One of the best ways to engage clients and provide them a better customer experience with digital signage is using video content looping in your screens. Making a promotion or special offer stand out using a video signage software is easier than you think with the free tools available online we are about to show you.

Here are some easy to follow steps starting from creating your own video content for free to displaying it on your screen with OptiSigns digital signage software by uploading it into our asset management system. We support most video formats including mp4 and avi. If you are having issues with the video codec while playing it on your screen, check our support page.

1. Create a Video for Digital Sign

The first step will be creating new video content out of templates, your own content, or a mix of both. We recommend using any of these tools to get started:

Canva

One of the most popular online design platforms is Canva.com, with 55M users as of June 2021. Some of you may have already used it to develop new content from hundreds of thousands of premade designs. But not many know that Canva has video templates as well.

To begin, select the Video category in Canva’s homepage. It includes many different possibilities to make marketing promotions, video ads for Facebook or YouTube, brand videos, collages, and many more.

Edit it to your liking by adding, editing texts, changing the videos, etc. For example in this case we change the promotion % and edit the promo text to be more relevant to the business’ offer.

When you are done editing, be sure to export the video with file type MP4 then upload to OptiSigns to push your playlists or screens.

Render Forest

Another popular alternative for video creation is RenderForest.com that lets you build video renders in minutes, without 3D modeling knowledge, from hundreds of video templates available for free. You can upload your own logo and have it stand out with 3D effects in video that you can use in digital signage. To start, you need to choose to create a video:

Then select a video template from their gallery:

Edit your selection by uploading your own assets and finish by selecting Preview. Then you will be able to export the video to MP4 and then upload to OptiSigns.

PowerPoint

If you do not want to use a new online tool like the ones above, you can always rely on the good old PowerPoint. You may not know it, but PowerPoint for Windows can be used to elaborate promotion videos easily. With your existing Static promotion, you can add animated text sliding in, or jiggle effect on your promotion and voila!, you have an animated promo video.

PowerPoint animation for video digital signage of digital menu board After having your presentations with all the animations and gifs ready, go to File > Export > Create a video, choose your settings and Save. Make sure to choose the format MP4 to be able to upload it to OptiSigns.

2. Upload your video creation

Next, you will need to upload your content into the OptiSigns. Login into your OptiSigns account, go to File/Assets > Upload Files, and upload your MP4 video. You are now ready to use your video creation in your connected screens.

YouTube

If you already have your videos uploaded to YouTube channel, we recommend you download and upload them as a new asset to your OptiSigns account in order to make sure it plays offline and does not overuse network resources while playing in loop. If you want to use them directly, follow this tutorial about using your videos from YouTube for digital signage.

3. Mix it up! (Optional)

If you want the best possible engagement with your customers, not only have your

to mix your new video with different assets like the weather app to show real-time updated weather info by location or add more information with a static image in jpg or png, you can check this tutorial on how to use the Split Screen App or add Video to Designs as widgets.

Video for digital signage example with Weather app and QR Widget

4. Assign Video to Screens

Select your new asset in the Screens > Edit Screen page, and Save. Your selected screen should start playing your video.

OptiSigns Edit Screen > Change Asset

Conclusion:

Making Promotion videos can sound intimidating and expensive, but it does not have to be.

With modern platforms like Canva, RenderForest or good old PowerPoint, you can make professional looking promotion videos for your business and it does not take a lot of time.

We suggest starting simple, turning your static promotion to video with animation of your texts, jiggles of highlight images, that alone already add great visual effect and attention grabbing ability to your signs, as you get more familiar you can add more effects, animations, video editing, overlays, etc.

Hope you have found this article useful and now start promoting your business with videos on your digital signs!