There are many benefits to digital signage that organisations are utilising to operate more efficiently, better engage their employees, and create deeper relationships with customers.
Digital Signage is a tool that we experience and use each day. Whether it’s relaying important messages to employees, promoting the latest product release, or helping visitors navigate buildings. Thanks to its versatility, digital signage can be used across a wide range of industries. Retail, airports, corporate offices, healthcare, and manufacturing industries are able to benefit from digital signage to communicate key messages to a wide, diverse range of stakeholders.
Over the years, digital signage has seen huge developments. From hardware to software, advancements in ease of use, quality, and longevity have led to numerous benefits that organisations enjoy today. We’ll explore how time-saving software, durable screens, and eye-catching content are helping organisations make the most of digital signage—and how you can benefit too!
Why is digital signage so widely adopted? It offers numerous advantages, including better time management, enhanced communication, and a better customer experience, while also contributing to environmental sustainability and resource conservation. In this blog, we will delve deeper into these benefits to appreciate the overall positive effects of digital signage.
Let’s explore the benefits of digital signage and discuss how screens can help you save time, build better relationships with your audience, and increase overall organisational efficiency.
Let’s dive into the benefits of digital signage!
1. Save time
In today’s fast-paced world, time is a valuable resource for all organisations. With so many tasks to complete and goals to achieve, organisations are seeking more ways to automate what they can to be more productive. In fact, nearly a third of organisations have automated at least one function. By automating smaller tasks, employees are able to focus more time towards important projects.
For a number of years, digital signage has been playing its part in helping organisations save time. From software that automates content deployment to real-time content updates that do the heavy lifting for you, digital signage saves you time.
2. Reach your audience in an instant
Traditional methods of communication are slow. If posters are the main form of communication at your organisation, each time there’s an important announcement, a change, or an emergency, the poster needs to be designed, shipped to the correct location, installed and the old one disposed of. This process means you need to communicate with a large number of stakeholders which isn’t scaleable and can lead to inconsistent communication.
Digital signage software features several tools that allow users to deploy key messages to their audience in seconds. With just a few clicks, thousands of screens can be updated across multiple locations, ensuring that the audience sees the latest, most important messages.
3. Never show irrelevant content
People naturally want to stay informed, whether about the latest news, football scores, or tracking an Amazon delivery. However, information quickly becomes outdated, and when it does, audiences lose interest. We all desire to know what’s happening right now! This helps us plan, makes us feel good (especially when that package is two stops away), and keeps us informed. But where does digital signage fit into this?
In the past, manual digital signage content creation via USBs resulted in slow message delivery. Each time information is updated, users would need to design, create, and publish content on screens. For example, if users wanted to show a reporting feed on their screens, content would need to be freshly created each time a new metric was published. For example, a manufacturing facility showing live data would have to manually update reports, and then they would need to be published. This was inefficient, wasted time, and often resulted in the audience receiving irrelevant out-of-date communications.
Times have changed…
Third-party apps and integrations allow users to pull content and data from the apps they use and love in real-time. This not only saves huge amounts of time in terms of content creation, but it also means the audience is always receiving the most up-to-date, relevant information. From social media and news feeds to live manufacturing data, users can automate great-looking content for their screens.
4. Remove wasted time in manual content updates
Before digital signage software, screen updates were mostly done via USB. Each time content needed to be updated, somebody would need to travel to each screen to change the content manually. As screen networks increased in size and became geographically dispersed, this method quickly became a problem. The content wasn’t getting updated, broken screens were getting missed and time was being wasted.
Then, this problem went away…
Organisations started introducing digital signage software to their screens. This allowed a single user to control thousands of screens remotely from a single device. Overnight, organisations could update their whole screen network with a few clicks. Content could now be automated to play exactly where and when it needed to—not just when Ben, the IT man, could get there! Ben’s time was now freed up to work on more critical tasks.
5. Automate exactly when content plays
A few years ago, if there was a time-sensitive event, the screen manager would need to remember to log on and change the content or swap the USB out. This caused a plethora of problems, including content forgetting to be updated and wasted time!
