How do I make sure I’m getting cost effective Digital Signage?

“WireSpring has been tracking the pricing of digital signage since 2004. Between 2004 and 2010, they discovered that the price of installing a hundred-node DSN and operating it for three years had decreased by more than half!  They projected that with the continuing development of the technology, plus the ongoing competition in the DSN market, the price would continue to drop steadily over time.” (Ref https://www.sixteen-nine.net/2016/01/27/18-surprising-statistics-about-digital-signage/)

Cost Effective Digital Signage

You may already have your digital signage in place and are benefiting from the ability to easily communicate with your customer base. You could very well be getting the return on investment that your digital signage brings, but are you and your business doing enough to make sure you are getting the best value for money, and could you be getting a better digital signage solution and at the same time reduce your digital signage costs?

How do you know if you are getting value for money?

Well the answer is you don’t, unless you have someone that takes ownership of your digital signage who reviews it on a regular basis. It’s not unfamiliar for a business to get digital signage in place, tell X employee that they will be taking responsibility for this. Employee X is busy enough, they get the initial signage up and then revert back to their other priorities and their digital signage rolls on unconsidered in the business as long as there is content up on the screens. Therefore if you want to be getting the most out of your digital signage as cost effectively as possible you need to be reviewing it on a regular basis.

Considerations to take into account

With the vast range of CMS platforms, hardware options and content creation companies out in the market there is a good chance there are better options for you. Here are some considerations you will want to take into account:

1. Content Requirements – You need to understand what sort of content you ideally want to show and consider if there are improvements to your signage that you can make. For example, it might be that you are having to schedule your content on a daily basis and there is a CMS out there that will enable you to schedule this all in advance.
2. Future Content Requirements and Futurepoofing – It’s also not just about what you need to show now but also what you need and want to show in the future. Perhaps you have a new business tool scheduled to be introduced into the business. Have you got a CMS platform that is future proofed and that you will be able to integrate these applications to?
3. Consolidate Systems Where You Can – You should also consider if you can reduce the number of different applications you are using? It might be that rather than having one CMS for your Warehouse, a different one for your internal comms, a separate room booking solution, you can actually get one CMS that will cover all areas, allowing you to reduce cost and streamline management of these systems.
4. Can Content Management Be Improved? – It might be that your digital signage is being provided to you as a managed service and your reseller is creating and managing content for you. You might want to consider if you are getting value for your money from this service so this is another consideration to take into account. You might consider taking your signage in house to manage your content. Whilst this can help reduce your costs there is normally a good reason you are paying for this service so you will also want to consider the additional work involved in creating and managing your own content. You can explore content management offerings in more detail in our article about digital signage benefits.
5. Hardware Refresh – You need to also consider how old your digital signage hardware is and is it time for a refresh. If you are looking at another CMS that brings cost efficiencies can you run that CMS on your existing hardware? If you can, how much life do you have left in your players? If you can’t, what hardware and costs are you going to have to factor in. Worth reading through our ‘How Much Does Digital Signage Cost?’ article.

So what steps should you take?

Suggested steps are provided below:

1. Understand exactly what content requirements you have now.
2. Think about the content requirements and integrations you want or need in the future.
3. Understand if a certain CMS or partner can help you reduce the number of applications you are using.
4. Factor in hardware requirements and any associated costs.
5. Review your digital signage platform on an annual basis. Look at what is available in the market and pick the top 3 best suited to your requirements. Compare these CMS platforms and make sure you are not missing out.