Build Local Connections with Digital Signage

If the majority of your target audience comes from locals, success will depend on the connections to the world surrounding you! There are many pathways to build such connections, as you’ll see. Consider promoting local events, building partnerships, selling ad space to complementary businesses, as well as identifying approaches unique to your local community. We will explore all these angles and more below, so let’s get to it.

Cross-promote and build partnerships

Building connections to other businesses in the area is an excellent way to form strong connections to your surroundings. This way, you not only tap into the audience of another business, but also communicate to the locals that you’re focused on local growth.

Cross-promote complementary businesses to reap the most benefits. A gym could promote a local nutritionist or sports gear shop. This promotion can be of benefit even if it’s not a charged service, as it creates an image of the business as one that is aware of local events and a good hotspot to seek them out.

Selling ad space is certainly another option, but be mindful about the content broadcast. Best to promote complementary content that ties into your own business. Otherwise, your signage will only become a placeholder for advertising in the eyes of the audience. This sort of perception won’t truly build a bond with the community which surrounds you.

Highlight local events

There is always something going on and worth highlighting. This is also the case in smaller towns, though they might happen at a slower rate. Browse online or ask around to ensure you’re aware of local events, art exhibits, discussions, or open gatherings taking place in town. We’ve all had that moment when a small local event of interest happened, but we learned of it only after it passed. Highlight these sorts of events to steadily become a reliable source for such information. This in itself passively builds a reputation of a business that’s connected to their community.

Run promotions precisely

Another clever way to build a reputation of mindful local business is to run your own promotions via digital signage based on local insights. For instance, marking the anniversary of a particular event that’s relevant in a local context can be a subtle way to broadcast your intent. This is heavily reliant on your awareness of context and your audience. For example, dedicate a portion of your content to mark the anniversary of the town's founding or a significant local milestone, tied to a small discount. Also consider important sports events in the town’s history. 

Events don’t need to be distinctly tied to serious local events to make a similar impact. Run promotions for your own business anniversary or similar milestones. This builds appreciation in the eyes of locals, especially if they already value your business as an important local establishment. Additionally, don’t be afraid to experiment with content your audience might appreciate. So long as it boosts their mood, it’s a plus. If you feel they’ll appreciate a relaxed and humorous approach, a restaurant could celebrate “100 days without setting off the smoke alarm,” for instance. It’s all about context, so get to brainstorming!

Focus on social media

Social media is the highway route to your local community. Promoting your social media handles on digital signage and beyond is vital to ensure as many locals are aware of your presence online. Paired with quality content, you will broadcast information to the locals in record time.

It’s very to promote social media on the side with your main digital signage content. Include it in the corner of your displays, or as a quick full-screen moment. If there is plenty of interaction happening online, broadcast those moments on your screens to invite more people to join. In this context, digital signage is simply a conduit for a very powerful social media strategy.

Measure the impact of your content

Make sure you pay attention to how your local-based content influences the audience. Observe social media interactions, a shift in sales, and communicate with the events you promote to establish how many of them used your promotion codes, or if there was a notable change that happened as a result of your promotions via digital signage.

Both good and bad results provide valuable insights. Good outcomes obviously signal to keep doing what you’re doing. If there is no impact, consider why that is. Your audience might not be interested in the events or promotions you run. Perhaps your signage is weak at catching attention. On that matter, check out our recent post on fixing just that. Fix one issue at a time to ensure you don’t waste precious digital signage content slots on content that doesn’t work.

Create a mix of content through software

Designing content with the specific intent to appeal to the local community is wise. However, it’s important to not let it overpower your primary content such as menu boards, promotions, or ambiental displays. With digital signage software, it’s a simple matter to assign time slots or even split up the screen in a precise way that keeps everything in balance. Take a look at ways to design templates for your content through OnSign to get started. 

For that, you will need to make an OnSign account, which you can do here for free!