The Benefits of Digital Signage for Arcades

The number of businesses in the Arcade, Food, and Entertainment Complexes industry is expected to continue to grow from 2022 onwards.

The good news for arcade owners is that the customer demand for arcade and entertainment spaces is growing, but this also means that arcade owners are going to have to prepare for more competition in the market.

In order to stay ahead of the competition, arcades will need to take advantage of the best tools at their disposal for increasing the effectiveness of marketing, improving the customer experience, and ensuring that arcades have both a physical and an online presence.

One of the best tools for arcades available right now is digital signage. In this article, we will talk about the ways that arcades can benefit from this revolutionary technology (and show why digital signage is truly worthy of the title “revolutionary”).

What is Digital Signage?

Digital signage refers to the use of digital screens in conjunction with a digital signage solution (generally including digital signage software and digital signage hardware) to display visual content to customers and employees.

While this definition definitely makes it seem like digital signage is simple, this is only half the picture, because digital signage is truly one of the most versatile and powerful tools available for businesses.

One of the reasons that digital signage is so powerful is the sheer variety of content that can be displayed on the screens. Some examples of this content include high-quality images, text, videos, interactive apps, wayfinding directions, animations, promotions, calls to action, digital menu boards, and so much more.

Moreover, there is great versatility in the types of screens that you can use. Some examples include consumer-grade TVs, commercial-grade screens, vertical screens, LED walls, tablets, and even billboards. Having so many options when it comes to the types of screens you can use makes it so you can use each screen strategically depending on the use it is put to.

As you can probably imagine, with all the different content that you can display with digital signage, as well as the plethora of screens to choose from, there are a lot of ways that digital signage could be put to good use in arcades.

And that's what the rest of this article will be about. Below, we go over some of the greatest benefits of digital signage for arcades.

The Benefits of Arcade Digital Signage

1. Digital signage draws more foot traffic into your arcade

One of the most important features of marketing is also one of the most overlooked. This feature is the sign or signs that a business stations outside of the establishment.

In an increasingly digital age, it is easy to focus on digital marketing, but physical marketing can be just as essential. The sign outside a store is like a first impression, and just as first impressions are important in social interactions, so too are they important for interactions between customers and businesses.

Many businesses choose to go with traditional static signs, but people are so used to seeing these signs in front of nearly every business that they largely fail to capture any attention. However, with digital signage, your business can advertise with high-quality images, videos, text, and animations.

For a business like an arcade, making sure that customers can get a taste of how much fun they can have inside the store but seeing a digital sign outside of the store can really go a long way in drawing more people into the arcade.

Moreover, outdoor digital signage is highly customizable, so you can use different marketing tactics depending on the time of the day, the day of the week, and the week of the year. For example, your arcade might want to use different visuals for the arcade around certain holidays, or your arcade might want highly specific events that are going on.

With digital signage, all of these tasks are made much easier, and you are able to communicate with potential customers in a far more effective way.

2. Digital signage improves customer experience with wayfinding

Depending on the size of your arcade, customers may need help finding their way to different games. Being in an arcade can, for some people, be an overwhelming experience, due to sensory stimulation from a variety of sounds and visuals.

This, of course, is one of the charms of an arcade, but an arcade can greatly increase the customer experience by helping customers find their way around the establishment. Digital signage makes wayfinding directions extremely easy and visually pleasing.

With high-quality visuals on screens helping to guide customers around the establishment, your arcade can ensure that even the wayfinding instructions contribute to the visual identity of the arcade.

By using animations, your arcade can take wayfinding beyond its purely utilitarian usage and make even directions entertaining for customers.

3. Digital signage increases customer engagement with social media

Now, we’ve talked about the importance of marketing with outdoor digital signage, but no list of the benefits of digital signage for arcades would be complete without talking about the benefits of improving digital marketing and increasing customer engagement both in the arcade and at home that digital signage can bring.

It's extremely important for an arcade to have a strong online presence. Through social media channels, customers should be able to get a taste of how fun your arcade is, and an arcade should also use its social media platforms to communicate with customers by highlighting promotions, events, events, and other information of interest.

A good marketing strategy will have a multi-channel strategy, where each channel ultimately forms a part of a mutually beneficial marketing ecosystem. This means that the marketing inside of the store should bolster the marketing online and vice versa.

