How to Increase Bar Revenue with Digital Signage
If you are a bar owner, you are surely aware that you are opperating a business in a highly competative industry. Even if your bar is financially lucrative at the moment, it is important to keep abrest of trends and to take advantage of the newest technologies to stand out from the crowd and increase revenue.
One of the best tools for increasing bar revenue is digital signage, which is taking the service industry by storm due to its ability to improve marketing, optomize the customer experience, and improve internal communications.
This article is all about how you can take advantage of the numerous benefits of digital signage to increase your bar revenue. We start with an overview of digital signage, as well as a description of the hardware and software you will need to integrate a digital signage system at your bar.
Next, we go over many examples and strategies for using digital signage to incease your bottom line. By the end of this article, you should have a solid understanding of why digital signage is so beneficial for bars and how you can implement digital signage for the best results.
What is Digital Signage?
Simply put, digital signage is content displayed on digital screens. But this simple example does not even start to cover all of the aspects and functionalities of digital signage.
A more thorough explaination of digital signage would be as follows: digital signage refers to the use of digital displays, such as televisions, tablets, touch screens, and tablets, in conjunction with a digital signage solution (i.e., digital signage software and digital signage hardware), to display digital zacontent.
The types of content that can be shown are incredibly varied and dynamic, including images, text, social media feeds, videos, digital menus, wayfinding signs, interactive content, apps, animations, and much more. Sound like a lot? It surely is, and thats what makes digital signage such a dynamic tool full of potential for increasinig revenue if applied correctly.
What is Needed for Digital Signage?
First, you will need to get a digital display or multiple digital displays. Depending on your needs, these could include LED walls, televisions, tablets, and even billboards. Since there are so many options when it comes to the type of digital display you can use, as well as the size of displays, you can aquire a variety of screens that can be put to many different uses in your bar.
The next thing that you will need is a wall mount. Mounting your digital signs to the wall ensures that your digital displays will be highly visible. You don’t want to go through all the work to create great content to show on your screens if your customers won’t be able to see it.
Moreover, mounted screens save floorspace, and in general, mounted screens look much more professional than screens standing on the floor. A notable exception to this rule of thumb would be some digital signage kiosks, which can often be usefully placed on the floor for easy access to interactive content.
Finally, you will want to get a high quality digital signage solution. Digital signage solutions are typically divided into two types: cloud-based digital signage and hardware-based digital signage.
With cloud-based digital signage solutions, you use internet connectivity and an off-base server to perform the necissary digital signage tasks, such as content creation, content management, playlist curation, and displaying content on your digital screens. Companies offering cloud-based digital signage solutions typically charge monthly fees for their services, and for this reason, the costs can really start to add up.
The other option is a hardware-based digital signage solution. With hardware-based digital signage solutions, you recieve a digital signage media player that can hook up to your screens through cables or bluetooth and all the necissary digital signage software for content creation, content management, playlist curation, and digital display.
Unlike cloud-based digital signage solutions, you will be doing these tasks on base. For this reason, hardware-based digital signage solutions may have a higher upfront cost but will not have monthly fees. On the other hand, Loop TV offers a high quality, hardware-based, digital signage solution for free, and this is the choice that many businesses find most appealing.
Now that we have covered all the basics of digital signage, we can move on to tried and true methods for increasing bar revenue with digital signage. Buckle up because you will be amazed at how much digital signage can do for your business!
Ways to Increase Bar Revenue with Digital Signage
1. Display a digital Menu board
The chalkboard as a way to display your menu, as well as your best deals is a tool of the past. Digital menu boards are a great way to take advantage of digital signage for this purpose. They are extremely easy and straightforward to set up, and you can easily edit their contents any way you see fit.
For example, when your current special offer is over, you can easily change it for another one with just a few clicks of a mouse. Likewise, when you go out of stock on an item from your selling list, you can easily replace it with another one.
An additional advantage of digital menu boards is that they give you a chance to present your best menu items in high resolution, with enticing images of your most refreshing drinks and delicious food. This is a sure way to attract new visitors and increase your sales figures.
2. Advertise your special offers for food and drinks
Another way you can take advantage of digital signage is to place it in the most visible spot in your pub and direct the attention of your customers towards the items whose sales you'd like to increase. This is a great way for you to advertise your happy hour discounts and promotions. On the other hand, you’ll also keep your customers happy because they'll be able to take advantage of the great deals you’re giving them.
