Everywhere we go nowadays, we’re surrounded by multiple different displays. That’s the modern way of communication. However, for businesses it creates a lot of issues and challenges. One of them is: How to Manage Content Display?
If you’re asking yourself this question – this article is definitely for you. We want to show you how you can improve your Digital Signage Management.
Digital Signage
Technological revolution created a lot of changes in content distribution. Businesses use different technologies like LCD, LED or e-paper to display various types of content. We can found them in both private and public environment. For instance, it allows displaying advertisements, public information like weather, news, internal information, product information etc.
Signage helps companies in perceiving modern and innovative image of a company. Moreover, there’s also a huge demand on interactive displays that allow interacting with end users through touchscreens.
The issue arises when we have multiple displays to control and display different content on them. That’s when Content Management System (CMS) is especially important.
CMS – Content Management System
Content Management System (also known as CMS) became popular in the 90. That’s when people started creating websites on the Internet. CMS allowed creating websites for people who didn’t know how to code. Some of the most popular Content Management Systems for websites nowadays are WordPress, Joomla or Drupal.
However, it’s not the only form of using CMS. With the technological development we continue to build more and more devices that need that type of management. The one that is easy to understand by a non-developer, fast and allows remote control over a group of devices.
Digital Signage Management in a form of CMS is a solution to those problems. It allows managing displays and controlling them in many different ways. We’ll get more in depth when talking about Benefits of Content Management System for Digital Signage.
Related: Content Management System (CMS) for Digital Signage in Public Transport – Case Study
Where can we use Digital Signage and CMS?
Display monitors and Digital Signage Management Software are being used in many different places and industries. To give you a few examples I prepared a list of some of them:
- Transportation
When it comes to transportation there’s a few different places when we can use those type of displays. It can be used on bus stops, inside vehicles, on the airports, train stations etc. With this type of industry we know that there won’t be only one display, rather multiple. That’s why it’s so important to have a Digital Signage Management that helps us with operating them. It’s even more important to have access to real-time updates on the condition of the devices from one place.
- Restaurants
Display Menu Boards are very popular is gastronomy. When it comes to corporations like McDonald’s it’s pretty obvious that it’s impossible to manage this many displays manually. There’s whole Digital Signage Management Software around it that allows remote change of every display at the same time. But it’s not only useful for McDonald’s. Multiple small restaurants and coffee shops uses displays to show various types of content on it.
It goes even further than that. Sticking to McDonald’s – they implemented Kiosks that take orders via touchscreen. Those type of solutions once again bring many positive benefits to the company. Similar technology can be found also in cinemas and vending machines.
- Retail
The most common place when displays and Digital Signage Management Systems are being used is definitely retail. It’s become a part of marketing strategy for most of the brands. It’s way more effective than traditional content materials like posters etc. It allows changing content without any extra cost, is more interesting to viewers and more innovative.
- Hotels & Business spaces
It’s become popular to install this type of displays in places like hotels and offices. Using Digital Signage Management is very important there as well. You can use it to display informations about conference room bookings, upcoming events, local map or building layout and many other informations.
- Education & Culture
Another extremely interesting way of using displays and touchscreens is in education and culture.
To become more technologically friendly many schools decides to install this type of displays inside their buildings. They can place on there informations about school, its sponsors and upcoming school events.
Even bigger options have institutes like museums and other cultural places like theaters etc. It’s very important for this type of places to find a way of communication with younger audience. Technology is one of them. That’s why displays are so often used there.
Benefits of Digital Signage Content Management System
Implementing Digital Signage Management Software in your business has various of different benefits. Especially if its purpose is bigger than just displaying one graphic. We also hope to show you the possibilities of having Content Management System for displays that you already have.
- Remote control over displays
First of all, thanks to CMS you can remotely control all of the monitors from one place. Without it, every change has to be made directly on the display, usually with content on the USB. This might not be a problem when you have only a few monitors that change its content very rarely. However, most of the times we want these monitors to be used as much as possible. Being able to manage digital signage remotely is the only right option
- Control what is being displayed from one place
Digital Signage Management System allows you to have full control over what is being displayed. You can change the content multiple times a day if you want to. All it takes is to upload a file a simply play it. You can play different type of content on every monitor and even manage it depending on different conditions. For instance, you can change the content that is being displayed during the day, at night, when it’s sunny or rainy etc.
- Create full scenarios of when the content is being played
Content Management System allows us to create full scenarios of displayed content. It’s especially useful for monitors that are in a constant move, like the ones in buses. Depending on the bus stop, we can create different information. It’s really useful for ad display. For example, we can play a Tesco ad when the bus is near Tesco store. Moreover, we can also use it to display interesting informations about important places that we’re passing by (like a theatre).
- Ads Management and Billing System
We’ve already mentioned about ads in our previous benefit however there’s much more to that. If you want to profit from displaying advertisements on your monitors, you need a way to collect the data on which ads were played, for how long and how many times. Having multiple devices makes it almost impossible to manage without a good Ad Management and Billing System. That is also something that Digital Signage Management can take care of.
- Real-time Status Updates – Logins, Errors, Bugs etc.
Knowledge is power. That’s why it’s also really important to have all possible informations about your monitors. You need to know right away if one of them is not working. That’s exactly what Digital Signage Management can do for you. These type of data is necessary to work properly and efficiently.
- Easy to manage
Digital Signage Management Softwares are usually very easy to understand and learn. They’re made to help you or your employees manage all of the displays without having any special knowledge. Your marketing team can easily take care of all of the aspects of content distribution without any help from programmers.
- Scalable
This type of program can manage 10 monitors but it can also manage 10.000 of them. It can grow your business and still use the same system just on a much larger scale.
- Cost reduction
Implementing this type of system is going to drastically lower your expenses when it comes to display management. The whole system can be managed by one person. Every change can be made remotely, so you don’t have to worry about visiting every place where you have this type of monitors.
- Custom Fitting
Last but not least, having customized Digital Signage Management System allows you to make everything perfectly fitted to your company, its specific, industry and needs. Even though, there are this type of systems on the market, they’re created in one-size-fits-all type. Unfortunately, it’s not 100% efficient for most brands. That’s why custom management system is something worth considering if you’re thinking seriously about investing in this type of displays.
Making Changes in Content Can be Just as Easy with WYSIWYG Visual Editor
For some industries like Public Transport there’s a need for graphics to be more specific. This type of content also might require a person with a programming knowledge to change anything. Even when it’s only about changing the name of a bus stop. In that case you can create a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) visual editor that will allow you to make any type of content changes with a Drag and Drop technique.
We actually created this type of WYSIWYG visual editor for one of our clients. Pixel is a company that sells displays for transport industry. We developed visual editor for them so their clients can make changes without contacting Pixel customer service.
You can even see a test version under this link: http://webeditor.boosthigh.com/
Some functionalities are off because this version is just for presentation. However, we hope you’ll get a sense of how it works.
Related: How to Help My Clients in Editing Their Content Easily?
Summary
Digital Signage Management System is perfect for brands that provide digital displays as well as companies that use it.
If you’re selling specific type of displays it might be a good idea to think about creating a matching management system to it. Your customers will definitely be satisfied and you can make more profit from it.
On the other hand, if you’re a used of this type of displays but don’t have any good management system for it. Instead of buying something that won’t be that good, you can develop something customized just for your company.
