Who Creates the Content for Your Digital Signage Screens?
Digital signage content comes from four places: templates you fill in yourself, marketing files you already own, a designer or agency you pay, and advertisers who supply finished creative and pay you to run it. For most local businesses the honest answer is a mix of the first two, because roughly 47% of small business owners handle all their own marketing and 60% spend just 1 to 10 hours a week on it (Constant Contact, 2026 survey of more than 5,000 small businesses). Screen content has to fit inside those hours, or the screens quietly go stale.
This article is for the venue owner running their own screens. Two KPIs decide whether your content approach is working: units sold of whatever you promoted, and hours per week spent keeping the screens current.
Source 1: You build it from templates
This is how most venues start. A signage platform gives you sized layouts for menus, promotions, hours, and announcements. You swap in your prices, your photos, and your logo. No design software, no agency invoice.
Templates work best for content that changes on a schedule you already know: daily specials, class times, service pricing, seasonal offers. Budget 20 to 30 minutes a week once your first set is built.
Source 2: You reuse marketing you already own
Most businesses are sitting on usable screen content and do not realize it. Your Instagram posts, product photos, printed menu, promo flyers, and vendor-supplied brand images can all run on a screen with light resizing.
The rule is simple. Anything designed to be read on a phone at arm's length usually needs bigger type for a screen read from ten feet away. Cut the word count by half and raise the font size.
Source 3: You hire a designer or agency
Worth it for the pieces that stay up for months: your brand loop, your core service menu, an anchor promo video. A freelance designer can build a starter pack of eight to twelve screens once, and you edit the text from then on. Avoid putting a designer on the weekly rotation, because paying per update is how signage budgets quietly balloon.
Source 4: Advertisers create it, and pay you to show it
This is the source most venue owners overlook. Third-party advertisers already have finished, professionally produced creative. When you open idle screen time to an approved advertiser through an ad network, the content problem and the revenue problem get solved in the same move. You fill slots you were not going to fill anyway, and the screen starts paying for itself.
Demand for that inventory is real. U.S. out-of-home advertising revenue hit a record $9.46 billion in 2025, with digital out-of-home growing 10.5% year over year to reach 36.3% of the total (OAAA). Quarterly revenue then passed $3 billion for the first time in Q2 2026.
The slots you have no content for are the slots an advertiser will pay you to fill
Source | Best for | Your time cost | Your cost |
Templates | weekly promos | 20 to 30 min/week | platform fee only |
Existing marketing | social and print repurposing | 15 min/week | free |
Designer or agency | long-running brand and menu screens | near zero after setup | one-time fee |
Advertiser creative via ad network | idle slots and off-peak hours | near zero | pays you |
What actually makes screen content work
Consistency beats novelty. Research from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, based on a study of TV ads, found that only about 16% of advertising is both recalled and correctly attributed to the brand that paid for it. That is a TV finding rather than a signage one, but the lesson carries: repeating the same colors, logo placement, and offer format matters more than a fresh design every week.
Practical version for a venue: pick one layout family, one type size scale, and one logo position. Change the message, keep the frame.
A workable weekly rhythm. Monday, update the one or two promo screens. Monthly, refresh photos. Quarterly, review the full loop and cut anything nobody has acted on
The honest limits
Signage attribution is directional, not exact. You can see that combo sales rose the week a combo ran on screen, but you cannot cleanly isolate the screen from weather, staffing, and everything else happening in the store. Use promo codes, staff scripts, or a dedicated QR code if you want a tighter read.
Screens also do not change your Google rankings. They can influence behaviors that matter to local search, such as review volume and branded searches, but the link is indirect. Treat it that way.
How Beam helps
Beam handles all four sources from one place. You get templates and scheduling for your own promos, drag-and-drop upload for the marketing files you already have, and the Beam Network for everything else.
The Beam Network is the differentiator. You set the rules for what runs, Beam matches approved third-party advertisers to your idle slots, and you earn from screen time that would otherwise show a static logo. You keep full control over categories and can block competitors outright. Your own content always takes priority, so a lunch promo never gets bumped by an ad.
For a venue with three screens, that usually means your own promos during peak hours and network ads filling the quiet stretches. You stop creating content to fill time, and start creating only the content that sells.
Ready to stop staring at empty slots?
See how Beam turns your screens into a managed, revenue-earning channel at usebeam.io.
Sources
https://www.constantcontact.com/blog/small-business-marketing-statistics/
https://oaaa.org/news/out-of-home-advertising-revenue-reaches-record-9-46-billion/
https://marketingreport.one/news/u.s.-ooh-ad-revenue-tops-3b-for-first-time.html
https://www.bbh-labs.com/most-marketing-is-bad-because-it-ignores-the-most-basic-data
Do I need a designer to run digital signage?
No. Most venues run entirely on templates plus existing marketing files. A designer is useful once, for long-running brand screens, not for weekly updates.
How often should I update screen content?
Weekly for promos, monthly for photography, quarterly for the full loop. Anything more frequent tends to slip once the first busy month hits.
Can I use my social media posts on a screen?
Yes, with adjustments. Cut the text by about half and increase the font size, because a screen is read from across a room rather than at arm's length.
Who owns the content advertisers run on my screens?
The advertiser does. They supply finished creative and are responsible for its claims and rights. You approve the categories and can reject anything that does not fit your venue.
Will running ads make my screens look cluttered?
Not if your own content holds priority. A common split is your promos during peak hours and network ads during off-peak, so the screen still reads as yours.