With the world getting smaller due to advancing technology, digital displays are now the best choice for most advertising campaigns. Digital display systems have not only successfully managed to retain their core aspect of attracting the users to the products being displayed but now offer affordable customized solutions useful in marketing, promotion, as well as brand building exercises. Not only does a display system highlight the product, but with interactive video broadcast, the detail of the product is effectively communicated to the visitor as well. Along with this, all digital displays have the benefit of a variety of display products which can fit in any budget, making it affordable for all. These displays can be as dynamic as the imagination can make them, so the possibilities are limitless.

Spooky Nook Sports has rebuilt their facility and used digital signage as their advertising tool and for relaying information to customers and employees. With displays located all over their 17.5 acre facility, digital signage has made it easy for them to not only start and stop content from one central location, but to also change content on each screen with the click of a button. The displays also add a stylish look to a facility that’s appealing to the eye.

Digital signage is being widely used in public places for informational or advertising purposes. The advantages of an effective digital display is that it brings to the table the power of broadcasting dynamic content like messages, images, videos, and more. Digital signage has become by far the most affordable way for advertising dynamic content compared to traditional advertising mediums, and the easiest way to catch customers attention.

When asked how the digital displays stand out in the OSU Student Union facility, Debbie Shotwell, marketing manager at the Student Union said, “The digital signage is extremely dynamic and captivating. In a busy building that is chaotic most of the day with lots of distractions and foot traffic, the digital signage really catches the attention of guests of all ages. We are very selective of the type of artwork/video we include to better enhance the professional appearance. We find a lot of our guests stopped at the screens checking out the information, which is much more effective than traditional print advertising. We’ve also had several campus departments contact us inquiring about our signage system which is a true testament to their perceived value.”

Debbie later added, “The digital signage we incorporated into the building serves many different capacities.  We use the digital signage for way-finding, event promotion, promotional video displays and menus.  It has been extremely helpful in assisting us with building our brand and supporting our mission in a professional way.”

There are several steps to follow to have engaging content that customers will interact with. Below, I have listed the 6 step recipe for success.

1. Placement: The first recipe for engaging digital signs is placement because it’s all about location, location, and location. If the screens are hung or mounted where customers can’t see it or are too small to be seen where they are placed, the content is irrelevant (even if it’s great).
2. Content: Digital signage can make a big impact; but it’s also subject to the filtering, avoiding, and ignoring that people use to tune out of media. Failing to consider the screen content adequately can result in a loss of “stickability”, which is the compulsion for the viewer to not only notice the message, but to actually digest and process the information.
3. Media is a Value Exchange: People don’t engage for nothing, so when they look at your display, make it worth it. There has to be a return on the investment of time and attention that the viewer puts in, whether it’s simply entertaining content or a special offer, value or insight.
4. Keep it Fresh: If the on-screen content is the same or too repetitive, viewers will simply tune out. The screens become visual noise to the viewers and their attention will be lost. The need for updating the content varies depending on the frequency of visits and visitors. It might be a weekly update for a coffee shop that has weekly or even daily visitors, or once or twice a year at a zoo where people only visit periodically.
5. Ask for Attention: It’s much easier to grab the attention of a technology-driven population by using technology. Using audio, color changes, and dynamic motion makes screens noticeable, and is all possible with digital signage.
6. Visit the ConnectedSign website at www.connectedsign.com or call today at 866-833-2723 to register for your FREE digital signage deminar today!

Over the span of a year, you may not always get a thank you from your boss for closing out a big sale or finishing an assignment ahead of schedule. The business environment is very fast-paced, and saying thank you isn’t always the first thing on the agenda. But whether you’re a small business or a large business, it is impossible to escape the Thanksgiving spirit. From the CEO to the intern, all staff members celebrate the day that is set aside to remember the things we are grateful for.

Listed below are four ways to say ‘thanks’ in your business this Thanksgiving.

• Highlight the positive things that have happened in the past year: the awards won, the clients acquired, the clients retained, the targets met, the increases in profit, etc. Digital signs allow you to display a wide range of content from web pages to videos, RSS feeds to simple photos that attract the eye and present your good news in a different way.
• Thank employees for their hard work in the past year. You can use a general message directed at everybody or nominate a certain member whose contributions to the company were outstanding. Digital signage allows you to tailor your message to staff in the accounting department or marketing department for specific things the company appreciates them for.
• If planned in advance, you can encourage employees to share what they like about the company and what they’re grateful for when it comes to their jobs. Aside from being used in a variety or marketing and corporate communications materials, these answers can also be ‘advertised’ around Thanksgiving Day. You can post them on a screen in the lounge area to remind employees about the positives of their job.
• Display ‘thank you’ messages from clients. Displaying client testimonials inside your facility shows your employees the appreciation clients have for their hard work, even if it may seem to go unseen.