In addition, since it is very easy to change the content presented on the display, you can create different promotions for different occasions. For example, you can promote one offer during weekdays and a completely different one during weekends. Or perhaps you’d prefer to have one promotion during daytime and another one during evening hours. Digital signage makes all this possible!
Lastly, since digital signage is not limited to static content, you can display rich motion graphics on your screens. Why not use this to your advantage to increase beverage consumption in your pub?
For example, you can show an appealing video of how some of the popular cocktails are made, what ingredients go into them and where these ingredients originate from. This surely beats the old, conventional way of putting an image of a drink and placing a price tag next to it.
3. Advertise your bar events and important notices
If you ever had the habit of frequenting bars and pubs, you are surely aware that they tend to host a wide variety of past-time activities. The most frequent of these is the infamous bar trivia night, which allows your pub clientele to show off with their general knowledge and intellectual abilities over a few glasses of beer.
Why not use digital signage to promote these events to your visitors or to publish weekly results in the form of leaderboards on the big screen. The same applies to any pool, darts or table tennis tournament that your pub decides to host.
In addition, digital signage allows you to better connect with the bar community. You can use it to display bar news, emergency announcements and all sorts of different messages to your customers. After all, one of the major selling points of digital signage is that it allows you to distribute relevant information quickly and efficiently.
4. Generate an alternative revenue stream with ad space
One incredible way to increase revenue for your bar is by showing ads on your digital displays. With Loop TV's digital signnage solution, this is made incredibly easy. Interspersed with your digital signage playlist created with Loop TV's software, Loop TV has already loaded advertisements that you can get paid for by displaying them on the screens of your bar.
5. Take advantage of social media
Social media is a great tool to create and nourish the bond between you and your customers. If your pub is active on social media, you can easily display your social media content on your digital signage display. Share your bars’s posts from Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to encourage more visitors to follow your bar online and build up your online presence. In addition, you can make your customers feel special by reposting their social media posts and displaying them on your digital signage channel.
6. Advertise major sporting events and show live scores
Let your customers know that they can watch the next big sports match right in the comfort of your bar or pub. Yes, while putting a big sign in front of your entrance is certainly an option, but nothing beats having the next big event announced with a flashing message right on your digital signage display.
A further advantage of doing things this way is that you will save the time and cost of printing out a different poster every week for each of the upcoming events. In addition, if you want your visitors to spend more time in your pub, you can keep them informed and entertained by showing them the latest live scores from your favourite sports channels.
7. Show personalized texts and messeges
Displaying personalised messages for your visitors is a great way to increase hospitality for your customers and at the same time earn a little money on the side. This is yet another area where digital signage can help.
So, next time your guests gather to celebrate a birthday or an anniversary, why not make their experience a lot more enjoyable and personal by giving them your best wishes on the big screen. These little things tend to go a long way, and they nourish brand loyalty among your customers.
8. Display news, weather, time and traffic information
Digital signage can help you keep your customers informed with relevant and up-to-date information about the world. After all, this is one of the most important uses of digital signage. This way, you can create a comfortable environment for your visitors by keeping them aware about the time, current news and weather conditions in your area.
Takeaways: The Benefits of Digital Signage
1. Save time and money
In addition to being more efficient and straightforward to use, digital signage is also considerably cheaper than regular signage. By choosing digital signage, you cut the costs of paper printing, its distribution and waste management. Likewise, digital signage allows you to save a lot of time, since you can update your screen(s) automatically and as often as the needs of your business require.
2. Efficient communication
In today's competitive landscape, efficient communication is essential in any line of business. Here as well, digital signage allows you to quickly and efficiently communicate your messages to your customers and avoid any possible information delays and bottlenecks.
3. Increase sales
The right combination of powerful text, images and videos can have a major impact on you customers' purchasing decisions, which can mean a major uptick in the amount of sales generated.
4. Reinforce your brand image
A lot of businesses find it difficult to promote their brand identity. With digital signage, however, you can easily create the look and feel of your channel that closely matches your brand and reinforce your brand's image.
Time to Make More Money with Digital Signage
As this article has shown, there are so many ways that you can employ digital signage to increase the revenue of your bar or pub. In this competitive environment, static signs simply cannot compete with the functionality of digital signage. Thats why so many businesses have made the switch to digital signage, and if you want to increase the revenue of your bar, you should too.