Where To Place Your Digital Signage (and Where To Avoid!)

Digital signs are immediately eye-catching and can help promote products, share information, entertain, and direct people like no other medium. Additionally, digital displays capture 400% more views than static displays. But if you choose the wrong placement, you can miss some of the most important benefits of digital signage. 

Wrongly-placed digital signage can create foot traffic bottlenecks, missed messages, and a poor customer experience. Whether you’re considering a digital signage project for your retail store, a digital menu board for your restaurant, a video wall for your waiting room, or a dynamic wayfinding solution for your office premises, consider your:

• Target audience
• Your high-traffic areas
• How you want your audience to interact with your messages

This article is about where (and where not) to place your digital signage. We’ll explore what to consider when you’re planning your digital signage installation and how to encourage interactive behaviors that strongly deliver your marketing message. 

Consider your Objectives in Purchasing a Digital Display Screen

First and foremost, think about the purpose of your digital screens and consider the environment in which the technology will contrast or complement. Do you want to keep staff up to date with lengthy messages and training content? We recommend eye-level installations in break rooms. 

If you want to catch the attention of passers-by in lobbies, shopping malls, or large public spaces, think about the way your audience navigates in those specific spaces. This may seem obvious, but it’s easy to pick the wrong placement for digital signage placement. Consider the following: 

To Stop or To Flow?

Before you make any decisions about placement, take some time to observe where people congregate. Which exits do your employees, visitors, or customers most use? What parts of the room do they tend to favor? Placing your digital signage where large groups of people congregate is key to strategic placement. Doorways and entrances are good locations for digital signage placement because everyone will pass that area of the building at least twice a day. 

While this is important, use caution with largely-populated areas as they could cause foot traffic bottlenecks. Entryways that you need to keep clear or keep people moving for safety reasons may not be the best option for your signage. Use your best judgment with stop and flow areas so that you get the most out of your communication, but maintain the safety of viewers.

Clear Sightlines

When deciding where to place your digital signage solutions, think about how clear the sightlines are from the corner of your space. Are there columns, pillars, dividing walls, or stairways that could obscure the visibility of your digital signage system?

One important factor to think about is sunlight. Sunlight can obscure your digital signage, which can cause what you’re trying to communicate to be unreadable. Digital signage brightness is measured in nits. The higher the nit, the higher of intensity. The lower the nit, the lower of luminance. Indoor digital signage has lower nits, which makes it harder to read if sunlight shines on it. Not only this but the glass on your digital signage screen can be affected by sunlight.

Do not place your digital signage directly in the sun or heavily sun-lit areas. We recommend choosing a place where sunlight will not affect your display and disrupt your ROI.

At What Height Should I Hang my Digital Signage?

Again, consider your space: the size, the shape, and the number of people who use the room at the same time. Will people at the back of your room see a digital screen positioned at head height?

People with 20/20 vision can see clearly (at head height) up to around 23ft. An average person can cover 23ft in approximately 5-7 seconds and the average attention span is 2.8-8 seconds. This is how long you’ll have to catch their attention with your digital signage content. 

How might you present your new products, special offers, or colleague updates in 5-7 seconds? Consider how a playlist of eye-catching content might hold someone’s attention in a different way each time they pass. If you place your digital screen significantly above head height, you broaden the viewing distance, but you shorten the approach time because a person’s field-of-view decreases the higher up they need to look.

Consider Access

Avoid placing your digital signage installations in locations that inhibit access to the back of the equipment, such as in drop ceilings. Equally, it’s wise to ensure that your installation is easy to reach. In the unlikely event that something goes wrong with your installation or you decide to upgrade your hardware, you may need to get behind the screen to access its ports and terminals. 

Where are Digital Signs Most Effective?

Retail Stores

Think about how your customers interact with your business. Do they browse your store, then pay at the checkout? A digital screen attached to the back of your cash till or a video wall behind the cash register is likely to be seen by all of your paying customers. 

Alternatively, consider whether you need your signs to stand-out or blend in? Squeezing a screen between the shelves of a well-stocked clothes store might not be the best placement since it might be easily missed against the backdrop of your wares. Place your digital sign in a place where it’s not competing for attention.

Corporate Offices

Maybe you’re thinking about purchasing a building directory. Visitors are more than likely to look for direction next to elevators as they head up and down or near front desk/concierge areas where they can find assistance. Breakroom signage is also best placed inside the breakroom where employees can sit down and enjoy company news. Digital signage enhances internal communication, which leads to 25% higher employee productivity.

Government

For government buildings, visitors search for where they should go immediately after arrival. Placing signage where they can visibly notice it as soon as they step in the door would be helpful.

There are many more applicable places that different industries can place their digital signage. Consult a digital signage sales employee to see what’s best for your business.

Examples of Digital Signage Placement

The University of Salford, Media City Campus, UK

The University of Salford’s Media City campus specializes in media-related training, such as making films and documentaries. Their lobby video wall is an eye-catching display that shares student-generated content all day long. 

Taking advantage of the versatile aspect ratios offered by their video wall display, they encourage students to create work in unconventional display formats, allowing them to innovatively zone their display real-estate in exciting ways throughout the day. 

Bank of Colorado

Digital screens are shaking up the way customers interact with their branches. For example, The Bank of Colorado has made excellent use of the architectural interest of their flagship building, positioning their digital display installation within a receded alcove in their waiting area. 

This approach frames the video wall, offering strong visual contrast between the historical interest of the building and the high-tech digital signage installation. 

FETCO

FETCO realized they needed a better way to communicate with employees and purchased digital signage to display their metrics and production lion. They placed signage in their warehouse at a higher height for employees to see from far distances and out of the way to ensure safety.

Getting the Most ROI on Your Signage Placement

Maximizing the ROI on your digital signage purchase is key. Additionally, you don’t want to place your signage in areas where visitors avoid or may be hard to find. By evaluating these points, you can achieve clear communication, effective engagement, and higher viewership.

Want to learn more about digital signage? Click here to read more articles on our Digital Signage Insights page!