Introduction
Digital signage has revolutionized traditional advertising and become an integral part of every business‘s marketing strategy. With the ability to grab customer attention and influence their behavior, digital signage drives higher engagement, builds brand awareness, and boosts sales.
This comprehensive guide will explore everything you need to know about leveraging digital signage software to increase brand visibility and connect with your target audience in 2023.
What is Digital Signage?
Digital signage refers to electronic screens that display promotional content including images, videos, graphics, social media feeds, and live streams. These visually appealing signs are placed at strategic locations to engage customers and reinforce branding.
From corporate office lobbies to retail stores, malls, airports, restaurants – digital signs can be seen everywhere. Their key purpose is to inform, educate, entertain and influence audience behavior.
Placement Options for Digital Signage
Determining the right placement spot is crucial for digital screens. Here are some tips on ideal positioning:
- Place signs in high visibility areas with good footfall
- Position at eye-level for maximum views
- Keep screens away from direct sunlight or bright lights
- Place near checkout counters to boost impulse purchases
- Use visible fonts, colors and graphics
Proper placement coupled with engaging content will ensure your messages grab attention.
Benefits of Digital Signage
Here are some of the many advantages of using digital signage:
1. Increased Brand Awareness & Recall
Digital screens continuously display your logo, brand colors, images and videos to reinforce branding. This repetition develops familiarity resulting in higher brand recall.
2. Improved Customer Experience
Digital signs provide helpful information, latest offers, wait times, etc. to customers. This transparency improves experience and nurtures loyalty.
3. Higher Conversion Rates
Strategically placed digital signs motivate purchase decisions. Features like QR codes make it easy for customers to buy instantly.
4. Enhanced Engagement
Moving visuals and interactive features grab more eyeballs than static signage leading to higher engagement.
5. Flexible Messaging
Content can be updated remotely in real-time based on location, weather, events or schedules. This flexibility provides relevant information always.
6. Metrics & Analytics
Digital signage software provide insightful analytics on content performance – impressions, dwell time, clicks, conversions etc. These metrics help optimize strategy.
Top Digital Signage Software of 2023
Here are the best digital signage solutions to meet varied business needs:
1. ScreenCloud
ScreenCloud is an user-friendly solution packed with features to create captivating signage content easily.
It allows displaying secure data feeds, existing web content and social media posts on screens. Other capabilities include:
- Live broadcast urgent messages
- Schedule future content updates
- Customizable templates and widgets
- Cross-screen synchronized playback
- Detailed analytical reports
With enterprise-level security and flexibility to display real-time data – ScreenCloud is ideal for offices, corporate spaces and public venues.
2. OptiSigns
OptiSigns makes digital signage creation easy with its 500+ free, professional templates across industries.
It seamlessly pulls content from social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google reviews etc. Optisigns works across devices including Android TV, Fire TV stick and has reliable smartphone signage apps as well.
3. Yodeck
Yodeck‘s affordable and user-friendly solution offers:
- Great library of free widgets and templates
- Eye-catching layouts with news tickers and weather updates
- Robust security features like firewall and role-based access
- Cross-device content synchronization
- Simple 5-minute setup
This makes Yodeck ideal for small businesses to engage customers across screens.
4. DigtialSignage.com
DigitalSignage.com provides both software and hardware solutions for digital signage needs.
Its media cloud enables creating accounts to design signage content using free templates. You can showcase HD videos, live streams, social media feeds, weather widgets and more.
It also offers robust media players, servers and other hardware to power signage displays.
5. TelemetryTV
Telemetry TV is a SOC 2 certified cloud-based solution with enterprise-level security protocols.
It allows quick content updates, scheduling capabilities and centralized remote device control. You can also develop custom apps to run within TelemetryTV.
These features make TelemetryTV ideal for offices, healthcare, hospitality, education and corporate environments.
6. Xibo
Xibo is an open-source option offering great flexibility in designing signage content.
Its user-friendly interface provides powerful widgets and tools. Scheduling capabilities help businesses target content playback to certain days and times.
