So you purchased your new Electronic Message Board? Now what?
What kind of information are you eager to share with your potential customers?
The options are limitless in displaying what your business has to offer on your electronic message board, but there are a few helpful tips that can help enhance your message to make it more attractive and persuading to viewers.
SHORT AND SWEET:
Rule Number 1: Make your messages short and sweet!
You want your message to be direct and to the point, but prompt a response from potential clients passing by.
Keeping your text to a minimal is a vital aspect when producing your own messages!
For example:
WRONG: This Friday Join/ Us For Our/ Pumpkin Pie Eating Contest/ Starts At 5 PM/ Tickets Are $9/Person
The above message is too wordy and can definitely be condensed and still get information across to viewers!
CORRECT: FRIDAY/ PUMPKIN PIE EATING CONTEST/ 5PM/ $9/PERSON
The above message is a more concise version of the first message, but is shorter, direct, and in all honesty easier to read when driving by.
ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?
Rule Number Two: Make your Message Applicable to your Audience.
In most cases your average consumer or client is an individual who is often on the go. This means you only have a few minutes to dazzle them with your product or advertisement! One of the leading competitors in the industry, Daktronics, expressed these three qualities are vital when producing your messages:
Make it: BRIEF Make it: BOLD Make it: LEGIBLE
Keeping these three things in mind when creating your messages will take your business to the next level.
AM I TOO COLORFUL?
Finding the right color combinations for your messages plays a huge role in not only advertising your event or product, but bringing attention to your electronic message board itself.
Daktronics proclaimed, “Contrast between colors is key. Contrast refers to the difference between light and dark.” Utilizing the use of contrasting colors can enhance the visual effects of a viewer’s experience.
Rule Number Three: Colors are important! They can make or break your message.
Having the right colors to make your message “pop” and visually entice future customers is your goal when producing these advertisements.
Some examples of good uses of color are: Yellow copy and Red background or White copy and Blue background. Using bright colors for copy and darker colors for backgrounds tend to make your messages more vibrant and appealing to onlookers.
Some bad examples of color options are: Green copy and Red Background or Maroon copy and Magenta background. Using dark colors on dark colors make messages a bit too gloomy and not as enticing to a potential customer or client.
Play around with colors and see what works best for your needs! To check to see if the color combinations work you can view the content in gray scale. This lets you see if the font color you choose will be able to be seen with the background color.
LINES, FONTS, AND OUTLINES OH MY!
Now that we have established what colors are best for your message board, we need to delve into how your copy should look in order to get the attention you are striving to achieve.
Rule Number 4:
Fonts need to be BOLD ! Using an audacious font can help emphasize the aspects of your message you want future clients to notice.
Daktronics mentioned these five aspects when choosing fonts for your messages:
- Bold/ thick fonts are easier to read on a display. If the font is too thin, it gets lost on the display.
- Larger text uses more available space, which helps viewing when at a distance.
- Some fonts might look good when they’re big, but are hard to read when they’re too small.
- In most cases, it’s easier to read upper and lowercase letters on a display. All caps has it’s place, use for emphasis.
- Two fonts can be used on a piece of content. One font as the main font and the other used sparingly as an accent font.
You want to do as much as possible to help readers READ your electronic sign. Do not use script fonts they are too hard to see and comprehend when advertising on your electronic message board. Your goal is to use a font that allows your message to be appealing to the human eye, yet make a statement. A few good fonts to use when creating your messages are: Arial, Calibri, Verdana, Tahoma, Helvetica, and Lucinda Grande.
Now that you have decided your font you may want to accent your copy with an outline. Daktronics indicates, “Depending on the background and the text color used, you may want to consider an outline. Sometimes an outline is the only difference between a good design and a bad one,” expressing that the use of an outline can really be beneficial when developing messages. Typically, black and bold outlines are recommended, the thicker the outline the more prominent the copy and easier readability.
GET READY, SET, AND SELL!
Now that you have a couple of useful tips to utilize you should be well on your way in designing and programming your electronic message board! Every aspect plays a major role; from content and color options to font choices and defining lines that make your copy pop. Each option you choose to utilize can help take your sign to the next level. Alluring customers or potential clients to your business is the main goal, try using a few of these helpful rules to entice customers to stop by your establishment!
