5 Examples of Digital Signage for Bars and Pubs
Bars are a great place for people to meet up, enjoy some of their favorite beverages, and most of all, be entertained.
Of course, there is often much competition between bars and pubs for getting the most customers, and for that reason, bars and pubs are not immune to the needs of marketing. Moreover, bars and pubs should always be looking for ways to optimize the customer experience of their establishment.
Here is where digital signage comes in. Digital signage is becoming ubiquitous among cutting-edge businesses and there is good reason: digital signage really has the ability to increase customer foot traffic, sales, customer loyalty, the customer experience, and much more.
In this article, we will go over what digital signage is and what a bar or a pub needs to do to set up a digital signage system in their establishment. Then we give five examples of tried and true methods for digital signage in bars in pubs, so you can make the best out of this revolutionary technology!
What is Digital Signage?
Digital Signage involves the use of digital displays, such as TVs, LED displays, LCD displays, tablets, and pretty much anything that can project digital content, along with digital signage solutions, such as digital signage hardware, digital signage software, content management software, templates, and media players (all of which make of the digital signage system) to display digital content.
The different types of content that can be displayed on a digital signage display screen is astounding: images, text, animations, social media feeds and social media walls, video content and video walls, interactive apps, wayfinding information, real-time data analytics, infographics and company performance metrics, testimonials, birthday shout outs, and so much more.
Moreover, your digital signage display might be as big as a billboard or as small as a tablet or anywhere in between, so there are countless opportunities for strategic placement of the right types of screens for the right types of content.
What Do You Need to Set Up a Digital Signage System in Your Bar or Pub?
The first thing you need to do is get digital signs, whether it be a tablet, a flat-screen TV, or a giant LED display. With this, you will also want to procure a wall mount to mount your display to the wall. Mounting the display to the wall will increase visibility and save space.
The next thing you have to do is find the right digital signage solution for you. You can either get digital signage hardware, complete with a media player and in-house digital signage software, or you can go with a cloud-based digital signage solution, in which case you will need solid wifi connectivity since your content management will happen off base in the cloud.
Going with the hardware option is typically a one-time investment while going with a cloud-based digital signage solution will typically be paid for by the month.
Once you have your screen, your mount, and your digital signage solution, you are all set to put your digital signage system to use, which will typically involve using the templates provided with the digital signage software to create content and digital signage playlists to be displayed as you see fit.
5 Examples of Digital Signage for Bars and Pubs
1. Digital Menu Board
One of the best uses of digital signage content for bars and pubs is to use a digital display to show off your menu items. Gone are the days when people need to look at paper menus that need to be constantly updated. With a digital menu board, your bar or pub can highlight your items in attractive fonts. Moreover, you can add mouthwatering digital pictures of some of your dishes.
A digital menu board has so many advantages over a paper menu, even if you decide to keep paper menus as an option in addition to the digital menu board. The first is that they are simply more entertaining to look at, especially if you use great images and attractive templates from a good digital signage solution provider.
A more entertaining menu board will likely reduce the perceived wait time that your customers experience, and in that way, will greatly increase the overall customer experience (no one likes waiting, so why not make the wait feel shorter?). In addition to reducing perceived wait time, digital menu boards can reduce real wait time.
f your digital menu board is placed high and easy to see, then your customers will likely know what they want to order by the time they reach the waiter or the bartender. This minimizes the time that the bar-tender or waiter spends with each customer, which will minimize the total wait time of those in line.
Another great advantage of a digital menu board is how versatile it is. Bars and pubs often have menu changes. Instead of printing up new paper or plastic menus for your new menu which takes valuable money and time, you can easily update your digital menu almost instantly and with no additional cost.
This could be changed to the menu offerings or changes due to the time of day. You might have your lunch menu displayed during lunch hours and easily switch to displaying your dinner menu when the time comes. If your bar or pub is open for drinks past the time that your establishment is serving food, then you can switch it to an all-drink menu when that time comes.
Another benefit of a digital menu board over a paper or plastic menu is that it allows you to highlight your specials, combos, promotions, and special offers in attractive and eye-catching ways. If you are having a specific dish as a special for a night, then you can take up more of the space on the digital menu board to display an image of that dish or include animations and much more.