Digital signage scheduling quickly became a crowd favourite in the digital signage world. With its addition, users could schedule their content to play on specific days or times – down to the second! This allowed organisations to plan ahead of time and prepare campaigns well in advance.
6. Improve communication
Communication is vital in our professional and personal lives. It connects individuals, communities, and organisations and builds relationships with our audience.
Strong communication fosters growth and development within an organisation, acting as a catalyst for innovative thinking and collaboration. Good communication through digital signage keeps customers, staff and visitors aware of the latest updates and changes leading to a happier experience.
7. Keep non-desk workers informed
Digital signage has quickly become a popular tool for internal communication. With screens, organisations can ensure that key messages reach all employees at every corner of their business. Business-critical messages can be displayed throughout the day to ensure they are absorbed.
Digital signage is particularly beneficial for organisations with a high percentage of non-desk workers. These employees don’t regularly have access to intranets, email, or phones, so important messages can slip through the cracks. Screens ensure these messages are still seen and absorbed throughout the day.
8. Visualise important messages
Digital signage enables companies to communicate in a more engaging and memorable way. Employees don’t have time to read paragraphs of text – no matter how important!
By displaying information through engaging visuals such as videos and dynamic content, messages are more likely to capture employees’ attention. This ensures your messages don’t suffer from burnout and employees continue to engage.
9. Increase message visibility
In many organisations, key information and messages are locked inside email chains or intranets. This means employees are not informed and miss out on important information that would help them work more productively and stay up to date with organisational ongoings. For example, in some manufacturing facilities, production floor employees don’t have access to performance metrics live. They are briefed on them a week, month, or quarter later. This leads to a huge loss in potential revenue.
Digital signage can be used to broadcast information that would otherwise be hard to access as a non-desk worker. From announcements and news updates to information on upcoming staff events, employees can access a wide range of knowledge.
10. Reduce workplace incidents
Between 2021 and 2022 over 565,000 employees suffered a workplace injury. Employee safety should be a top priority for any organisation. Employees should be able to work in a safe environment and be armed with the information needed to protect them. From procedures to follow in the event of an emergency, to what equipment MUST be worn in certain areas, giving your employees this information reduces the chance of injury.
Thanks to digital signage’s ability to project clear and eye-catching information, it can be utilised to inform and remind employees of safety guidelines. Within large factories, posters may be overlooked and lost, preventing employees from obtaining valuable information. Digital signage will increase the visibility of these messages making content more memorable. This can include reminding employees in factories of safety rules, such as wearing safety gear or reminding workers that they can’t have phones in certain areas. Overall this creates a safe work environment as newly-informed employees can keep themselves safe in hazardous working conditions.
11. Engage employees
Ensuring a consistent level of employee engagement is crucial for all organisations. Non-engaged employees can cost organisations 18% of their salary, are more likely to be absent, and are 66% lower in well-being. Increasing employee engagement is crucial not only for organisational success but for employee development.
Keeping employees engaged involves creating a strategy for consistently interacting with colleagues, management, or the organisation to keep them happy and productive and work towards common organisational goals. Organisations can engage employees in many ways, including meetings, feedback, work socials, and now… screens!
Screens provide organisations with a channel for consistent communication. Throughout the day, screens engage employees with key information regarding organisational ongoings, promoting company events, live data and more. Information on screens helps provide employees with what they need to do their best work.
12. Make employees feel empowered
When employees feel empowered, they are more productive, satisfied, innovative, and engaged.
Organisations are empowering their employees in several ways. These methods include increasing transparency and information sharing, facilitating better communication and recognition, and encouraging feedback.
Supporting employees to feel empowered will not only boost confidence levels but also remind them how valued they are in the workplace. Digital signage is helping empower employees by:
- Increasing transparency and information sharing: Screens are used to share key information with the entire workforce, not just top-level executives. By giving employees access to key information, they can make higher-quality decisions that move them towards organisational goals.
