Posts Tagged ‘digital advertising’

Digital Signs: Project Development

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Simply put, digital signs in Las Vegas and other city’s across the country are an electronic digital display that people, firms and businesses use to advertise, inform, entertain, and enhance a consumer’s experience. These digital screens can be utilized on LCDs, plasma screens, or on digital panels that use low power LEDs.

As telecommunications has progressed and fallen in price, the future of advertising and information will look to digital signs as it replaces standard print and static signs. For a business who is prepared to hop on board but isn’t sure what goes into starting a digital sign network, this is for you. Let’s take a glimpse of how a digital sign project develops from ideas to reality.

There are 4 main steps when approaching a digital sign undertaking which include:

• Project initiation
• Project advancement
• Deployment
• Evaluations, management and network growth

Project Initialization
During project initialization, the focus is normally on what objectives the user wants to attain with digital signs, the feasible sources of content, critical success factors, and a feasibility study. Also during this stage, a budget and project plan are put into action. The chief thing that most retailers and companies consider is how the displays will achieve earnings and help the user project how much return on investment (ROI) can be anticipated. Some example considerations might include:

• New revenues from ad display sales, sales lift and cross-selling
• Branding based on improved experiences or perceptions
• Increased cognizance of services and/or products
• Reducing perceived waiting times
• Cost reductions through providing info more efficiently, with less cost and less time

Project Development
During project development, the operational aspects of a digital signs network are viewed. The display layout will be considered during this phase. This defines how much space the user will have for various varieties of content such as advertising, news, branding information, etc. The user would also determine how big a digital sign network they’d like relating to number of displays, where the displays can be positioned, size of the displays, and what type of hardware would be necessary. Another consideration at this time is how content would be rotated in and how it’s layout on screen might look. The viewer demographic would be understood at this moment in time, too. This basically summarizes what user expects to observe the display. Ads/content could be created to target viewers established on an age range, gender, income levels, ethnicity, spending patterns, or other factors. As this is being sort out, a budget for the digital signage network is more set in terms of comprehending the costs related to hardware, software, and management. If the network will be of considerable size and complexity, another area of the budget and planning might revolve around the operations management:

• Display layout and management of the content
• Connectivity of the digital sign network
• Maintenance
• Management of operator created content if the network is intricate and dynamic

Arrangement
Deployment is the installation and activation of the business’s digital sign network. All hardware is in place including the displays and media to approve content to be uploaded. The software and content is up and running and the network is prepared to be tested and assessed.

Assessments and go live
After deployment, the digital sign network may be piloted and tested for some time period. All hardware, software, and network connectivity is working properly and all kinks are calculated. Any training for networks from simple to complex would occur during this time. For an easy setup with only a display or two, the training might take only a matter of minutes. Also during this occasion, the viewer impact to the digital signs will be assessed. Some considerations will comprise ad impact, ad recall and product lift. After assessments, the business enterprise might plan to alter content, modify display locations, or even broaden the network. After this, the digital sign network is ready to “go live” and be an intrinsic part of the company.

A digital signs project can seem a bit daunting but with just a tiny planning it can actually be a straightforward procedure that can mean a better customer experience, more customers, more business, and ultimately more revenue.