Start off Strong With Digital Signage in 2026!

January is the perfect time to breathe new life into your digital signage content and network. Whether you’re managing content for a retail store, restaurant, corporate office, or a public space, now is the time to refresh your database and review your templates, among other things! Here are a few more ways to improve your digital signage in 2026.

1. Review and update templates

With the beginning of a new year, brands tweak their branding and approach to the customer base. This is certainly one reason to review your templates which are constantly in use, but you should also give them a run-through even if there’s not much change to your content. Check for issues, remove obsolete elements, switch up layout elements, etc. It’s quite an effortless task with digital signage software, too! 

2. Freshen up content libraries

As the yearly loop begins anew, people are expecting new opportunities offered by all businesses in town. This is typically the time we’re used to seeing big changes, such as pricing or policy updates, and certainly when it comes to adopting any new legislature that may have passed.

You likely have your go-to animations, backgrounds, and visuals for content. Even color combinations for certain apps. Switch it up and tweak them just a bit to give a feeling of something fresh. Update your most used stock of images, videos, and text elements. Also consider brand new campaigns in place of your old ones to mark the year’s beginning more clearly. This isn’t a must, of course, but it’s a clever way to subtly maintain the level of engagement your digital signage has.

3. Prepare for upcoming events/holidays

As you do an overhaul on your content elements, plan ahead deep into digital signage campaigns in 2026 and begin scheduling content. Each business has big days that are unique to them alone. Think of any milestones coming up, such as the anniversary of the grand opening, an upcoming product launch, or a customer/employee milestone you wish to celebrate.

Consider upcoming events like Valentine’s Day, Easter, Independence Day, and even go all the way up to Christmas. It’s a lot easier to plan if you already have content from last year which can do with a bit of tweaking. It’s also a good failsafe measure, even if you’re planning something big for distant holidays and want to do it at a later point. In case you lose track of time or get overwhelmed and don’t get around to creating high-quality campaigns for Halloween or Thanksgiving, you’ll at least have an early draft ready at the standby.

4. Review management structure and security

With digital signage software like OnSign, you can assign roles and access privileges to key individuals within your content management structure. As you’re doing an overhaul of all the content on the platform, this is the ideal opportunity to also review management access and security. Assign additional access to users who are receiving greater responsibilities, as well as remove obsolete roles or access to minimize any unwanted mistakes.

Speaking of management, as you go through your stock content, playlists, campaigns, and compositions, review tags on each and ensure they’re correctly labeled and named. You’ll thank yourself later when mid-2026 you quickly need to pull up something very specific!

5. Incorporate new features

OnSign, like any other quality provider, constantly improves and implements new features. Even if you’re not interested in the latest tips & tricks, consider adopting one or two new features you haven’t used before. This can greatly enrich your digital signage experience further down the road.

Start simple. For example, incorporate an element you haven’t included before. Use the new Canva integration or Google Maps Apps. Explore the long list of apps and features on the platform and find something to explore and implement!

6. Expand multilingual support

In this day and age, especially thanks to AI, translation of text into another language has never been easier. Consider your target audience and determine if there is a need for multilingual support. In key locations such as transport hubs, or businesses running at or near airports, it could be useful, especially on-demand.

7. Review data analytics

With an entire year’s worth of data, don’t sleep on the opportunity for learning! Review how content playback impacted your success. With Reports, you can see everything about the content which was played, when, and where. While this data won’t give you a clear and direct answer on what your audience wants, you can derive valuable insight.

Especially during the holiday season, cross-reference how promoting specific content impacted your sales. Interactive content is especially telling here, as you can view when there was the highest spike of interaction causing specific content playback. This will tell you where to focus your efforts and push more interactive campaigns. Similarly, examine content which had massive exposure but resulted in low sales. This informs you of campaigns which are less effective and need to be changed or entirely removed.

As you review your data, you’ll begin to see patterns or points of interest. This can act as a guideline for the year ahead on what to track more specifically. For instance, you could implement motion sensors to track content directing users to approach the display for more information. Or monitor how repeated playback for frequent visitors impacts them, such as if motivational content in the gym increases return visits.

8. Review and improve customer feedback systems

The beginning of the year is a great milestone to review customer feedback and implement changes. However, you have to collect it first! In case you’re unsatisfied with the feedback you’ve collected at the beginning of 2026, prepare for 2027!

Review, or if you don’t have them, create customer feedback forms on interactive digital signage. Make them inviting, and even offer an incentive such as a discount or a coupon code. At the very least say “Thank you!” at the end. In case in-store feedback collection isn’t working, implement QR-codes which take users online to achieve the same effect. It all depends on the audience’s preferences, at the end of the day.

All in all, there’s much to do to make sure your digital signage shines in 2026. All these suggestions are fully applicable to OnSign users. If you’re not one yet, try it out for free!