Businesses can gain many advantages from implementing digital signage. From increasing brand awareness to creating interactive ways to connect with customers, digital signage has revolutionized how businesses communicate. But before going digital, it’s essential to consider all factors in the process. From developing an initial strategy to installing the finished product, digital signage implementation is complex. Considering each detail in the process and working with a skilled installation partner ensures a profitable return and longevity for years to come.

Our top 10 considerations when implementing digital signage

Digital signage emerged in the 1980s when businesses used televisions to display advertisements with VHS tapes. While once effective, emerging technology has presented new opportunities to communicate messaging in a powerful and captivating way that engages customers. 

Unlike static advertising signs that never change, digital signage can be updated in real-time, offering an easy and efficient way to feature products, promotions, and events through attractive designs. But before you get started, developing a well-thought-out plan to properly appeal to customers and select the best investment for your business is essential. 

Here are ten considerations when implementing digital signage for your business. 

1. Digital signage preparation: The big picture 

Before jumping into digital signage implementation, outline your company goals, objectives, and target audience. What do you aim to achieve? Are you an up-and-coming restaurant looking to display new specials and events daily?  Your business may want to advertise promotions at varying locations across your city. Whatever your goals, digital signage can help you achieve them while boosting customer engagement and sales. 

Upon establishing your goals, consider your target audience and their needs. Understanding your target market’s demographics, behaviors, and preferences will help you tailor your content strategy, design, and signage placement. Consider conducting market research to determine consumer preferences, lifestyle interests, and geographical location. Ask yourself: What problems are they looking to solve? How can you solve those problems for them? Conducting surveys and asking for feedback from current customers can also help you get on the right path to ensure your strategy aligns with your target market. 

2. Develop a content and design strategy

Digital signage is designed to provide consumers with straightforward answers and relevant information quickly and effectively. Eye-catching taglines and headlines are critical in appealing to your audience, but more importantly, you need to make sure your content is informative. Customers are on the fast track to receiving the answers they need quickly. Keep the message clear and easy to understand, but avoid length, as too much content may overwhelm customers when reading on the go. 

It’s also important to factor your target audience into your content creation strategy. Understanding what appeals to them can help tailor your messaging. Consider creating a customer persona. For example, if an upscale hotel has decided to implement digital signage as part of a new marketing initiative, they would want to cater their signage to the types of guests that stay there. Their customer persona may look something like the below example.

“Mark is a middle-aged man working as an executive recruiter. He often travels for work and prefers to stay in upscale hotels with high-end experiences. He desires amenities like a fully-equipped meeting room, an upscale hotel bar with premium options, and 24/7 access to a swimming pool and gym.” 

With this persona in mind, an upscale hotel would want the digital signage in the lobby to reflect the design of their hotel: upscale, sleek, and welcoming. Rotating offers will help guests take advantage of the exclusive features and amenities offered. Promotions with a compelling call-to-action can help guests convert on special services.  Here are a few examples,

• Book Your Private Meeting Room Today
• Spa Services 30% Off when Booked at Check-in
• Join us for Happy Hour from 5:00 to 6:00pm in the Lounge
• 24/7 Access to Our State-of-the-Art Lap Pool

Often, your design will fall into place as your brand messaging and color palette take center stage, but when in doubt, remember to use pops of color and eye-catching designs. Creating content that evokes emotions using innovative representations helps grasp the attention of diverse consumers. Whether they are traveling through an airport, mall, or retail store, they’ll be sure to notice your message. 

3. Choose your hardware

Selecting adequate hardware is a pinnacle step in ensuring your signage can display your messaging the way you want while meeting installation and technical demands. Hardware includes the type of display screens, corresponding mounts, cabling, and other installation aspects. Here are a few examples of digital signage:

• Digital menu boards
• Self-service kiosks
• LCD video walls 
• Interactive designs 
• Wayfinding signage 
• In-window units
• Digital readerboards

Understanding which hardware option best aligns with your company’s goals and budget can help you determine which digital signage hardware option is the most beneficial to your business. Whether you desire interactive touchscreens or impressive LCD video walls to display your messaging, digital signage features and capabilities have increased exponentially in recent years. 

Working with a qualified installation provider can help you narrow your options to choose the best digital signage that meets your needs. 

4. Software and integrations: Finding the best solutions 

Now that you have your content and design strategy and know which hardware is best, it’s time to consider how to display it. You can display content in words, videos, graphics, menus, or directions. Still, you need an organized way to present your messaging to be effective. A content management system (CMS) is a software application that allows you to create, manage, and modify digital content and schedule where, when, and how it is displayed. A CMS may also provide you with real-time metrics and valuable insights to measure the impact of your digital signage.

