Conversion optimization of marketing channels such as websites have  become all the rage over the past few years. Of course with a website,  tests are easy to implement, measure and change. You can throw up a new  button and change its color without much expertise. To test results, all  you need is a dashboard like Google Analytics, which is free and easy  to implement.

So when it comes to another medium, say digital signage, how easy and  important are these tests to run? Truth is, with any offline medium,  you’re taking a bit of a gamble on the content you show. Get it wrong  and your viewers switch off. The display becomes white noise, much like  TV or internet ads that lose the viewer’s interest at a rapid pace.

So rather than putting up a digital signage playlist, leaving it for a  few months and hoping it works, spend a couple of days or weeks testing  the below. Learn quickly, iterate fast and create better digital  signage displays based on research.

As we know from advertising, copy can make or break a piece of  content. On the web, there are tons of great examples where just  changing one word made a huge different to a campaign, like the time  Barack Obama changed his call to action text  from “Sign Up” to “Learn More” and received millions of dollars more in  funding. On digital signage, try different words, formats, lengths and  actions. Also think about the visual clutter around your headline. If  you take more away from the page, is your message more effective?

As a rough guide,  when using text on digital signage, a 20-point font can be seen from 7  feet away, whereas a 100-point font can be seen from 26 feet away.  However, each audience and screen is different and testing the size of  your copy could help you to gain more traction. This could be as simple  as getting a group of people (who haven’t seen the screen before) to  look at it for 10 seconds, then tell you as much of the wording as they  can remember reading. Then, change the size of the font and try again.  This will help you to strike the balance between getting your entire  message on screen and ensuring your audience can read and retain it.

In all digital signage displays, clear visibility is key. That’s why most studies recommend using Sans Serif fonts,  which show up well on any screen. One of the easiest ways to run a  design experiment on copy is to test two call-to-actions. Say you have a  digital menu board and you want to find out how many customers are  actually reading it. You could create a unique call-to-action for two  weeks using an offer code, then change test a different one for the  second. All you would need to do is count up how many times that unique  code was used each week and you’d have a pretty sound measuring board  for which one did best. Then, you can roll that out across all of your  displays to see higher traction.

Other digital signage experiments  tend to lean towards contrasting color palettes as being the most  effective way of getting your message remembered. This is logical; if  your text stands out against the background, naturally it’s going to be  easier to read. But don’t take our word for it. Here you could also use  two different color palettes to test two offers or call-to-actions and  see which one your audience seems most likely to go for.

In ScreenCloud Signage, you can set how long you want each piece of content to play for. As a guide,  a piece of content that plays for eight seconds or less seems to  capture the attention of passers-by the most. However, this can differ  between different types of content. Video and animation take longer for  the brain to process. In high footfall, the message may also be more  difficult to see. Test the speed length by creating two identical  playlists and setting all of the content in one to play for a short  duration (perhaps 10 seconds per piece), then the latter to play for  longer - perhaps 30 seconds. Then you could ask for customer feedback,  try a unique offer code and see how it gets used, or simply do a recall  test where you ask groups to feed back exactly what they remember  seeing. It’ll quickly become clear whether a long or short playlist  works better for your audience.

As well as testing individual pieces of content, you could also test  different forms of media. For example, when your digital menu board is  interspersed with live news feeds, are people most likely to order your  specialty items? If you play twice as many social media feeds with your  handle showing, do you get a significant boost in followers? In the ScreenCloud  App Store,  there are 50 different apps to choose from. Sometimes, the most  engaging form of content is not the one you think. Test adding or  removing content on a weekly basis and then see if it affects sales or  even the number of comments about your signage.

As well as the speed at which content is shown, you can also test the  length of your playlist. Is it better to repeat four pieces of content  every 20 minutes, or should you have an hour’s playlist that you play  once, on the hour every hour? Some creative ways to test this is to  setup a camera or smartphone to record who stops by your screen when you  use a short playlist vs who stops by when you use a long one (privacy  permitting). You could also do a recall test on short messages vs longer  ones and see where offers or information are better retained.

When it comes to using ads, it seems like a no-brainer to intersperse  ads with information. But to what ratio? If you show one piece of  company information against five or six pieces of salient content, how  many are going to remember it? Alternatively, if you show the important  information every third piece of content, is it going to become boring?  Test where and how often to place your key information within the  playlist. For example, if you add directions to your bathrooms every  three pieces of content, do you noticeably get asked less about where  they are? Or if you include your own ad against four or five pieces of  genuinely useful or entertaining content, are people more receptive to  your digital screens? Balancing content types between informative,  self-promotional or entertaining could help make your digital signs much  more effective.

As well as the type of content shown, you can also test the order. If  you place a piece of content “first,” is it more effective than if you  place it in the middle? Obviously, this is relative to the audience in  question as they may view or walk past the screens at different times.  However, where you place your content could make a key difference in  contrast to the rest of your content. For example, does a key piece of  information in between two social media feeds have more effect than if  it’s placed first? These types of tests will tell you what your  “attention grabbing” content is and as a result, where to place your  must-see pieces of content.

This test is slightly more difficult to implement as it would involve  having two screens positioned differently on the wall (or moving a  screen). However, if you do have the chance, test whether portrait or  landscape screens better resonate with your audience. Perhaps you test a  portrait screen in one area and a landscape screen in another and see  how this changes sales at point of purchase. You could also see if  audiences are able to retain messaging better if viewed in a portrait or  landscape design.

The reason many don’t test their displays is because it’s always been  notoriously difficult to change content on digital screens. Once a CD  was burned or a USB setup, changing a button or headline seemed like far  too much trouble. And we totally get it. But with a digital signage CMS  like ScreenCloud Signage,  testing new copy, playlists or speeds is incredibly easy. Simply log  into the dashboard, delete a slide in a click, and upload a new one in  seconds.

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How to test and find the optimal copy, colors, playlists, schedules, lengths and order to make more people view and act on your digital signage displays.

Don’t just chuck up a digital signage display and hope it works - measure success with these 10 experiments instead.

10 Digital Signage Design Experiments to Run

10 Digital Signage Design Experiments to Run

10 Digital Signage Design Experiments to Run

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