The Sign Connection: Evolving from Digital Print to Digital Signage

Visual communications has evolved to include digital signage as the pervasive new disruptor in our industry. We’ve seen digital signage integrate into the static signage world with new technologies that complement and extend traditional static signage. While printed signs and visual graphics establish and reinforce brand messaging, digital signage can display content and that has motion and can dynamically change based on dayparts, demographic of viewer or user interaction.

Why Diversify to Sell Digital Signage

Smart business owners are asking, “Why diversify my business and sell digital signage?” Berg Insight (www.berginsight.com/News.aspx) conducted an industry survey and discovered that in 2014, there were 7.3 million digital displays globally. Digital signage is poised for growth and the number of displays will grow to 17.2 million displays in 2019. The International Data Corporation (www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS25633215) predicts that digital signage use in retail outlets alone will grow from $6 billion in 2013 to an estimated $27.5 billion in 2018. End-user companies are asking for it, and consumers are becoming more accustomed to seeing digital signage in businesses, office buildings, airports, campuses—anywhere people gather.

So what is digital signage, really? The common answer is that digital signage is a digital display on a wall with “something” playing on it. That “something” is the key and the digital display is just a delivery vehicle, similar to banner material and the ink design printed on it. Customers purchase the completed product with their messaging on it—the printed design, not the banner material. In the same way, customers invest in the digital content on a screen and not the digital display itself. While the digital display does have an initial cost, the bigger opportunity to us as providers and for business users is the ability to create and display a variety of messages that can be delivered to the same—or different audiences—throughout the desired hours.

7 Key Elements of Digital Signage

How should one introduce digital signage to a prospect? It starts with an understanding of the seven key elements involved in a digital sign sale, implementation and ongoing content creation. The first is to understand the business objective, followed by determining what one it trying to communicate and then starting to determine what the right solution is—what software, what hardware, and connectivity needs? Who will manage the content development and who will provide the ongoing support?

Understanding Objectives for Digital Signage

Many customers start with hardware and will choose the delivery vehicle before knowing what they want to deliver, or more importantly, why? Any digital deployment that does not start with the basic question of “Why are you doing this?” will fail 99 percent of the time. Fortune 500 companies have deployed thousands of screens without thoughtful considerations of objectives. Determine an objective and ask your prospects and customers:

• What do you want to accomplish?
• What do you want to receive in return?

Once you know what customers want to accomplish, determine the best type of content to achieve your objective. Accomplish this by asking these questions:

• What type of information do you want to communicate?
• Who is your audience?
• What should the user’s experience be?

This will help you determine the type of content needed—text, images, video, interactive content and/or motion graphics. Since different types of content speak to different types of audiences, and companies only have a few seconds to catch the user’s attention, understanding the messaging objectives and assets is key.

The next step is solution design. This takes the purpose and the environment into consideration to lay the ground work for a successful solution. Ask questions including:

• Is the environment indoors or outdoors?
• Is the space public or private?
• Are there unusual conditions to be considered?

Consider your customer’s objective, content and environment to create and design a solution. You need to review the heart of the software, known as the CMS (Content Management System). This is how the content is scheduled, stored and managed.

The CMS can determine how content will be scheduled to play on specific displays at various dates and times, depending on the audience, environment and objectives. The content can be managed locally using a USB drive, from a computer on the local network, or using a cloud-based CMS to allow the content to be controlled remotely to display anywhere around the world. Scheduling content can range from simple (yet effective) to complex with multiple playlists, dayparting and contextual scheduling.

Content can be created to display on various sizes and orientation of screens, ranging from a small shelf-topper to a large 4k Ultra-HD display, and everything in between. The media players are normally tied to the CMS. The environment plays a critical role in the type of hardware and displays that will be needed. Outdoor displays bring a different requirement, especially in extreme weather areas.

Connectivity is often overlooked. You need to determine whether or not the data connection will be hard-wired, wireless, a local area network or good ole’ “sneaker-net” on a USB drive. Many locations with network security issues such as banks, casinos and government facilities will require independent cellular networks.

The last step to consider in operations is installation and ongoing support. For one to five locations with a few displays, this can most likely be accomplished in-house. For customers with 50 to 250 locations with 10 to 25 displays at each site, it’s a larger challenge with a potential for subcontracted installation networks and coordinated project management. While digital signage can seem simple, it can become complex very quickly.

FASTSIGNS International provides its franchisees comprehensive digital signage solutions, providing franchisees training on all aspects of digital signage and content, supply chain discounts, access to proven outsourced solutions and more.

Digital signage has added interest and value to the visual communications industry, and has created a new opportunity for sign and visual graphics companies and the companies that adopt the technology.