If your bar or pub serves specialty beers, wines, and other alcoholic beverages. A digital menu board allows you to change the offerings with ease. Moreover, you could have a whole section dedicated to your best drinks, describing what brewery or region the drink is from.
Overall, digital menu boards have so many benefits for bars and pubs that once you make the switch, you will wonder how you ever managed without one.
2. Use digital signage to promote events
Many bars and pubs host events in their establishments, and it is certain that pub owners want their customers to know about these events. Events are a great way to draw more customers and make more money off of food and drink sales.
Moreover, events can draw people to your establishment on days that might otherwise be slow for business at a drinking establishment. Some great examples of events are pay-per-view fights, big sports game watch parties, new Year and other holiday parties, trivia nights, and live music or Dj sets.
One of the best ways to promote these events is with a digital signage display. People are so used to seeing posters that it is simply too easy to ignore them or let them escape our attention. However, by using the functionality of digital signage solutions, your bar can employ animations, videos, images, interactive screens, and much else to promote your bar or pub’s events.
This kind of promotion is not likely to be missed, so don’t be surprised if you have a lot more people showing up to your events once you make the switch from posters to digital signage displays.
3. Promote customer engagement with a social media wall
Social media walls are digital signage displays that show real-time social media posts like tweets, that tag your bar or pub. This is a great way to let your own customers do their own word-of-mouth marketing. Moreover, social media walls or social media displays are a great way to promote customer engagement.
When people see that other people are posting on your business and that these posts are showing up on your social media wall in real-time, it is much more likely that they will make a post about your business as well. It can be a lot of fun for a customer to see their tweet appear on a wall in the bar or pub that they are having fun in.
Customer engagement like this is also an incredible way to get the word out about your bar or pub. If people see others posting good things about your business, they will be far more likely to visit your business themselves.
4. Use digital signage to display entertaining content
People come to bars and pubs to be entertained. And while the companionship of others can be incredibly entertaining, it is also great to have content up on your screens that will help to entertain your customers, improve their experience, and increase customer dwell time.
The type of content that you will play to entertain your customers will likely depend on the type of bar or pub you are running. For example, if you are running a sports bar, it seems quite obvious that you will want to show some of the sporting events or matches that will be most interesting to your customers.
If you are in a college town, you will want to make sure to show the football or basketball games of the local team. You can also show sports from professional leagues. You may, on the other hand, want to establish a niche for your sports bar.
For example, you could specialize in showing hockey games on your digital screens, so that people who are interested in hockey will flock to your establishment over all others because it is your establishment where they can watch the hockey games that they won't be able to watch at any other bar.
Of course, bars that are not sports affiliated will want to display interesting and entertaining content as well. This could include extreme sports, news broadcasts, and really anything that you believe will catch the attention of your specific customers or the potential customer base that you wish to cultivate.
While movies and TV shows are usually not advisable for regular programming at a bar or pub, since these forms of entertainment often require knowledge of plots and characters that many patrons will not have, you can still show movies or TV shows on special nights dedicated to those forms of entertainment.
A great way to draw customers on an otherwise unbusy night would be to host a horror movie night or just a movie night in general. Another good source of entertaining content is music videos. Music videos are great because they do not require any background knowledge to be entertaining.
They are made to be easily digestible and visually pleasing. For that reason, music videos are a perfect ambient backdrop for many establishments that do not specialize in any particular form of visual entertainment.
5. Use digital signage to create alternative revenue streams with advertisements
Finally, digital signage can be a great way to make a little extra money and create an alternative revenue stream. When you go with a digital signage solution like that offered by Loop TV, you not only get access to a ton of entertaining content, but you also have downloaded advertisements interspersed with the content, and you can make money from showing these advertisements in your establishment. With so many forms of entertaining content, such as sports games, customers will be exposed to advertising anyways. But your business won’t make any profit from providing viewers for these advertisements. Digital signage is a great way to turn this dynamic around and start making some extra money.
Make the Most Out of Digital Signage in Your Bar or Pub
Bars and pubs have so much to benefit from integrating a digital signage system into their establishment. Not only can digital signage for restaurants, bars, and pubs increase foot traffic into your establishment and improve the customer experience of those who enter your bar or pub, but it can also work as an extremely effective marketing tool.
Finally, it can be an alternative source of revenue for your bottom line. There are so many benefits of digital signage that you can be sure that you won’t regret employing digital signage in your bar or pub!