Along with finding an agile software solution, ensuring your digital signage software seamlessly integrates with existing technology, such as point-of-sale (POS) systems, data sources, and even social media platforms, is essential. Your integration’s complexity will depend on how multifaceted your display, CMS, and media player setups are. Innovative cloud-based technology can help you instantly push new content to digital signage, enabling you to manage content from virtually anywhere using mobile devices right from your fingertips. 

5. Select strategic locations

While you may have a desired location for your digital signage, market research can help to determine or confirm the locations, increase brand awareness, and achieve a high-value return. 

Consider high-traffic areas, customer touchpoints, and locations with good visibility. For example, airports, malls, and healthcare buildings are ideal locations to display content. Consumers are quickly on the go or have downtime to hone in on your messaging. Implementing QR codes into your digital signs helps direct interested consumers to a more extended landing page where they can learn more about your offerings, increasing dwell times and presenting further conversion and upselling opportunities. 

Suppose you’re looking to implement wayfinding and self-service kiosks. Malls are premier locations, allowing consumers to access valuable information or services conveniently. Retail stores can also benefit significantly from digital signage at the front of their store or for online ordering purposes. If a customer is still looking for their desired item in-store, searching for clothing online presents efficient opportunities while having a retail associate nearby to assist them. 

6. Ensure regulatory compliance

Along with choosing an optimal location for your digital signage, research the necessary permits and regulatory requirements for your locations. Businesses must adhere to industry-specific regulations and local signage rules and obtain necessary permits or approvals before installing digital signage. Consider the following permits: 

• Zoning
• Electrical
• Variances
• Code text amendments
• CUP (Conditional Use Permits)
• SUP (Special Use Permits)

Consult with local authorities to determine the necessary steps to ensure compliance or leverage a team of professionals to research municipality ordinances and codes and obtain all necessary documents required so you can focus on other aspects of your digital signage implementation. 

7. Choose a reliable installation partner

When investing in digital signage for your business, you want to ensure a profitable turn with effective results. A highly trained team knowledgeable of installation best practices and regulatory compliance rules can help you achieve a smooth and compliant implementation process. From helping you navigate your hardware and initial design to installing the equipment with the utmost care, professionals know how digital signage works. 

Many installation partners will also offer content management and maintenance services and ensure the proper permits are acquired before installation begins. Considering the above aspects of the process and the management required for your investment, it’s vital to work with a partner that does it all. 

8. Plan for contingencies

Once you’ve aligned your digital signage strategy and selected an experienced partner, developing a contingency plan to address technical issues, outages, or emergencies is critical in ensuring minimal disruptions to signage operations. There are many moving parts involved in successful digital signage implementation. Considering potential issues and having a foolproof plan for addressing them will help avoid technical problems that could cost your company more in the long run. Digital signage content can be a great way to spread awareness and engage customers – but it must be functioning to drive valuable results. 

9. Establish maintenance procedures

Digital signage is an efficient and powerful way to display your messaging, but it’s not immune to technical errors. The maintenance aspect of your digital signage is the most critical implementation aspect because modern technology requires routine updates, repairs, and replacements to keep your signage working. An installation partner with a maintenance team readily available to promptly address technical issues can help you maintain quality care and mitigate common risks that can diminish your signs’ effectiveness. Further, they can provide staff training sessions to help educate your team on your operating system and troubleshoot your digital signage system effectively, empowering them to assist customers and maintain the displays. Team members can learn to organize playlists, organize media files, and analyze performance to prevent mishaps, ensuring minimal downtime. 

10. Plan for long-term sustainability

Digital signage drives actionable results, helping your business improve productivity and enhance the customer experience while freeing labor and financial resources. But every innovation must be able to grow with your company, ensuring its profitable return. Consider the long-term role of digital signage in your business strategy and how it can evolve to meet changing needs and technological advances. In a competitively technical world, your digital signage strategy must be able to scale as your company grows to remain competitive. Your sign may need upgrades over time or a different content strategy to appeal to an evolving consumer base. Consider expanding your digital signage network to address new needs.

Creating the best digital signage strategy and considering all implementation aspects is essential in helping your company reach new lengths. With Keyser by your side, you can harness the full potential of digital signage implementation to revolutionize your customer experience and elevate your business to new heights. Contact Keyser today.