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As we know today’s world is changing with the introduction of new technologies for the growth of businesses. Perhaps one of the most revolutionary developments in the restaurants and hospitality businesses is the digital signage menu boards. These dynamic, contemporary sign-boards are revolutionising the eating out experience, providing benefits that a static menu can never provide. Whether it be in terms of customer relations, or business efficiency, digital menu boards are fast turning into a necessity in any progressive enterprise.

What are Digital Signage Menu Boards?

Digital menus are electronic boards that display the menu of a restaurant using high definition television screens. These boards eliminate the use of paper or chalkboard menus which are replaced by modern, stylish, and easy to update screens. They can be applied in restaurant chains, coffee shops, pubs, bistros, casual dining outlets, fast foods and even in the formal, dining restaurants.

Such systems typically combine a screen, a media player, and a content management system or CMS for short. Menu items, price, promotion, and images of foods are uploaded and controlled in the CMS, enabling restaurant owners to revise menus in real time. This technology can be used to design high impact displays that can be customized to capture the attention of customers in ways that have not been seen before.

Key Benefits of Digital Menu Boards:

1. Adaptability and Constant Changes

The days when you had to reprint the menu or add changes manually are long gone and over the counter menu printing is no longer necessary. Compared to conventional printed menus, the information on digital menu boards can be easily changed, added, or edited within a short time. In just a few clicks, you can refresh the content for a single location, or multiple locations at once, to be consistent across all branches.

2. Enhanced Visual Appeal

Customers are visually inclined and the way in which food is presented has an influence on their decision making. Menu boards that are digital enable you to display your foods in high definition, images, videos and animations that may trigger customers. The option of making it with a moving logo or constantly rotating options keeps the menu interesting, grabbing the attention of the consumers and increasing impulsive buying.

3. Increased Upselling Opportunities

These electronic boards can be set to bring to the customer’s attention various items like specials or the profitable meals. When placed tactfully or associated with recommendations (such as combo orders or a change in beverage size), more money is made by the restaurants. Beautiful graphics can also influence the customers to explore new or limited product offers.

4. Better Customer Experience

Digital menu boards enhance customers’ experience by making them feel that time taken before they are served is less and make better choices quickly. Using clear fonts, which are easy to read together with delicious looking pictures, customers are able to easily make their orders from the menu. Besides, it is easier to show relevant information like allergens, nutrition value, and calorific content to customers who are selective about the meals they eat.

5. Cost Effective and Environmentally Friendly

Despite the fact that there can be some costs at the beginning of the usage of digital signage, they turn out to be helpful for restaurants in terms of cost-saving. The conventional paper menus often get torn, faded or spoiled, or in some instances, the food menu changes, and this requires reprinting. Digital menu boards do not require frequent printing, thus they save costs and the earth in the process.

6. Data-Driven Insights

Some of the digital menu systems include features that allow chefs to monitor customers’ behaviours including where they look when or what they frequently order. Such data can enable restaurant owners to make appropriate decisions on where to position meals, how much to charge for the meals and even when to launch promotions. Through the analysis of customers’ preferences, there is the best way through which the business can tailor their products so that they can generate the most profits.

Digital Menu Boards: Examples

•    Quick-Service Restaurants (QSRs): In fast foods and coffee shops where time is of essence, digital signage menu boards are handy in cutting down on time. They can present temporary promotions, vary the prices depending on the time of the day (morning, noon, evening, night – breakfast, lunch, dinner stakers), and decrease the number of people at the same time through the obvious announcement of the available choices.

•      Bars and Pubs: It may also be employed to advertise daily offers, happy hour or special occasions and holiday specials. In addition to these, the menu also offers an opportunity to present live sporting events or a music concert to the bar guests.

•      Cafes and Bakeries: For firms that have changing menus or special dishes every day, the boards offer an easy way to inform the clients. Digital signage can be used by cafes to advertise beautiful photos of freshly baked products, which will tempt customers to try something different.

•      Fine Dining: In fact, even in more up market areas, digital menu boards can brighten up the place without detracting from the atmosphere. Good graphic designs and smooth moving images can add some value to the guests and being able to provide multiple languages is more helpful to the guests especially the foreigners.

Strategies for the Use of Digital Menu Boards:

1.   Keep It Simple: Although it is possible to crowd the screen with the products you are selling, it is best not to. The most important products and special offers should be underlined with simple keywords and bright pictures that will help customers make a choice.

2.   Use High-Quality Visuals: Spend your money on quality pictures and videos of your foods. Customers are likely to grab that which they are most attracted to which is why dishes must look as appealing as they can be.

3.   Optimize for Readability: The text placed on posters should be readable from a distance in order to enable a large number of people to read it easily. Select fonts that are easily readable and make sure the color of the text and the background is different.

4.    Leverage Dynamic Content: It is also advisable to use animations, videos and to have the menu in the form of rotating slips for instance. These features attract more attention than static text and images, so get to use them as often as possible.

5.    Regularly Update Content: This should be done frequently, especially with new dishes, special offers or come one come all dishes in season. A frequently changing menu will attract customers’ attention and make them come over and over again.

Digital Signage in the Future of Dining:

It is clear that as the technology advances there is so much more that can be done to improve the dining experience. Possible future advancements may include, for instance, ordering through the menu displayed on the screen, or delivering content based on the customer’s preferences, using the technology of big data analysis.

Menu boards in digital signage are not a fad; they are the future of dining. This paper aims to show that restaurants can enhance their business performance by adopting this technology and thereby offer a better dining experience to their clients.

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