- Recognition: Sharing employee and team successes is a great way to recognise your workforce’s achievements. When your employees see themselves on the screens, they feel a huge boost of motivation. Make sure to follow up with rewards too!
- Encouraging feedback: Screens are a good way to let employees know where they can leave feedback. Place a QR code within the content. When the employee scans it, it can take them to a survey on their phone. Feedback screens are also an option; they’re an easy and accessible way to gather comments. Be sure to share what feedback has been implemented.
13. Reinforce company culture
Over 50% of executives believe company culture impacts productivity, creativity, profits, and organisational growth. Therefore, reinforcing and building a strong, positive company culture should be a key part of your business strategy.
Screens can help promote and grow a positive company culture. Digital signage can display organisational values, empowering quotes from employees, mission statements and images that reflect the company’s core principles. Providing employees with constant visual reminders of these values strengthens their alignment with the company’s vision and fosters a sense of belonging. Additionally, such reminders can contribute to a positive work environment and help reinforce a shared organisational identity.
14. Boost revenue
We’ve discussed how digital signage can help organisations communicate. But how can it also help organisations increase revenue and become more profitable?
Digital signage can provide companies with a direct channel to communicate with their customers. Whether it’s in a window, behind the tills, inside the shop, or on the high street, organisations around the globe are taking advantage of high-brightness display screens to increase footfall and sales.
15. Turn customer’s heads
For years organisations have been using posters to promote products. These once were effective, but they have since become overused and uninspiring and they tend to blend into the background.
Shops and businesses have started turning to screens to regain the attention of customers. Through dynamic images, video, and animations paired with bright screens, businesses can turn customers’ heads and tempt them to visit their stores.
The more customers your business can draw into your store, the more sales and revenue you’ll make.
16. Demo your products
Have you ever looked at a product and thought “This looks really cool! But I don’t know what it does”? You then put the product down because you don’t know what to do with it.
With screens, retailers can play live demos of products right on the shelf! For example, you may be selling an innovative piece of technology such as wireless headphones that use AI voice commands. To advertise how it works, you can play a demo video showing the uses and practicality, which can draw potential buyers in.
According to HubSpot, 73% of customers who watch product videos will make a purchase. Therefore, adding video to your screens can provide a great ROI.
17. Promote products and offers
Generating awareness for your products is a key stage in convincing customers to buy. Therefore, organisations use several marketing channels and tactics to increase awareness of their products and services to convince the customer to buy.
Screens are becoming the go-to option for promoting products and services in retail, especially. Screens are often placed in the window to promote the latest products and services and entice customers. They can also be placed internally to promote upsells and loyalty schemes, which are popular with supermarkets.
18. Cross-selling and up-selling
Encouraging upsells is a great way to increase average basket amounts and revenue. From placing ‘impulse-buy’ products at the till to promoting 2-for-1 offers, businesses are doing what they can to trigger upsells.
Interactive digital screens can also help customers find the right product pairing to increase upsells. For example, if a customer is trying to find a wine pairing for their cheese, they can use an interactive screen to search for their cheese. The screen would then show a number of bottles of wine that pair with the cheese. If a customer didn’t have this information they may not buy the wine, or go with the cheapest bottle.
19. Increased dwell time
Dwell time is a metric used to measure customers’ time spent in a shop. Longer dwell times increase the chances of purchase and therefore, revenue. Retailers invest a large amount of resources into increasing the amount of time customers spend inside their stores. From pleasant music and smells to the friendly staff and engaging content, all of these factors contribute to an increase in dwell time.
But how is digital signage increasing dwell times?
Engaging content on screens, digital wayfinding or interactive content are all being used to boost dwell time. Whether it’s watching an engaging video, navigating deeper into the store thanks to digital wayfinding, or using an interactive screen to find the right product, screens are a great way to increase customer dwell time.
20. Improve customer experience
In any organisation, the customer is number one. All the decisions made across the organisation will ultimately impact the customer. Whether it’s changing the price, giving training to salespeople or hiring more effective cleaners for your shops all of these decisions will impact the customer’s experience.
