A lot of businesses are now implementing outdoor digital signage screens to provide advertising, promotion and brand awareness. Placing a screen outside a premises is an excellent way of attracting customers and provides a low-cost form of marketing that can reach a wide audience.
With indoor digital signage screens, only customers inside the store only view the; however, with an outdoor screen, people that may not have intended on visiting the store view the message, and may be attracted inside.
Using an outdoor screen to encourage customers to visit a store is only as effective as the message displayed and the number of people that get to see it. A screen outdoors with even a great promotion will not be worthwhile if few people get to see it, so maximising the views a screen can get will greatly boost its effectiveness.
Outdoor screens have the advantage over indoor displays in that there is less digital competition, These days, digital signage is everywhere, from shopping malls and railway stations, to pharmacies and petrol stations. Outdoor digital signage, however, is still fairly rare, with only major city centres and towns utilising them for advertising.
Simply placing a screen in the front of a shop may not be enough for people to notice the content. If the screen is not facing the oncoming audience, is too high or the content isn’t eye0catching enough, people may not give it any attention. Also, compared to indoor screens, outdoor displays have a far shorter dwell time. People only view the average outdoor digital signage display for a second or two, which isn’t long to get whatever message your are trying to convey across.
To maximise the success of an outdoor screen, you first need to position the screen at the right angle, facing the coming audience. Keep the screen as near to eye-level; as possible, or failing that, angle it towards their eye-line.
Secondly, messages need to be simple. Complicated and intricate content won’t work with such a limited dwell time so all messages need to be simple, bold and to the point. Using a large, prominent font as well as using the largest screen size you can get away with, the bigger the better as often people view an outdoor screen whilst travelling past in public transport or from the other side of the road, so the bigger and clearer the content the better.
