Digital signage software is a powerful tool that helps businesses share high-value communications across their workforce. The right software can uplift employee engagement and workplace wellbeing so you want to consider your options carefully. In this post, we’ve outlined six factors you need to consider when choosing the right digital signage software. But first, let's dive into what is digital signage, how it works and the benefits.
What is digital signage?
Digital signage, or electronic signage, is the technology that’s displaying information on digital screens. Digital signage can be used in various settings: warehouse and distribution centres, manufacturing sites, retail stores, hotels, restaurants and corporate buildings and more.
How does digital signage work?
Before knowing how to choose the best digital signage for your office, you must first understand the components of digital signage. We go into it in a bit more detail below but at a high level, there are two main components of any digital signage solution:
- Hardware. To show content, you’ll need a display screen and a digital signage player.
- Software. The software you choose determines what kind of media is displayed and delivers content to your digital signage screen.
What are the benefits of digital signage software?
The advantage of digital signage makes it an increasingly popular internal communication tool in many workplaces.
- Grabs attention. We’re hardwired to pay attention to movement so staff can’t help but to be drawn to a screen. Unlike an email, digital signage screens can show video, live feeds, infotainment content and more.
- Doesn’t distract or annoy. As an ambient channel, digital signage screens don’t disturb the workforce with annoying pop-ups or spam the inbox.
- Unifies messaging. The screens become the single source of truth to share the same message across the workforce to ensure no one gets confused.
- Connects frontline teams. Non-desk workers and staff on the road can feel disconnected from the rest of the organisation because they can’t easily access internal communications as desk-bound staff can. Digital signage screens allow frontline and non-desk staff to view the same messages, even when they aren’t in an office.
6 Factors to consider when choosing the right digital signage software
1. What are the business objectives?
You need to decide what you want your digital signage screens to achieve. In the workplace, digital signage screens can be a great
alternative to noticeboards and can be used to show upcoming events, share workplace
wellbeing
messaging, showcase leadership teams, share performance results and more. Your objective defines your focus and how you’ll achieve your
goals so don’t skip this step!
2. What kind of content to display?
Next, you need to know what type of content you want to show on screen. Most digital signage software will allow text, images and video. Digital signage content can be as complex as you need it to be. Depending on which software you choose, you may need to work with graphic designers. The best digital signage solutions will have built-in templates to bring your content to life.
When it comes to wording, just be sure to keep your messages short. People tend to lose focus when faced with a huge chunk of text on
screen.
3. What are your must-have features and functionality?
Make a list of all the features you need. This will ensure you choose the software that suits your business-specific criteria. Here are some must-have digital signage features to consider:
- Content management system. A digital signage content management system (CMS) is where you go to create and update your content and schedule the rotations of different playlists on each of your screens.
- Content scheduling. This is the ability to schedule content ahead of time – even better if you can set repeating schedules too
- Integration capabilities. You can minimise doubling up work to replicate content on your digital signage screens if it can pull data from your existing workplace apps and tools you already use, such as SharePoint or social media sites.
- Can monitor digital screen connectivity. You’ll want to be notified as soon as a screen is unexpectedly switched off or disconnected so you can get it up and running again
- Supports remote use. A cloud-based digital signage software will allow you to simply log in on a browser and make all the changes you need and create content, from wherever you are.
- Supports different types of content. You can display a range of content types on your digital signage screens: text, images, video and audio. The right software will make it easy for you to share different types of content to all your screens.
- Scalable. Digital signage software should be able to cope with many screens connected to the network.
4. Where will it be displayed?
The location of your screens will impact your hardware choices. If it will be outdoors, you may need a commercial TV and an industrial media player that can withstand dust, moisture, air pollution, oils, theft and more. If it’s simply mounted to a wall in the office or in a distribution center, you could opt for a monitor with an in-built media player instead.
In this type of setting, consider a monitor, not a tablet
5. What kind of hardware will you need?
There are two main parts to digital signage hardware: a display screen and a media device. There are many types of digital signage screens to choose from:
- Commercial TVs
- Smart TVs
- Non-smart TV (not internet-enabled)
- Monitors
- Tablets
The best digital signage screens are those with System on Chip (SoC) technology. Effectively, it gets rid of a media player because the screen already comes with it built in. There are many benefits to SoC screens:
- Removes the unnecessary cost of the physical media player
- Increased reliability. The physical media player is normally the primary point of failure.
- Increased security. No remote control tools (such as VNC or TeamViewer) are required to remotely manage the screens.
- Significantly reduced onsite call-outs and hardware support requests.
Brands such as LG, Samsung, Panasonic, Philips, and more have released SoC screens and this technology is only going to improve with time.
6. Who will be the right digital signage software vendor?
Now that you’ve decided what the digital screens are for, where they’ll be placed and what kind of content you want to share, it’s time to choose the right software provider.
Aligns with your organisation’s needs
A lot of industries use digital signage so pick a vendor that caters to your needs. For example, Vibe.fyi specialises in workplace communications via digital screens for organisations with a distributed workforce. Look into what features the digital signage software provider offers, sign up for a demo or free trial, read case studies and make an informed decision.
It's easy to use
Ease of use is very important to the success of your digital signage solution. If it's not easy for non-technical people to manage, then the content on the digital signage screens won't get updated regularly, or it will end up being passed to the IT team to manage.
Sets you up for success with the right features
Digital signage solutions should offer more than just a way to show your messages on screen. Vibe.fyi prides ourselves on transforming workplace communications with game-changing efficiency. Our extensive slide template library have our Snackable Learning Framework© built into each slide to cut the time and effort needed to produce engaging content so you can focus on crafting high-value messages, not formatting slides.
Infotainment content and behaviour-changing programs can also showcase impactful messaging that enhances engagement and increases awareness in your workforce.
Has an appropriate level of customer support
When you run into problems, you’ll want the right level of support to help you troubleshoot issues. The “right” level will vary - if you or the software users are savvy enough to only rely on help documentation, that’s fine. But if you anticipate that you’ll need more help, make sure the vendor can cater to the level of support your business needs.
Vibe.fyi makes it easy to get content up and running on screen so you can experience success quicker. Vibe Assist gives your organisation a dedicated assistant to create, upload and manage content for your screens.
Has a free trial
It can be daunting to start paying for your software before trialling all the features to make sure it’ll meet your needs. You should expect to be able to test run the software before subscribing to it.
Is secure
You want to work in a secure environment so check if what data security certification your vendor has. If you’re part of a large
organisation, having a certified data secure vendor might be one of the requirements set by your IT team.
In summary
Digital signage software can make a huge difference in employee engagement and workplace wellbeing. Once you’ve determined business-specific objectives, the right digital signage software will help you efficiently share important top-down communications that reach your entire workforce.
Digital signage screens are just one way to sharing high-value top-down messages to the workforce. If you’re looking for more communication channels that aren’t intrusive (like pop-up notifications), consider adding corporate screensavers and setting a default home page on the web browser.
