What is Digital Signage? How can it help your business?

In the information era everything is handled digitally to attain efficiency and convenience to communicate. Digital signage has become prominent and eminent today that one cannot simply walk down the street without encountering attention grabbing signage. Despite being a commonly used technology, many people still ask the fundamental question “What is digital signage?”. So let’s deep dive and understand the basics.

‍What is Digital Signage?

Generally signs are intended to set out a specific message to people. Digital signage is not different, as the name suggests, digital signage is a digital screen that displays information and content produced based on the particular purpose. The signage can be tailored to show unique content that maps to a business purpose or objective. Almost every industry has embraced the potential of digital signage and wherever we go, these digital signage screens will be staring at us and sending us some kind of message.

‍Types of Digital Signage

Every industry uses different technologies to display their content in the form of text, images, video and more across one or multiple digital displays or screens indoor or outdoor. Besides technological variations in display screens, digital signage can take several forms. Predominantly, the major deferencing factor is on the one hand static or dynamic digital screens and on the other hand the interactive touch screens. Here are some of the most common types of digital signage

• Indoor Signage Displays: It is the most common and simplest type of signage in existence that has been in use for a long time now. Digital posters, digital advertisements and eye-catching motion videos are displayed on LCD screens across the physical location such as restaurants, banks, hospitals etc.
• Interactive Displays: Touchscreen displays and self-service kiosks are Interactive digital signage which allows customers to be engaged more effectively. Such displays are found in banks, government offices, shopping malls etc
• Information & Advertisement Displays: Vertical floor-mounted displays generally seen in the form of kiosks displaying informational messages and advertisements.
• Outdoor Signage Displays: It is becoming very common to display screens on outdoor locations for better promotions and it is widely popular lately.

Components of Digital Signage

On the surface the digital signage is the match made between hardware and software. Where hardware is the display screen that displays the content and the software is the piece that processes the content and delivers it to the screens. While in deep dive, the digital signage systems consist for four major components:

• The Display Screen: TV screens being the most popular choice, digital signage solutions are compatible with smaller screens like tablets and large form factor displays like video walls. Varying from different sizes and various resolutions such as HD, UltraHD, 4k and 8k, the display screens are the most prominent component of the digital signage systems.
• Media Player: The component which is responsible for delivering the content on to the display is the Media Player also known commonly as the Signage Player. Media Player downloads, schedules and drives the content in multiple formats such as Images, Videos, Webpages, Widgets etc from the content management system (CMS).
• Content Management System: The stage to set the content is the CMS - Content Management System. It is the platform for creating, scheduling and publishing content. CMS monitors and manages the Media Players and the Display Screen connected over the internet or internal network; helps content creators to design content and easily distribute across geography. CMS can be hosted and served from on-premise data centers, public and private cloud.
• The Content: Yes, that's correct! The content is the key for a successful digital signage implementation. Digital signage system provides the required tools and guides to create stunning and captivating content. The possibilities are endless and will only be limited by creativity.

‍When Signage meets a business!

It is important to choose the right type of signage that can fulfill business needs. Indeed, there are many different types of digital signage systems that are available to use based on certain requirements as follows:  

• The Objective: It is essential to define the business goal that what is expected through the signage, only then a suitable signage solution can be identified and effectively implemented.
• Type of content: Digital signage systems are medium of communication, the content that is intended to be displayed on the signage screen should be pleasing and attractive to the viewers.
• Target Audience: Let be an advertisement or infotainment or simply a wayfinding signage, the content is intended to communicate with the target audience. Every detail in the content can be more valuable to a specific group than the others, it is important to identify it and that is the target audience.
• Number of Displays: Strategic placement and count of digital screens is very crucial depending on the type of content to be published. Outdoors are more appropriate for video walls and large form factor displays especially for advertisements. Indoors are more suitable for interactive and informative signage displays.

In conclusion, knowing what is offered, businesses can achieve the perfect solution for every location they have using digital signage by displaying the right content at the right time!