10 Thanksgiving Ideas for Your Digital Signage

Why is Thanksgiving a more important holiday for most businesses than, say, Halloween or Independence Day?

Certainly, people shop for all of these holidays. However, the marketing around Thanksgiving is extra important because it is followed by Black Friday. After people have finished their Thanksgiving dinner, a huge portion of the U.S. public prepare to shop on one of the busiest shopping days of the year. It's estimated that roughly 66.5 million Americans shop in-store on this day of deals.

While businesses can surely capitalize on effective Black Friday marketing, they should not ignore the power of Thanksgiving-themed digital signage content. Tailoring your digital signage to fit the Thanksgiving theme (i.e. using different templates, fonts, and images) diversifies the look of your signage.

This will draw a bigger audience since they will want to see fresh content At this time of year, it is probably best that your business focuses on marketing for both days simultaneously.

In this article, we will talk about some of the best ideas for content ideas for Thanksgiving digital signage. While some of the ideas only apply to certain types of businesses, like supermarkets and grocery stores, for example, others apply to all types of businesses.

Upon reading through this article, you are sure to find some ideas that will work great for your business!

1. Feature Thanksgiving Recipes on Your Digital Signage Displays

Digital signage is an incredibly powerful in-store marketing tool. Often, people will go to a supermarket or a grocery store to buy food for Thanksgiving without knowing all that they have to buy. When people don’t know what to buy, they will buy less. This is where supermarkets can improve the shopping experience and make more money through the effective use of digital signage.

In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, supermarkets and grocery stores should start adding delicious Thanksgiving-themed recipes to their digital signage playlists. The digital signage displays should occupy prime real estate near the front of the store so that people can see them right away.

To further improve the shopping experience, these displays could give the aisle locations of all the different ingredients needed for the recipe. You might even want to include video tutorials for some of the more complicated recipes.

This kind of digital signage marketing can be highly effective, but there are some ways to make it have an even greater impact. For example, your digital signage might have a Thanksgiving menu board. These could be specially curated menus for a great Thanksgiving dinner displayed for all to see on digital signage screens.

Many shoppers will likely see dishes on the menu that they had not even thought of adding to their Thanksgiving meal plans, and often, this will result in people buying a lot more than they would otherwise.

Another great marketing idea that would encourage shoppers to buy all of the ingredients displayed in the recipe section would be to offer deals and promotions on these items. One great idea for a promotion would be a bulk discount if people buy all of the ingredients for a specific recipe.

This will encourage people to buy more, even if they already have some of the ingredients for the recipe. Because who doesn’t love a deal? One more variation on the Thanksgiving digital menu board idea would be to use digital signage integrations to highlight social media posts on your digital signage.

Using your social media accounts, you could ask people what their favorite Thanksgiving dishes are, and then you can display the responses on your digital signage screens. People might be more willing to experiment if they see that real people love the dishes they are talking about.

2. Highlight Fundraisers and/or Food Drives

Giving to those in need is one of those Thanksgiving traditions that never gets old. Not only does fundraising feel good, but it can also boost the reputation of your business. Often businesses will partner with nonprofits that specialize in fundraising for particular needs, but nothing is stopping you from initiating fundraising activities on your own.

Food drives are a great way to give back to the community. Grocery stores and supermarkets could have a deal that they will match any donation of goods from their store that is on a pre-prepared list.

People can buy the food in your store, and directly donate it, knowing that they are doing good and that the store is participating in the efforts. Your digital signage, then, could include the list of items that are eligible for donation.

Of course, grocery stores are not the only businesses that can get involved with food drives. Any business can set up a food drive, and the easiest way to do this is to partner with a non-profit that is actively working to provide food for the needy.

There are many different types of fundraisers available for businesses to participate in. For example, a sports goods store could advertise on their digital signs that they are collecting new and used sports equipment for people who cannot afford the equipment they need to participate in sporting activities.

Fundraising need not even include the collection of goods. A store could advertise on its digital signage that a certain portion of its proceeds for an allotted time will go to some charity organization.

Digital signage is the best way to advertise things like fundraisers and food drives because they are so effective at catching people’s eyes and drawing their attention. This increases the accessibility of giving.

3. Highlight Customer Testimonials

Thanksgiving is a time for gratitude, and one way that customers show their gratitude for the work that businesses do is to share positive testimonials.

Testimonials are a great way to market your brand because people will gain trust in your brand if they see that real people that have purchased your goods or services are so satisfied that they are willing to have their words shown to all who come into the business.

While testimonials can be an effective form of in-store marketing (and online marketing) at any time of the year, you can increase their impact at this time of the year by framing the testimonials as part of your Thanksgiving theme. These testimonials are a part of the Thanksgiving spirit because showing gratitude is what Thanksgiving is all about.

