Is Your Team Prepared for the Process of Managing Digital Signage?
Once You Have It, You Have to Manage It
A digital signage project has many parts. There's choosing the right hardware and software, deciding what content will be displayed, and ensuring that your signage system is properly maintained because a blank or malfunctioning screen presents a poor image for whatever purpose the digital signage intended.
When we are brought in to propose a digital signage project, one area we sometimes see that needs more attention is the management of the system. Who is going to keep the content up to date? What is the level of complexity in that content? Of course, there are several authoring and management tools to accomplish these tasks, but picking the right one, provisioning the team that will use it, and building the right processes around managing your system is not as easy as it might seem. If you're considering a digital signage project in Scottsdale (or, for that matter, anywhere), here are some critical things to consider.
SEE ALSO: Are You Making Digital Signage More Difficult than It Needs to Be?
Adobe Photoshop vs. Microsoft Paint
How involved is the content on your digital signage system? If you are going digital for a food menu in a restaurant or dining hall, then content tends to be less involved to produce. With the right templates, a person familiar with Powerpoint or Google Slides can likely master it. If the content involves a multimedia experience that includes video, fancy transitions, or a level of interactivity with the screen (or a kiosk), that type of content is considerably more complex. It's like the difference between a tool like Microsoft Paint, designed for the novice, versus Photoshop, a tool that isn't easy to master quickly. If your digital signage media plans are elaborate, you will need to have a properly trained team in place or hire an outside firm with the correct skill set.
Content Approval
Many content management platforms outside of digital signage have some built-in processes for document and content approval. Not all digital signage tools do. Moreover, your organization needs to have an internal process for deciding what content is displayed and how often it is updated. It's like a social media communication program. If it's not high-profile or entirely essential for your organization, sometimes it's a side project for someone at the lower level of the organization. If it's high profile and critically important to your brand and company image, you have professionals doing it, and content approval and the social program's visibility are likely high in management. For a digital signage system, you will need to consider who owns the content development and updating, who needs to approve it, and how you accommodate it within your tools and processes.
Digital Signage as a Service
Consider an alternative to taking on the management of the digital signage system yourself. You could hire the right AV company to build it out and manage it as a service for you. However, you still have to have a place in the organization that works with an outside firm, as you do with an advertising agency, to develop content plans. The AV company can configure your system, install it, maintain it, monitor it, and deploy the content you want and approve. Some advantages are limited capital outlays, stable monthly costs, and not having to hire headcount for an area that may not be of core importance to your business or organization.
If your organization needs assistance deploying a digital signage solution, we can help. Level 3 Audiovisual is a Tempe, Arizona-based national managed services provider helping organizations of all sizes across the U.S. design, deploy, and manage AV systems and infrastructure. Learn more by reaching out to Level 3 Audiovisual or clicking the chat box below to connect instantly. We look forward to working with you.
