way things are done can be a fascinating way to create fresh signage content.

Always a good way to attract attention to your brand and new products. Showcase a specific product or service using high-quality images, videos, or interactive content.

This can build a buzz and attract people to try and even buy. Think of it like a movie trailer for your new product lines, or even to focus on underperforming products.

The oldest trick in the marketing book. But it still works! 

Only 24 hours to grab that discount? Buy one get one free every Tuesday? Buy X and get a free Y on every day with an A in it during July?

Use your digital signage to push those exclusive discounts or promotions, create a sense of urgency and motivate your audience to take action.

Use your digital signage content to promote your loyalty program, reward points, or other exclusive benefits. 

While many businesses run a loyalty program, they don’t always have the most efficient use or uptake. Using digital signage to jog everyone's memory can encourage customers to engage with your brand and use your rewards program.

A great way to expand and reach new audiences, content collaborations can be a fun way of creating fresh content too.

This can include partnering with influencers or other local businesses to create joint content.

You’ll often see branding crossovers in fashion or food. But this can be a great way to inject new life into a marketing campaign or a tired old brand, or even improve engagement within an office setting.

Using animation can reimagine your content in a fresh and exciting new way. While this  might mean simply animating static images, you can also use some fresh graphic design to change how your brand is perceived.

Get some anime style images for younger facing brands. Or embrace the classic comic book style for a vintage/retro look.

A simple use for digital signage is to share exciting news, achievements, or updates related to your business.

Been nominated for some awards? Company looking at expansions? Perhaps some new partnerships in the works?

Share it in your digital signage content updates. An easy content win.

A great way to highlight your support for the local community. Use your digital signage content for sharing events, news, or initiatives related to nonprofits, local sports teams, or cultural events.

If you’ve done some great work in the community, make sure to present it through your digital signage too.

Creating a sense of urgency by counting down time left for a sale, event, product launch; or even a national or global event such as the soccer world cup or New Years Day.

Digital displays in offices, shops and public spaces are great for information and promotional messages. But how often should you update content on signs?

When and How to Update Digital Signage Content

When and How to Keep Digital Signage Content Updated and Fresh

When and How to Keep Digital Signage Content Updated and Fresh

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