GUTHMAN BLOG

Back to School Signage 101

As students, teachers, and faculty return to their daily routines, they often disconnect on important school issues. This time of year can be absolutely chaotic for parents, and students as well. So communicating effectively with your LED school sign will be an important way to bring everyone back together again and keep them in the know about important messages you have for the community. But how? The following tips will help you produce great dynamic and engaging content for the new school year.

#1: Keep it simple.

Schools often try to convey their messaging in its entirety by adding many too many words or too many slides. Parents, students, and faculty are all extremely stressed and busy during this time of year. They need to know the most important things to help them engage with the school’s community, but they need these messages to be delivered in 2-5 words over a maximum of 3 slides of 5 seconds each.

Segment your messaging for morning and afternoon pickup times so your main audience is getting the information they need in a quick and effective format. During the day schedule your content to display what you need the community at large to know in addition to the important messaging you’ve created for morning and afternoon pickup times.

#2: Focus on what’s important in the short term.

Many schools try to blast the community with their entire schedule of events, requirements, and initiatives from day 1. Bad idea. Consider segmenting your calendar into 1-3 month segments to narrow down the content into easily digestible playlists of 3 slots of 5 seconds each for parents to take in. You can schedule these out ahead of time as well so the sign doesn’t become a constant time drain.

#3: Focus on images.

A picture says a thousand words. It is a cliche, but in the case of LED signs, it is absolutely true. Think about what moves your community emotionally? A simple photo can often send a strong message for you, allowing for 2-5 words to be used to convey the action you’d like the audience to take. In short, the image tells the moving story, and the text tells them what to DO with that emotional response.

#4: Watch the brightness.

Many schools have their LED sign installed, then forget about it, as if it were a lawn ornament of sorts. It won’t matter if you have great content and marketing strategies if your sign has degraded to the point it won’t compete with the sun. When admin and faculty return for the school year, the sign can be forgotten about. People don’t see signs that don’t compete with the sun’s brightness. Sometimes a setting can be made in the sign’s software to remedy this problem, but often full replacement is required. Consult the manufacturer if you are unsure how to increase the brightness settings for your sign.

#5: Highlight your heroes.

You have the community’s attention now, perhaps more than you will for the rest of the school year. By creating encouraging content around the accomplishments of star students, star faculty members, or even star parent volunteers, can all set the tone for encouraging community involvement. People are much more likely to support the school if they see others being recognized for doing so. Students and parents alike respond to this in surprisingly effective ways.

Back to School Signs 101 Recap:

  • Keep it simple
  • Focus on what’s important in the short term
  • Focus on images
  • Watch the brightness
  • Highlight your heroes

Contact Guthman Signs today to learn more about which School LED Sign is best for your needs!

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