Discover the benefits of using digital signage for corporate communications by visiting www.connectedsign.com or by calling us at 866-833-2723 for more information.

Digital signage is at the unique intersection of the printing and video world. In the printing business, you lay content out by real estate; full page, half page, quarter page, etc. In the video world, it’s all done by time slot; morning, noon, afternoon, primetime. On your digital sign, both of these can be manipulated to show a vast amount of information without cluttering the space or overwhelming the viewer. When thinking about it in terms of both space and time, the possibilities are only limited by the client’s own imagination. Here are 5 ideas you might not have even thought could be possible that can be tweaked to be applicable in any venue:

- Live video feed of..

• the lines for the ski lifts at a resort
• the African Serengeti at a wildlife preserve
• take-offs and landings in an airport
• construction to a major building in a city hall
• “away games” for sports on a college campus

- Simple Touchscreen Game for..

• trivia about the history of a company
• alcohol education on a college campus
• cognitive skills in a healthcare facility
• facts about the speaker in a conference setting
• ingredients in dishes for a restaurant menu board

- Twitter Feed illustrating…

• upcoming events and announcements anyone can contribute to
• encouraging words from and for coworkers and peers
• live updates during a sporting event
• photos taken of or at a restaurant
• reviews of a concert or show at a performing arts center

- QR Codes to promote…

• sponsors of an event on a college campus
• job listings for clients of a community center
• local restaurants and hotels at a convention center
• sales promotions in retail locations
• new class schedule in a fitness facility

-Instant emergency alerts for…

• snow days for a school district triggered with E2Campus
• tornado warning triggered from a keyword tracking RSS feed
• evacuation routes around suspicious activity in a building
• road closings sent to the screen from a text message
• public announcements take over the screen at a community center

You’ve got amazing ideas to make the content on your sign in your venue truly unique; you now need someone who’s going to have the creativity and unparalleled know-how to bring these ideas to fruition. Our content experts at ConnectedSign are at the top of their game and at the top of this market.

To see more of how we can bring your ideas to life, and to receive a free trial of the software that can do so, request a deminar at the bottom of this page or give us a call at 866.833.2723 today!

Introducing rich media is the perfect medium for communication with today’s students! Rich media provides color, motion, interesting graphics and relevant content.

A visual communication network delivers powerful and appealing video-based messages and call-to-action. On-campus digital displays deliver these attractive messages, reaching students in a place where their eyes are drawn and they cannot change the channel. Quite simply, this is an attractive method of communications that is very hard to ignore. If there is a sale at the campus bookstore, a concert on campus, or a change in registration schedules, a dynamic display can deliver the message. Even better than just displaying the message, the message can be incorporated with moving images, animated logos and video clips, accompanying audio and interactivity to increase the aggregation of personal attention.

 No print poster can offer this magnitude of attraction.

Rich media – delivered by digital signage displays – has become a staple in entertainment venues where it interweaves advertising with pictures, trivia and music videos. You can see this in almost every college and professional sports venue around the country! It is also showing up in many retail chains with the intent to inspire impulse purchases at the point-of-sale. In restaurants, hotels and conference centers, digital signage directs guests to events, informs them of event schedules, offers on-demand updated menu options and even provides real-time local news information. On college and university campuses, digital signage now has a broad range of applications – including emergency messaging, promotional functions and even academic uses.

Digital Signage is an ideal solution to let higher education administrators effectively communicate with their campus constituents. Breaking through the clutter of today’s multimedia overload can be an overwhelming obstacle. With digital signage, campus administrators can cost effectively and efficiently communicate with students, faculty, staff, parents and visitors to inform, educate, create community and issue a call-to-action.

For help with your digital signage project, email info@connectedsign.com or call us at 866-833-2723.

Fortunately in our world, we’ve got an advantage over the Game of Thrones realm; modern technology and digital signage displays. With digital signs, information can be triggered by several means to be shown on the screens placed throughout a building or campus immediately. Our system can be integrated with most existing alerting systems. It is Common Alerting Protocol (C.A.P.) compliant and can be easily set up using existing triggers.