There are a number of ways screens are being used to enhance customer experience. From improving navigation in large stores to entertaining customers in waiting rooms, screens are helping enhance the customer journey.
Imagine you’re in a shoe shop looking for a specific pair of shoes in a size 8. It’s a busy day, and all the sales reps are helping other customers. You spot the shoes on the shelf. Perfect! You pick them up and look around for someone to check the stock. No luck.
You wait a few extra minutes, but time is tight. Frustrated, you put the shoes back and leave the store. A lost sale.
Now, let’s reimagine the scenario with an interactive product catalogue.
You pick up the shoes and look for a free sales rep. Still, you haven’t had any luck. But this time, you notice a screen with a banner above it: “Product Catalogue & Stock Checker.” Curious, you walk over and tap the screen. The store’s stock checker and product catalogue appear. You search for your shoes, select the size, and see they are in stock.
A few options pop up: “Reserve and Collect Later” or “Order to My Address.” Since you’ll be passing by later, you choose “Reserve and Collect Later,” pay and get on with your day.
The sale is secured. The customer experience is improved.
This is the impact of interactive digital signage.
21. Empower customers
Customers want to be in control of their journey. They value being given enough information to make an informed decision.
One of the benefits of digital signage is that it can help empower your customers to self-serve. Deploy important need-to-know information on your screens about products and services so your customers can make an informed decision. Alternatively, tools such as digital wayfinding empower customers to navigate across your organisation themselves.
22. Help customers find their destination
In organisations with large buildings, or multiple sites, people can get lost easily. Whether it’s a delivery driver locating the right office, or a potential new employee looking for the right interview location, your organisation will have several stakeholders trying to navigate quickly.
One of the benefits of digital signage that is often overlooked is how it can act as a navigational assistant. Digital wayfinding is becoming a common tool amongst organisations to aid customer and visitor navigation. By displaying interactive maps on screens, the user can search for their destination and are then given a direct route to it. Alternatively, screens are also being used purely to show “this way to X” content. Although not as advanced as its interactive counterpart it can still provide highly useful navigation information to users – especially if they are in a rush!
23. Keep customers engaged
The human attention span is now just 8.25 seconds – wow… we hope you’re still reading this blog!
When we’re bored, we lose interest and are more likely to perceive experiences as negative. Therefore, organisations need to do what they can to alleviate waiting customers’ boredom and keep them engaged. A more engaged customer leads to a happier customer who is willing to give you their business!
Organisations are utilising interactive digital signage in many ways to increase customer engagement. For example, theme park queues often feature actors and music to create an exciting atmosphere and build tension, and sports games have halftime shows. All of these techniques work to create a better, more exciting, and more engaging customer experience.
Screens are beginning to play a role in engaging customers and alleviating boredom. For theme park attractions, screens in waiting areas or rooms can show videos about the experience, getting everyone excited about what they’re in for! Alternatively, screens are used in doctors’ waiting rooms to engage patients with meet-the-team content designed to calm patients and help them learn more about the practice.
Having your customer’s full attention leaves a long-lasting impression that is memorable and enhances the reputation of your brand.
24. Less impact on the environment
We’ve discussed the benefits digital signage has for employees and customers, but what about the environment? As technology improves, so does the technology’s ability to be better for our planet. In addition to a complete reduction in paper waste, digital signage has become more energy efficient than ever, reducing costs for organisations, and negative impacts on the environment.
25. Reduced paper waste
In most cases, traditional signage methods lead to excessive paper waste. With digital signage, the use of paper is eliminated. This minimises the environmental impacts that are commonly associated with paper posters. Digital signage benefits the environment as its methods have a lesser impact on large environmental issues. These include deforestation, energy waste and waste disposal.
One of the most commonly quoted benefits of digital signage is how it helps organisations cut down their paper usage, in turn reducing the need for deforestation.
