19 Important Digital Signage Benefits that Every Business Needs to Know

Digital signage benefits go beyond aesthetic appeal. It’s an important messaging medium with benefits that go way beyond retail or food service. Corporate offices, schools, worship venues, government offices, banks, hotels all enjoy both quantitative and qualitative benefits.

Below are 19 important digital signage benefits:

1. Leverage dynamic content formats

Digital signage is not static.

It allows you to display multiple content formats including videos, text, photos, animations, social media, live news, emergency alerts, events listings, and more.

Such dynamic content engages audiences better than static content. So, a combination of these formats leads to a rich and interactive experience that sends the message home.

Using a mix of dynamic content improves the recall rate by 83%, according to experts.

2.  Schedule content for specific times

One of the powerful digital signage benefits is its “set it and forget it” scheduling abilities.

It’s easy to schedule content to play at specific times of the day e.g. a breakfast menu to display in the morning, a lunch menu between noon and 3 pm, and the dinner menu to display until close.

Accordingly, this ensures that the content is relevant to the audience and their needs.

3.  Messages are easy to change

Because the content can be changed instantaneously, companies can experiment with different messages to test audience engagement.

This also ensures that the screens display the most up-to-date information e.g. when an item is sold out, digital signage can be instantly updated to stop showing the item.

4. Enables visual and message consistency

Manage screens in multiple locations from the same platform, which ensures visual consistency and compliance.

For a company with multiple locations, a single message can be scheduled to be displayed in multiple locations, ensuring all employees, regardless of their physical location, are getting the same singular message.

5. Reduces frustration and anxiety

This is one of the main benefits of building directories and wayfinding displays. They enable people to easily navigate a large property, campus, or facility. When people can find their way quickly and easily, there is less frustration, stress and overall anxiety which equals good customer experience.

6. Limitless ways to influence audiences

One of the ways digital signage influences audiences authentically is by leveraging user-generated content such as social media.

Displaying social media posts on digital signage is a great way to personalize your message. These posts can include reviews, pictures or contests. Your audience will feel like they have control of the content they see, and they’ll even be encouraged to engage more with your business on social media.

7.  Reduce perceived wait times

People are willing to wait when there is something to take their minds off the actual wait time. Digital signage can provide this distraction.

You can distract your customers with videos about your products or services, information about your business, or even educational content e.g. displaying health tips in a doctor’s waiting room.

Studies have shown that digital signage can reduce perceived wait times by up to 35%.

8.  Digital signage has a wider reach 

Compared to other channels like email, digital signage has a much wider reach and higher recall rates.

Consider an employee communication display in an office. Use the display to communicate KPIs and new company updates. This same information can be sent in an email, but by the end of the day, that email is at the bottom of your inbox. However, with digital signage, the information is constantly playing on your screens. Employees in the company are exposed to communications multiple times a day. Consequently, recall and retention rates are higher.

This is arguably one of the strongest digital signage benefits.

9. Emergency messaging

Digital signage can be used as an emergency messaging tool to display customer alerts as well as CAP alerts from local and national sources.

10. Saves on printing costs

Printing posters, flyers, menus, etc., are costly and time-consuming with a lead time of a minimum of six weeks.

Digital signage reduces printing costs, and in some instances, eliminates it completely. While the CapEx of digital signage may be higher than that of printing one flyer, over time, there are significant cost savings.

11. Optimizes an area’s aesthetics

Posters litter the environment and don’t look good when they start to fade.

Brochures end up creating similar messes.

Digital signage, on the other hand, lights up any environment. They add color to space and modernize the facility.

12. Reduce administrative costs of communication 

This is one of the main digital signage benefits for waiting room installations. The signs can be used to answer frequently asked questions. This frees up the staff to work in more mission-critical issues.

When integrated with mobile, your audience can download the information – coupon codes, maps of your facility, a list of events – and take it with them so they are fully informed at all times.

This means they’ll get service faster, queues will move faster and overall, businesses will see savings in operational costs.

13. Attract more attention

People can more easily process video and motion graphics.

Consequently, using digital signage with video captures the attention of everyone around. Video messages are easier to understand and lead to higher recall and retention abilities.

In fact, a study by Nielsen confirms that 55% of Americans can recall what they see in digital signage. It is possible then to achieve desired responses, including increased purchases for marketers, workplace safety for employers, straightforward navigation, and more.

14. Drive impulse purchases

Strategically placed digital signage and strategically scheduled messages can increase impulse purchases for stores, restaurants, amusement parks, hotels and more.

Studies show that 19% of in-store buyers make impulse purchases because of digital signage.

15.  Effortless management

Digital signage has come a long way from its infant days. Better and cheaper technology makes it more accessible to enterprises and SMBs alike

What’s better, you don’t have to be tech-savvy to operate digital signage. In addition to that, digital signage software with multi-user platforms makes collaboration easy, which in turn makes communication easier.

16. Good for the environment

Digital signage is a sustainable means of communication. In fact, these solutions can replace a significant percentage of paper communication inside and outside your organization. For example, 500 kgs of paper take about nine trees to produce, and about 13,000 liters of water. The use of digital signage accelerates environmental conservation.

17. Digital signage has become more affordable

Improvement in technology has seen digital signage software and hardware products decrease in price. The cost of acquisition and ownership for these solutions has become more pocket friendly, according to Fortune Business Insight. The demand for digital signage is, therefore, high across all industries, and the trend is likely here to stay.

18.  Get customers to stick around longer

Digital signage can get your customers to stay in your establishment longer, and stay with your brand for a long time too, i.e. brand loyalty.

Equally important, you can display your products and services to keep them browsing, or use interactive digital signage to have them physically interact with you for longer periods.

This will lead to increased revenues. Info Trends reported that digital signage encourages customers to spend 30 % more time in retail stores.

19.   Digital signage is eye-catching, leads to increased footfall

People are compelled to stop and read digital signage to see what’s being communicated. The use of videos, animations, and vibrant colors in digital signage has been found to boost footfall to stores by about 24%.  Hence, more customers mean more sales.

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You can appeal to a wider audience using digital signage benefits and can find use not just in marketing but in broader areas of business.  Consequently, for efficiency and cost reductions, the time to adopt the trend is now.