So what can be a trigger?

• A text from a cell phone
• A Twitter update
• Weather RSS feeds being monitored for key words
• E2Campus
• Building fire alarm systems

So, then what will these triggers initiate on the screens? A pre-made template will be in place, ready to fill the screen with the information that needs to be communicated. Once the template has been triggered, it will “take over” the existing information on the digital display. For example, in the case of a weather emergency, the system that is monitoring weather RSS feeds could detect a road closing and automatically switch the displays to show this information. Or, if a person is designated to communicate a closing for a school or company, they can text a number and the corresponding information will take over the displays.

Weather can be unpredictable and it can sometimes be a daunting task to coordinate a mass group of people who need to be notified. But, with pre-planning, digital signage and a few easy triggers, even the bad weather-ridden months here in the common world can be a breeze.

Effective communication is an important part of a successful business. Improper communication can damper a company’s opportunities for managing employees and increasing market share. Digital signage offers effective and efficient ways of communicating with employees in both large and small corporations.

The first problem with corporate communication is the communicator. If he/she does not understand the audience or presents a confusing message, the communication is lost on the listeners.

There are two types of communication that are used in business—push and pull. The push method relies on management to push messages down the communication channels, while the pull method requires employees to use a communication channel to retrieve corporate messages. These two methods come with large room for misinterpretation and misinformation. Digital signage allows for all messages to be executed directly to their intended audience, eliminating the use of ineffective messages on bulletin boards and memos. These messages can also be delivered in various ways, whether it be a live feed, news and event calendar, or emergency alerts.

Several communication channels exist in the corporate workplace. Email, telephone, memos, and bulletin boards are communication channels. Using the incorrect channel will delay the message and lessen the response time of employees. Digital signage offers an attractive alternative where important messages, meetings, and events can be displayed on a range of HD screens.

Corporate communication must be delivered through communication/external noise, which is anything that can change the intent of the original message. Communications must avoid preconceived notions or confusing environments when sending messages. Digital signage avoids the noise, displaying clear and concise messages to the audience. Interactive kiosks can also be used to separate the messages sent to each department. For example, there can be an Accounting tile, Human Resources tile, and Marketing tile relaying messages specific to that department.

An important part of communication is understanding the audience receiving the communication. Using technical terms or an informal tone can create distracting messages for the audience, delaying the expected results of the message. With signage displays, tones and distracting messages are replaced with vibrant, eye-catching content designed to deliver messages that are easy to comprehend.

Digital displays offer new and innovative design and messaging possibilities in corporate spaces. With eye-catching visuals and dynamic messages, corporate digital signage displays can help welcome visitors to your place of business and inform them about your company’s brand and vision. Digital displays can transform an unremarkable space into a space that engages, informs and inspires.

Listed are 4 ways interactive digital displays can help with everyday tasks:

Share company information more efficiently:

More than any other technology, digital signage allows corporate-branded communications to be distributed through networks of any size – from lobbies, conference rooms and lunch rooms to entire offices and buildings, both locally and around the world.

These interactive touch screen solutions serve as real-time, effective ways to share and broadcast a variety of specific information, such as employee training and new-hire procedures, company events, meeting schedules, safety tips, the status and location of remote or traveling employees, weather, safety or fire information, and much more.

Businesses have identified that this adds significantly to productivity gains.

Transform the company meeting:

The days when corporate meetings included dimly lit rooms, overhead projectors and static PowerPoint presentations are gone.

Using an interactive digital signage solution, companies can make meetings engaging, creative and dynamic for all attendees, including remote workers. For example, an interactive digital signage system can transform a touchscreen into a fully interactive whiteboard.

Rather than taking pictures of meeting notes at the end of a discussion or tasking an employee with manually recording ideas that have already been captured, employees can retain meeting notes directly from the whiteboard.

Unlike traditional projectors, an interactive digital whiteboard allows staffers to integrate multimedia clips to create high-impact presentations using a finger or a stylus pen. Employees can annotate over applications, write notes in digital ink and save their work to share with others.

