Digital Signage for Business & Management

What Does Digital Signage Really Mean?

Digital signage is a broad category of signs that use digital technology to display graphics and/or text in both indoor and outdoor settings. A large variety of digital signs serve needs from alternating menu-display to detailed graphics. While specific benefits of digital signage vary, their overall attractive visual quality captures attention and engages with consumers. A recent article in Sixteen: Nine reports that using digital signs is related to an approximate 34% increase in sales.  See the original study here. In other words: digital signage may come with more customers for your company.

But, each type of digital sign also comes with a complex set of decisions for pricing, permitting, design, manufacture, programming, installation, and maintenance. We manage all parts of the process for your specific digital signage. Here’s our list of digital signs that you may have seen or should consider for your company. For pricing information – contact us and determine which one is best for your multiple locations.

Increasingly Common Digital Signs & Why You Might Need Them

Rate Boards – Displaying Prices, Times, and Temperatures

These signs are often outside of gas stations and banks. Rate boards make it easy for employees to change pricing information. In order to update any text on the sign, simply type into a program that changes the display. Benefits of rate boards:

• Nobody deals with manually changeable letters or awkward tools to reach tall signs
• Employees avoid poor weather conditions
• No vandalism from rearranging or stealing your sign’s letters.

Depending on who you want to see your rate board, display it in different ways. Using a tall pylon sign to display a rate board is ideal for gas stations that want to advertise their prices to drivers from long distances. For other businesses – such as banks – monument signs may be more common to display the time and temperature to close-up drivers.

Menu Boards – Expanded Listings of Your Products or Services

Any business that has a list of products or services with price-point benefits from the alternating displays of these digital signs. Just a few examples:

• Fast-food restaurants
• Beauty salons
• Barber shops
• Automotive garages
• Bars
• Coffee shops.

Digital menu boards give you the advantage of displaying multiple lists of items on a timed basis. You can advertise many more items with this digital sign than with an old-fashioned print board. This exposes your store’s entire inventory to customers rather than only your most popular products or services. Also, employees save valuable time by not manually changing your menu – one letter at a time.

Electronic Message Centers (EMCs) – Alternating Text or Graphics

Hospitals, convention centers, and even churches are common locations at which you may have seen these digital signs. Like both rate boards and menu boards, EMCs display multiple messages to your audience on a timed basis. They display either solely text or graphics and text. The choice between them depends upon the needs of your locations, stores, or offices:

• Text-only EMCs are helpful for communicating more information – such as a special event with dates and times.
• EMCs with graphics and text are helpful for images or animations with little textual information – such as your company’s name or tagline.

Additionally, EMCs are often powered by LEDs (light-emitting diodes). This essentially means that many EMCs comprise pixels. And, the size of each pixel matters to your display:

• Smaller pixels mean more detail in your graphics but also smaller text.
• Larger pixels mean less detailed graphics but also larger text.

Choosing between EMCs depends upon the distance from which you want people to read your digital sign. To learn about how size affects your sign’s visibility, see our Letter Visibility Chart.

Transparent Digital Graphics – Videos and Imagery for Your Display

Although they are not yet as popular as menu boards or EMCs, you may have seen transparent digital graphics at retail stores, shopping malls, or industry-related conventions. These digital signs display videos, imagery, and text through clear screens of glass. This allows transparent digital graphics to display content to your audience while any objects behind the sign remain visible. A prime example is a transparent video of retail products that might overlay a window display with those advertised items. Often, the glass screens within transparent digital graphics have minimal frames to allow for more space in displays.

The ability to use videos on transparent glass displays makes them innovative tools for businesses. This is an excellent way to entice shoppers with vibrant, moving displays of your business’ products. Additionally, transparent digital graphics can be customized to fit different sizes, suit various mounting locations, and offer touch-based interactive designs.

Transparent digital graphics will become increasingly common in the near future – just like the signs that are listed, above. You might greatly benefit from using this kind of digital signage at your stores or offices. But, there are important considerations to make before doing so. We know every one of those considerations and help you through each step of the process.

Which Digital Sign Is Best for Your Company?

Now that you have a better idea of what digital signage actually is and which direction your company might want to go, you have to start making the hard decisions:

• Figure out which digital sign meets all of your needs
• Know which local codes and zoning regulations you have to follow
• Determine how to maximize your budgeted resources.

Don’t make these decisions without sign management experts. Egan Sign works with you to make sure that:

• You get the sign that’s right for you
• All of your signs are permitted
• Your signs are designed with the correct style and dimensions
• Each sign is properly manufactured and installed at your locations
• Any maintenance is handled.

Contact us for any questions and/or pricing information on the digital signage that best fits your business needs.

Egan Sign. Sign Management Made Simple.

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