Content Strategy for Digital Signage: How to Start & Best Practices

Digital signage has moved well beyond being a “nice-to-have” technology. Today, it’s one of the most effective tools organizations can use to influence customer behavior, improve operational efficiency, and reduce costs.

But deploying the technology itself is just part of what makes a deployment successul. Most of the time, the real challenge is knowing what content to show, where to show it, and why it matters.

If you're looking to get started with digital signage or refine what you already have, here are a few practical tips and proven best practices.

Always Start with Your Audience’s Needs

Any good strategy begins with the audience. And digital signage is no different. Too often, businesses jump straight into flashy creative or technology upgrades without pausing to consider the basics: What do customers actually want, and what gets in their way?

To do this clearly, understand the nuances of your industry and match them to digital signage capabilities or solutions. In retail, customers want product information at the point of decision, real-time updates on availability, and smoother navigation through stores that keep getting more complex. In QSR, customers crave speed and clarity, but also appreciate customization and transparency about what they’re ordering. In healthcare, patients and families value clear directions, reduced uncertainty, and educational content that helps them feel informed.

To create a well-rounded digital signage content strategy, demographics are a good starting point, but you need to go deeper. To do so, map out all the friction points in the customer journey. Where do people get stuck? Where do they hesitate? Where do they ask staff for help?

In many cases, pairing behavioral observations with data from in-store analytics tools, such as footfall heatmaps, POS timing data, or dwell-time sensors, can aid your understanding of these friction points. This data-led approach helps ensure that content strategies aren’t based on assumptions but on observable user behavior.

Tackle Objections Before They Arise

Every customer brings doubts and objections into their journey, and content can play a powerful role in easing them. Instead of thinking about signage only as an information channel, businesses should treat it as a tool to build trust and guide action. Whether customers are overwhelmed by choices, confused by pricing, uncertain about navigation or simply unsure of what to do next, content can intervene in those critical moments. Smart digital displays simplify complexity, reinforce confidence and proactively smooth out the customer journey.

It might seem simple on paper, but by reframing signage as a tool to address concerns before they become complaints, businesses can transform customer perceptions and loyalty.

To make this work in practice, content should be supported by conditional logic wherever possible. For example, queue-length triggers or menu logic that adapts based on service load can tailor messaging to real-time conditions. This is where content management systems (CMS) with rules-based scheduling or sensor integration can offer significant uplifts in performance.

Match Content to Context

Once you’ve understood your audience and mapped out their journey, it’s important to nail the right context. After all, even the best message falls flat if it’s shown in the wrong place. That’s why one of the most important conversations is about context. Where is the screen, and what role does it play in the customer journey?

The placement of signage should match its purpose. Screens in high-traffic entryways should be bold and attention-grabbing. Displays at decision points should support comparison and guide the next steps. Interactive screens should offer depth and personalization where appropriate, while passive displays can support background messaging or ambiance. Wayfinding signage should reduce confusion and orient people, while screens in dwell zones, such as waiting areas, can entertain, educate, or build brand trust.

Orientation, viewing angles, ambient lighting, and screen size all impact how content is received in different placements. It’s worth running location-specific content simulations or brightness audits to ensure legibility and visual comfort.

Build Content with Purpose

One of the most common mistakes we see is signage content without a clear purpose. Every piece of content should be tied to a specific measurable outcome.

If the goal is to increase engagement, digital signage can stream user-generated or local content to foster connection and relevance. If improving ordering or decision making is the objective, kiosks and menu displays can surface timely offers, simplify choices, and encourage add-ons. In environments where people are waiting, digital loops or interactive visuals can reduce perceived wait times and keep audiences engaged. When conditions change, whether it’s time of day, weather, or inventory, AI and data-driven signage can adjust messaging in real time to keep it relevant and results-focused.

Additionally, defining KPIs for each screen type or location, such as interaction rate, conversion uplift, or reduced staff intervention, creates clarity in both measurement and iteration. Establishing these benchmarks early allows teams to make data-backed refinements without relying on anecdotal feedback alone.

What Makes Digital Signage Creative Effective?

Lastly, there are a few basic rules that are very important to make sure that digital signage is effective:

·        Stay consistent with brand guidelines to reinforce trust.

·        Repurpose existing marketing materials to save cost and maintain voice.

·        Design for screen specs so text and images look sharp and are easy to process.

·        Always include a call to action, even if it’s as simple as “Order Here” or “Learn More.”

·        Keep language and text readable at a glance.

·        Refresh content often enough to feel current but retain evergreen assets to avoid unnecessary churn.

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Commit to Continuous Improvement

Finally, digital signage should never be treated as a one-time project. The organizations that consistently get the most from their investment are those that treat it as an evolving system, something that improves over time through observation, iteration, and refinement. This starts with regularly reviewing performance data. Depending on the goals, this could mean looking at engagement rates, dwell time, interaction rates, conversions or even internal efficiency metrics.

Content audits play an equally important role. Reviewing what’s running, sunsetting outdated messages, and introducing fresh creative keeps displays from going stale. The content on screen should be working in service of whatever matters most to the business.

Coffman Media: A Trusted Name in Content Strategy

At the end of the day, the screens don’t do the heavy lifting; the strategy behind them does. Without clear intent, meaningful content, and regular refinement, digital signage ends up as just another glowing rectangle in the background. But when teams slow down to really understand their audience, think about context, and stay committed to improvement, you can turn a screen into something that works for the business and the people it serves.

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