Digital Signage at YOUR Church | Why you need it and how you can use it

Are you considering modernizing the way you communicate with your congregation? What about enhancing the worship experience for those who attend? If you have goals of a better connected, more engaged, and more excited population within your center of worship, you need to consider digital signage for your church.

Most churches – regardless of size, age, or type – can benefit from utilizing digital signage. Digital signage can take the place of church bulletin boards, church screens, or church backdrops. Your church, temple, or mosque can use digital signage to help create a strong community and to unify people across the venue.

Not only that, worship venues also report cost savings after implementing digital signage. For example, some church and temple leaders report cost savings of up to $6,500 per year by switching from paper to digital signage solutions.

Consider your lobby, hallways, youth center, cafeteria, sanctuary, daycare, or main worship area. You can use digital signage to help people find their way around your building, replace paper signs, boost member communication and engagement, broadcast services, display service times and streamline booking processes.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg! Options for leveraging church digital signage are vast. Likely, all of them are likely to save your team time and money. Keep reading to learn more about the ROI of church digital signage on top of all the other benefits.

Why Use Digital Signage?

Digital signage is the future of internal communications. Bringing new life to virtually any kind of environment, digital signage provides the opportunity to grab the attention of anyone who sees it – whether those people are part of your organization or guests. Humans are visual creatures, and high quality digital signage resonates with them in a way that other mediums do not. Simply put, digital signage displays can make the experience of almost any viewer better.

Almost all industries can benefit from an effective digital signage strategy, but it can really move the needle in places of worship. Digital signage is part of a larger objective for churches because the messaging shared there is so important. It’s essential that what your leaders say is reaching people on an individual level, and that’s not always easy using backdrops, bulletin boards, or audio equipment with no visual component.

Displaying relevant and compelling content will make members feel welcome and like part of the community. Content doesn’t need to be complicated. Think about the posters or notice boards you put up now – simply use digital signage instead to keep content fresh and reduce the amount of time spent on creating and replacing paper notices.

Churches report the ability to build a larger visual network within the community, better engage their congregation, and improve efficiency and operating costs with digital signage.

How Do Churches Use Digital Signage?

The ways to use digital signage are limitless. We recommend using digital signage to help guide people within the building (wayfinding), replace paper directories, share internal information (such as fundraising progress or community events), create better menu boards, and show live sermons on screens throughout your campus.

Below we’ll share some specific use cases from churches, mosques, or temples. Remember that, in general, digital signage is customizable, versatile, and flexible, so while we’re providing a few ideas – the options for digital signage in your church are endless.

Use Cases of Digital Signage in Churches

A use case is a description of the ways in which an end user will “use” a product or service. Our clients find it helpful to understand the typical end-user within various industries, to get inspiration and ideas of all the ways that digital signage can be implemented. Check out a few of the ways that churches use digital signage – and consider borrowing a few of the ideas!

1. Media Presentation

Use digital signage and complementary hardware to share your messaging across media. Leverage video, images, slide shows, and music. Broadcast your sermon or replay it later.

2. Church App & Social media

It’s more important than ever to engage with your congregation digitally. Your audience is on social media, and they may look for you there. Display the icons for which social channels you use (such as Facebook, Twitter, etc). You can use graphics that show how to login and use any apps that are associated with your church. Give people detailed instructions on how to find you online, and share reminders of your presence there.

3. Promote Selling Of Products

Is your place of worship offering any products or services? You can use signage to promote upcoming events, classes, daycare options, book sales, meal options – really anything you need to sell! Whether you choose to simply display the product, or create something flashier that really markets the product or service, think about the places that get traffic in your building and how to grab the attention of that traffic.

4. Church Calendar

Places of worship tend to have a lot going on. You likely host events, groups, and classes. Similarly, you probably need volunteers for various events. Rather than relying on a simple paper version, post a colorful calendar that gives the entire congregation an idea of what’s going on. You can post the same information online so that you know everyone is viewing a consistent and comprehensive calendar.

5. Welcome and Directory

Think about how great it would feel for visitors to have a visual of their welcome into your community. Welcome newcomers with a kind message on the screen at the entry of the building. This is also a great place to feature a map so that first-timers will know where to go. If your church boasts several buildings, you can even create an interactive directory where people can look up different offices or departments around your campus.