Make the cloud larger and more visible:

Cloud-based applications aren’t just for smartphones or tablets. Today’s interactive digital signage solutions are made to align with the new way of working through compatibility with Cisco WebEx, Citrix GoToMeeting, Google Hangouts, Microsoft Lync, Microsoft Skype, ReadyTalk and other cloud-based applications such as salesforce.com. Adding the power of the cloud to interactive digital signage allows companies to better leverage and collaborate on content using bright, thin and reliable touchscreens

Free up staff:

Companies can realize operational savings and unchain workers from their desks by turning an interactive digital signage system into a virtual receptionist or wayfinder directory. Employees and facilities management staff can communicate with visitors in the lobby at any time, from any location. Guests are automatically greeted with bright, engaging display content and told how to use the interactive directory. Companies can choose to have employees communicate with visitors using video and audio, and enterprises can enable proactive monitoring to deliver centralized visibility and control of distributed signage from a Web browser, smartphone or tablet.

With that capability, an administrator can better predict and minimize downtime, as well as cut down on the frequency of technician visits. The intuitive interface of a touchscreen makes it easy for one receptionist or employee in a central location to manage several remote office lobbies. As a result, visitors no longer feel lost upon entering a company lobby, and employees feel more secure knowing visitors will be automatically greeted. Add something like an IP camera and many reception desks don’t need to be manned at all.

The modern business needs to connect geographically dispersed office employees and remote workers to share ideas and drive innovation. The enterprise must support the new way of working: cloud-based, remote connectivity. All of this needs to be done in a manner that fosters creativity, collaboration and efficiency.

Today’s technology has allowed marketing and communications professionals to better target these audiences, giving them the power to customize messages without overwhelming the public with too much jargon. The right message can link with our own desire or interest and get us to stop and look at it, watch it, or listen to it. With digital signage, these messages can link with anyone, at any time, and can be subject to change depending on the customer. An ad that informs us, the customer, of something we want will get noticed. Everything else is irrelevant.

A good campaign doesn’t just offer the right product to the right consumer. It gets them emotionally stimulated to buy or at least investigate the advertised product or service. Why turn to digital signage advertising? Why expand the time and effort to craft an advertising message that informs and ignites a bond between the product/service and the target consumer? Because the competition is stiff regardless of what industry you’re in. Keeping your customer base is important and building and maintaining a relationship with those customers is what keeps them coming back.

Let ConnectedSign craft your next connection with your target audience.

It is a challenge to gain new customers for all businesses and especially a challenge for startups, which don’t have much of a customer base to begin with. Interactive digital displays give businesses flexibility when it comes to customer service and communication. With the power to combine advertising, various marketing tools, and timely, personalized messages, interactive signage is effective in attracting customers and giving them a one-of-a-kind experience. So like the 1989 baseball film Field Of Dreams, “if you build it, they will come”.

Listed are ways on how to attract new customers:

1. Precisely define target audience: Dig deeper into your customer base by looking for common characteristics and interests. You must know who your customers are and why they buy from you.
2. Identify local businesses that serve the same market segments: If you’re a high quality, “luxurious” brand, associate yourself with other “luxurious” brands. Dipping into other businesses customer base is a way to gain new customers. Digital signage allows you to display advertisements/sell advertisements. For example, Louis Vuitton has a digital signage display in their store. BMW may want to negotiate an advertisement on their display to dip into Louis Vuitton’s customer base.
3. Develop a clear offer for each prospective partner: Come up with a free or highly discounted offer that has a high perceived value to the customers but a low cost for the company. On a digital signage display, a QRS coupon can be displayed which can be directly scanned on a consumers tablet or smartphone. You may also display any deals or seasonal specials.
4. Develop a letter for the host’s use: Providing a draft “offer” letter to the host customers on the hosts letterhead will help put the plan into motion quickly. Some businesses will allow the letter be inserted into monthly newsletters. Others make the business pay a small fee. It’s a cost-effective and time consuming way when reaching another businesses customer base.
5. Develop a strategy to convert redeems into repeat customers: this is the long-term goal. An example would be a bakery that gave away chocolate cupcakes: the approach was to hand out a buy 5 get 1 free VIP card to encourage customers to come back

Whatever the specific plan, the host-beneficiary method is the single most effective way to quickly attract a critical mass of qualified customers to a new business. Instead of beating the bushes for customers with individual referrals and scattershot ads, you can tap into a targeted group of consumers “in mass” to jumpstart sales. Best of all, you can piggyback off the success of another business that has spent years building a customer base. In many ways, digital signage eliminates the need to reinvent the wheel. For startups facing other challenges, it’s just smart business.