As you develop your messaging, it’s important to remember these 5 tips for increasing employee engagement.
1) Use Professionally Designed Content
You may have great messages, but text alone will not maximize engagement. To do that, you’ll want to use professionally designed content that utilizes design principles and color schemes that are proven to increase engagement and evoke the right emotions among your employees.
While you may love the color “purple pizzazz”, it’s likely not the best choice for all of your most important messages. Color psychology and artistic design elements can greatly influence perceptions and responses to a message. In fact, some studies show that up to 90% of snap judgments about products are based on color alone.
Furthermore, color and artistic choices are greatly influenced by context – the audience demographics, time of day, topic of discussion, and industry can all affect how a message is perceived. Fortunately, you don’t need to invest in a master’s degree in color theory and brand design to make engaging content. A qualified content professional can process all of those contextual elements for you to help you develop a clear strategy for highly engaging content that will resonate with your unique employees.
2) Follow the Rule of 7
Your employees have a job to do at work, so they won't be standing around the office reading your digital signs for extended periods of time. It's important that your messages get the point across in short, snappy bites. One way to do this is by making sure all of your screens follow the rule of seven - you should include no more than 7 lines of content with seven words per line on each slide. This will help make sure that your messages are easy to digest, increasing the likelihood that your employees will invest the few minutes to engage with your signs.
Another quick check involves making sure that each unique screen contains less than 250 characters. if you have longer content, break it up over multiple slides into more easily digestible chunks. Otherwise, your employees may see a wall of content and mentally file your digital signage into the “I’ll have to check that out later” pile.
3) Make It Personal
Your employees will naturally be more engaged with content that is familiar. Use employee names, workgroup names, pictures from internal company events, and other resources that are relatable. Everyone loves their 15 minutes of fame, so your employees will be more likely to pay attention when they see their names or the names of their colleagues displayed proudly on your signage.
You can also make your content more personal by phrasing your messages as if you are talking directly to your employees. For example, instead of saying “PowerTech company is proud of the contributions of our employees”, you might say “We appreciate you and all the hard work you've contributed over the past year.” Words like ‘you’ and ‘your’ are more likely to be noticed by your employees, encouraging them to slow down and take notice.
4) Include Visuals to Support Your Content
Eye-catching images can support good content to really help you take your messages to the next level. The human brain can process visuals up to 60,000 times faster than text, so combining text and visuals can create a winning combination that can get your employees to engage.
Visuals can also help you cut back on the amount of text required to get your point across, making it easier for employees to engage with your content. Instructions such as “Main Entrance Temporarily Closed – Use New Employee Entrance Starting Next Week” could be confusing as just text, but when accompanied by a helpful building map and a picture of the new entrance, employees can more easily comply with the adjusted entrance instructions.
5) Encourage Interaction
Increasing engagement is often about making your content actionable. When your employees have a way to interact with your content, it is more meaningful, memorable, and engaging. There are lots of ways to build interaction into your digital signage, and more creative interactions generally result in greater engagement. Here are a few suggestions to get you started:
• QR codes: Nearly everyone has a QR code reader on their cell phone, and there are plenty of free QR code generator tools available online. You can use QR codes to link to a video, a feedback form, a website, or the details for an upcoming event.
• Call to Action: Use bold, highlighted text to direct your employees to take specific actions – “Submit your vendor ideas for next week’s company luncheon” or “Don’t forget to complete our annual employee survey”. While your employees may not be interacting directly with your digital signs, these calls to action help to develop a mindset with your employees that they should regularly review your content and take action.
It Takes In-tention to get A-ttention
If you want employees to notice your content, you need an intentional plan for developing content toward that aim. By following these 5 tips, you can take advantage of proven strategies for maximizing engagement with digital signage that our team at Indigo has used for years to help our clients achieve results. Connect with one of our team members today for adapting your digital signage strategy to meet the unique needs of your organization.