Organisations relying on posters for consistent communication with their audience have the most impact here. Each time they need to update messages, communications, and promotions across their network, the process is highly manual and resource-intensive. A person (or team) need to travel to each poster site, remove the old one, install the new one, and dispose of the old one. When you scale up this process for multiple sites and multiple messages the time and cost quickly add up.
Screens (or digital posters) are removing the need for paper posters and once installed, users can make changes as often as they like in seconds. This removes the need for paper waste (printing), and people travelling to each site (petrol + money), and speeds up the time organisations can get key messages to their audience (time).
26. Energy efficient
As technology improves, so does digital signage’s ability to become more energy efficient.
A great example here is media players. Media players are devices that hide behind your screens and play content from your digital signage platform. In some projects, organisations choose to power their screens with full PCs rather than a built-for-purpose media player. You might be thinking “A media player surely can’t make that much of a difference”.
In 2022, we undertook a study to determine the exact amount of energy media players consume compared to other devices. The results were staggering: Digital signage media players use 90% less energy than Windows PCs, emit 90% less CO2, and cost 90% less to run.
27. A longer-lasting channel
We’ve all seen posters and paper billboards that are all torn up. Over time posters can become weathered and as a result less saturated; blending into the background, and having no impact
Commercial-grade digital signage displays are built to last. Once installed, screens keep your content turning heads for years to come. Outdoor digital signage screens, on the other hand, come equipped with several features that bring the long-lasting effects of indoor screens to the outdoors.
FAQs
How effective is digital signage?
Digital advertising solutions can be highly effective at grabbing the attention of your target audience. The impact of your signs and displays will vary depending on several factors, including where you position them in and around your business and the quality of content you present to your audience.
The most impactful digital advertising solutions use dynamic imagery and on-brand graphics. When people see one of your signs, you want them to stop what they are doing and pay attention to your message.
When implementing any new technology, it’s important to experiment to identify what resonates best with your customer base. Experimenting with different tones, messaging formats, and designs can help you determine how to use your digital signage for optimal results.
If your brand positioning is serious and to the point, you’ll likely find that clean, crisp messaging makes a bigger impact. On the contrary, a company that’s established itself as fun and whimsical may want digital signs that showcase the brand’s creativity and style.
We recommend carefully tracking the reach and impact of each signage campaign. Doing so will help you figure out what works, fix what doesn’t, and make the most of your new advertising solutions!
What are the objectives of digital signage?
Digital signs support your company’s current goals and advertising objectives, no matter what they may be.
Let’s say you position some digital signs outside of your business to help bring in more foot traffic. In this instance, your objectives may include:
- Raising awareness about your store and its product offerings
- Showcasing current sales or deals
- Generating intrigue about your brand
You can also use signs to accomplish objectives related to the customer experience. For example, large businesses install signage solutions to provide directions, share information about their menus, or convey important data to customers.
As long as you have the right software and a sound campaign, there’s no limit to what you can achieve with digital signage. On that note, it’s vital that you identify why you want digital signs and what you intend to use them for before investing in them.
A hands-on signage partner like TrouDigital can help you get the most out of your new investment by aligning the assets with your big-picture business goals.
How can digital signage help your business?
Digital signage can yield huge benefits for your company and its bottom line. Signs are a great tool for reaching your audience instantly and presenting them with fresh, engaging content. You can even integrate your signs with third-party apps to keep the content exciting and relevant.
Digital signs are also a great time and money saver. Your team will no longer have to spend hours performing manual content updates or tearing down old paper ads from display cases. Instead, you can update your digital signs in seconds and ensure that customers have access to timely information.
You can even use signs to improve communication with your customers and employees. Share product updates, circulate schedules, and notify employees about upcoming events at your company. These are just a few examples of what you can achieve with digital signs.
One of the most important benefits of digital signage for your business is its ability to increase message visibility. No matter what you want to share with your audience, digital signs make it easier to convey your message while presenting the information in a digestible format. The end result? A more engaged, attentive audience—exactly what every business wants!
And there we have it! 27 benefits of digital signage for you to get stuck into. If you’re interested in how digital signage can supercharge your organisation, get in touch!