Framing the testimonials in this way makes them seem less like advertisements for your store. This is important because many people are so used to thinking of testimonials as just a marketing tactic, and so they do not trust them as much as a business would like.

The question many people ask is, “why are these people sharing these stories with us? Did they benefit in some way?” But if the testimonials are framed as a part of Thanksgiving gratitude, this makes the testimonials seem much more sincere and trustworthy.

4. Thanksgiving Polls

A great way to increase customer engagement is to make Thanksgiving-themed polls and quizzes. People love to answer polls and see how their answers stack up against everybody else. These can be questions about what kind of food people prefer, (i.e. Turkey or Ham?) or what people’s favorite Thanksgiving activities are.

One way to get people to respond to the polls is to post them on social media. However, there should be a way that people can participate in the polls and quizzes in-store. This might mean that your digital signage displays a QR code along with the poll results.

Scanning the QR code with a phone camera can pull up the poll on a customer's phone, so they can participate in real-time. But this idea doesn’t need to be limited to just a way for customers to have a little bit of fun and to increase customer engagement.

With the right digital signage solutions, you can turn a poll like this into a great tool for marketing. Based on the respondent's answer to the poll, you can display items in your store that are related to that food or activity.

5. Black Friday Promotions

Since Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, it's definitely a good idea to start showing your promotions well before that date. Digital signage displays are truly the best way to promote your Black Friday deals in-store, which is especially important because you will be advertising to people who already shop at your business.

Of course, you will want to engage in omnichannel marketing when it comes to Black Friday, but digital signs are surely an indispensable part. When it comes to your Black Friday promotions, you can take advantage of tons of free templates on the web or you can go with a high-quality free digital signage solution like Loop TV, which makes creating and displaying your promotions incredibly intuitive.

With so many different types of media available to use with your digital signage, from videos to animations and videos and text, you can be sure that your customers will not miss your promotions.

6. Highlight the Thanksgiving History of Your Business

Thanksgiving is a great time for people to get to know your business a little better. You can use digital signage to display pictures of the first Thanksgiving your business and employees celebrated, as well as the generous things that your business has done over the years.

When people can start to feel like they know your business better, then it is far more likely that they will become loyal customers. With Google slides and various other plugins, making this kind of heartwarming content is easy and effective!

7. Give Thanks to Customers

Many businesses will have certain customers that are regulars. They are known to the staff and they come back time and again to purchase your goods and services. One way to thank these customers is to highlight them on your digital signage displays.

This shows that you really care about your customers. When people see you giving thanks to customers, they will not only look more kindly towards your business but some may even be encouraged to be the type of loyal customer that would get featured the next Thanksgiving.

8. Gear Your Promotions Towards Students

When Thanksgiving break comes around, thousands of college students descend upon their hometowns to spend this special time with their families. More often than not, these students come home to buy things.

Many students do their shopping before the semester starts, but by the time Thanksgiving rolls around, they have realized the things that they forgot to purchase or things that they realized they needed only after the semester started.

For this reason, Thanksgiving break is a major shopping time for college students and their families. You can cater to students and their families by highlighting promotions on objects that students might need, and there are tons of things a student might need.

Maybe they need a new desk chair, new books, new notebooks, notebook tablets, nighttime earplugs (to deal with that snoring roommate), a new gaming console, a laptop, and so much more. In addition to having promotions for these specific items, you could also use digital signage to promote a general student discount.

9. Highlight Community Members

Businesses with brick-and-mortar stores are undeniably part of a community, and by highlighting this fact, many people will be more inclined to spend money at your business than another business that seems less a part of the community.

As a part of the community, a business should take pride in the good things that are happening in the community, even if they are not directly involved. One way to show your community spirit during this time of gratitude and giving is to highlight community members that are engaged in activities that help the community.

This raises the awareness of these good samaritans, while also showing that your business cares as well.

10. Highlight Quotes About Giving

There are plenty of great quotes from all sorts of places and time periods about the value of giving and gratitude. A nice way to help people get in this generous mood is to highlight some of the best quotes on your digital signage. The quotes need not be the only thing that shows up on your digital signs, but can rather be interspersed with your digital signage playlist.

Embrace the Thanksgiving Theme

While we have given specific ideas about different content to feature on your digital signage displays, it is also important to realize that you can creatively use Thanksgiving themes in your own way.

One of the most powerful features of digital signage is its ability to help set an atmosphere. So, during Thanksgiving time, you should use Thanksgiving themes in your digital signage, no matter what the content, because this will help put people in the Thanksgiving mood and make the shopping experience more enjoyable.