6. Testimonies and Information

Think about what your current bulletins accomplishes. You can do all of that and more with digital signage. Help your congregation to grow closer and stay in better touch with church leaders by broadcasting useful information. Consider highlighting birthdays, birth announcements and weddings, and other milestones within your church family on your digital screens.

7. Reach the Unreached

One of the best things about digital signage for churches is the way that it can help the leader of the church to reach those who might not be able to participate in the sermon in a traditional way. Engage younger kids from an earlier age by using colorful imagery that tells a story aligned with the sermon. Also, think about hearing or visually impaired members of your congregation and how to reach them. Make everyone feel included by displaying lyrics to music along with song names and authors so that people can find a new favorite. Using digital church signs is a powerful way to reach every single member of your congregation.

8. Share the Spirit of the Season

The holidays tend to be a busy time, but also a time that brings more people to church. Use signage to make new people feel welcome and ensure they know where to go and the church’s schedule. You can use beautiful graphics that tie into holiday decorating or share photos of any charitable events. Don’t forget to post opportunities for volunteering and images of holiday goings-on like children’s pageants. Digital signage is a great way to enhance the overall warm and fuzzy feelings that come with the holiday season.

9. Round-the-clock Advertising

Many churches use outdoor digital signage to create beautiful displays that intrigue passers-by and share information. You can complement seasonal displays with colorful signage, or just relay details about upcoming events like holiday concerts or fundraising opportunities. Keep an attention-getting outdoor display running 24 hours to provide updates even when you’re not there. Rotate different creative and include your website, phone number, or social media icons for people to reach out to you and connect across other mediums.

The ROI For Digital Signage

Every business decision needs to be made with the financials in mind. Churches, especially, understand this because they have limited funds. It’s not easy to make investments in software, hardware, or other technology, even when you can see the appeal.

That being said, digital signage can provide an impactful return on investment (ROI) that is good for the budget of the entire church. Return on investment is a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or compare the efficiency of a number of different investments. To calculate ROI, the benefit (or return) of an investment is divided by the cost of the investment. The result is expressed as a percentage or a ratio.

Digital signage in general has been shown to be a channel that pays for itself multiple times over. According to our research, 80% of brands that use digital signage record a substantial increase in sales, up to 33%. That’s because digital signage leads to increased traffic, better message recall, and more loyalty. All of which tend to create more revenue opportunities.

Combine those figures with the reduction in paper products, printing costs, and manpower to create communications, and you can see how digital signage quickly cuts down spending in some areas while encouraging more income generation.

ROI for digital signage in churches/worship venues

In terms of places of worship specifically, digital signage can really save time and resources. Consider all of the paper and hard copy communications your church puts out – either as memos, bulletin boards, special announcements, paper packets for classes, etc. What if you could leverage digital technology to not only display that same information – but display it in a better way, more likely to be noticed and remembered?

Another element to consider is the time that can be saved on behalf of staff. If you employ someone to greet congregants and answer questions, consider leveraging signage, even part of the time, as a directory or first line of information instead. Your receptionist is likely to spend less time on the phone going over simple questions if the answers to most commonly asked questions can be found throughout the building or in obvious displays. Make sure that items like worship times, upcoming church events, and important people within your church are listed at least as part of rotating signage in several places in your building.

Furthermore, one goal of most places of worship is to expand their congregation. By leveraging technology, you can find creative ways to engage with more people. Also, turning toward technology helps reach an increasingly tech-savvy generation that is less likely to read paper leave-behinds. Growing membership leads to more consistent contributions, better fundraising, potential new families enrolled within school and daycare options, and people hoping to use the building for events.

All of those items are sources of income for a church, temple, or mosque, and you can expect to see more of each activity when you use digital signage to better reach your congregation.

In fact, for an example of how the Mvix digital signage platform revolutionized one church’s communication tactics, take a look at this case study on First Baptist Greenville.

Church Digital Signage

Church digital signage is the future. Printed bulletins and flyers serve their purpose, but are going by the wayside. Additionally, they don’t do much to interest current congregants or secure new ones.

Replace church backdrops and other antiquated methods with screens that can be used across every part of your organization. Specifically,  in the areas of worship, community centers, schools, cafeterias, etc. The use cases mentioned are just the beginning – for some inspiration on digital church signs or screens, browse our gallery.

Contact us to discuss a modern yet cost effective way to communicate with your church members. We offer turn-key solutions to manage digital video walls, directories, and signage that will capture your members’ attention.