With digital signage, businesses can essentially bring digital marketing into the physical store. Digital signage offers the functionality to highlight social media feeds on digital screens. One of the best things to do is to highlight the arcade’s social media feeds.

When customers see that your business has social media feeds and that these social media feeds are engaging and informative, they will be far more likely to follow your feeds, thus opening a new channel for marketing.

Additionally, your arcade can encourage word-of-mouth marketing by encouraging customers to get engaged and post about your business. You can highlight real-time social media feeds of posts that mention your business. You might even want to have competitions with rewards for the best social media post of the day.

In this way, you can get customers to do some of the heavy lifting for marketing, while they are happy because they get the chance to win a prize.

4. Digital signage increases food sales with digital menu boards

Many arcades, though certainly not all, will offer selections of food and drink to their customers.

There are a number of benefits of this: not only can food and drink purchases be a good source of revenue for arcades, but by making it so that customers do not have to leave the establishment when they are hungry or want a drink, you can greatly increase the customer dwell time.

When customers spend more time in your arcade, they will spend more money on the different games and attractions your arcade has to offer.

With digital signage, you can also maximize the amount of food and drink that customers purchase through the use of digital menu boards. With digital menu boards, you can use mouth-watering images, videos, and animations to promote the food that you have to offer.

When people can see how good your food looks, they will be much more inclined to purchase the food. Moreover, you can use the functionality of digital signage to promote food offerings and deals that you want to highlight.

Another benefit that digital menu boards have over traditional menu boards or paper menus is that they are highly customizable. Unlike traditional menu boards, you can easily change your menu offerings depending on the time of the day, as well as the day of the week.

So, if you offer different food around lunchtime than the food you offer around dinnertime, all you need to do is schedule your digital signage playlist to change its display depending on the times that you wish for the change to occur.

5. Digital signage improves the effectiveness of in-store promotions

The marketing journey is not restricted to the digital realm and outside the store. Much of the best marketing occurs inside of the store. Inside the arcade, you can highlight promotions and deals to get customers to spend more on what your arcade is offering.

One of the best tools for in-store marketing is undoubtedly digital signage. With digital signage, you can ensure that your customers do not miss the promotions and deals that are on offer.

This is because of many of the functionalities that we have already talked about in this paper: video, animations, high-quality images, and text. With these functionalities at your disposal, you can craft powerful in-store marketing content that will be sure to galvanize the customers into action.

6. Digital signage is the best way to advertise events

A great way to get more customers into your arcade is by hosting events. The types of events your arcade can hold are pretty much limitless, but there are certainly a few that stand out as being highly effective and fun for customers.

One event could be game tournaments. If there is a game in your arcade that is particularly popular, you can hold a tournament in that event with a prize for the winner. Another example might be a lady’s night.

It's no secret that makes frequent arcades in greater numbers than women. However, women can enjoy arcades just as much as men. So, having a ladies’ night once a month, where ladies can play a certain amount of games for free, or get great deals, can be a highly impactful way to tap a potentially lucrative demographic.

Now, hosting events is just one part of the picture. You also need to effectively promote the event. Now, as we have discussed, you will certainly want to promote the events online and through social media channels.

But another essential channel to market your events is your in-store marketing. With digital signage, you can make sure that the customers inside your store cannot miss noticing the promotion for the event.

Since these customers are already in your establishment, this is a great demographic to generate interest in your events, and you can encourage customers to bring their friends too!

7. Digital signage allows arcade owners to generate an alternative revenue stream

While we have already discussed many ways that digital signage can increase revenue, there is one more point that absolutely cannot be looked over: this is the ability of digital signage to help your arcade establish an alternative revenue stream.

Businesses like arcades can use their digital signage space to display advertisements from different businesses. Since the arcade crowd is a highly sought-after demographic for particular companies, there are many businesses that would want to be able to advertise in an arcade space.

By showing advertisements for other businesses, your arcade can utilize your digital signage to increase revenue through ads, which can be a highly lucrative business strategy.

Of course, there are also some solutions that do not require you to look for advertising partners yourself. When you go with a high-quality digital signage solution like Loop TV, you not only get all the benefits of a top-tier digital signage solution, but you also get pre-downloaded ads that you can get paid for by displaying them on your screens.

Leveling Up Your Arcade

Arcades and digital signage are a match made in heaven. Arcades are certainly no newcomers to digital screens, and by utilizing digital signage, arcades can seriously level up their marketing, generate more revenue, and improve the customer experience.