Xibo supports stable Windows, Android and Linux players. You also get 24×7 customer support on this platform.
7. Novisign
Novisign enables anyone to manage digital signage without technical expertise.
Its cloud-based solution requires no servers or complex setup. Core capabilities include – signage design studio, content widgets, flexible scheduling, stable cross-device players and third-party integrations.
Novisign also allows creating interactive self-service kiosks to engage customers.
8. Play Signage
Play Signage offers easy-to-use design capabilities to create signage content that stands out.
Its beautifully designed editor empowers teams to remotely manage the design and scheduling process collaboratively.
It also provides useful metrics on content performance – enabling you to identify what works best and make data-driven optimization.
9. SmarterSign
SmarterSign provides a host of advanced features beyond content scheduling and publishing.
You can access hundreds of professionally designed templates for free. Location-based targeting helps focus messaging to specific audiences.
One standout capability of SmarterSign is the airport flight information display system seen across airports globally.
10. Kitcast
Kitcast delivers a simple yet powerful digital signage platform covering content creation, scheduling and device management.
Its easy-to-use dashboard provides centralized monitoring and control of over 1000 screens. Kitcast seamlessly integrates third-party widgets – social media feeds, calendars, weather widgets etc.
Within just 5 minutes, anyone can start designing signage content that grabs attention.
11. Onsign TV
Recognized among the world‘s biggest CMS platforms, Onsign TV is designed specifically for professional digital signage needs.
It offers strong template designs, scheduling flexibility, multi-screen content synchronization, robust device support across Windows, Mac, Android and more.
The solution also provides insightful analytics for continual optimization. With top-notch security protocols, Onsign TV delivers holistic and scalable signage capabilities.
12. Comeen Play
Comeen Play focuses on leveraging digital signage for effective intra-company communication.
It streamlines internal messaging for employees through easy slides, videos and document integrations. Tracking employee engagement levels is also easier.
For customer communications, Comeen Play powers point of sale systems, in-store radio channels, interactive wayfinding kiosks and more. These robust features make it a preferred choice across industries.
13. Rise Vision
As an affordable and easy-to-use option, Rise Vision is great for educational institutions and businesses.
It natively integrates Google Workspace tools like Slides, Docs and Calendar for creating signage content fast. With a gallery of 400+ templates across verticals, you can design high-quality displays easily.
Rise Vision also complies with rigorous annual security audits ensuring data protection.
14. Xogo
Xogo offers a simplified signage management platform through its Xogo Manager. This acts as a central point to remotely monitor and control digital screens.
It provides thousands of 16:9 display templates through its integration with PosterMyWall. Advanced scheduling configuration helps restaurants, hotels and event centers tightly control the timing of content played.
Xogo works smoothly for users with basic design experience looking for straightforward digital signage capabilities.
15. Netpresenter
Netpresenter enables impactful employee communication through digital signage solutions for offices, warehouses, stores and factories.
It offers personalized messaging features targeted to specific groups and locations. The platform provides valuable analytics into how employees are engaging with the content displayed.
Other useful capabilities include surveys, polls, attention grabbing alerts and notifications to keep workforce productivity high.
16. Spectrio
Spectrio focuses strongly on enhancing customer engagement across physical premises through ambient media offerings.
These include on-site digital signs displaying brand storytelling content and interactive messaging. It also provides on-hold call messages along with audio content through in-store radio channels.
This omnichannel approach helps Spectrio customers build consistent branding and higher customer affinity.
Key Considerations for Picking Software
Here are crucial factors to evaluate while choosing digital signage solutions:
Ease of Use – Check for intuitive dashboard, flexible templates and widgets to easily create content without design expertise
Device Support – Ensure platform allows managing content across all screen types
Content Scheduling – Look for advanced scheduling capabilities linked to days, hours etc.
Design Elements – Availability of images, videos, real-time data widgets for impactful signage
Analytics – Evaluate quality of performance reports to identify content gaps
Security – Review measures like data encryption, firewalls, access controls etc. for safety
Budget – Confirm overall pricing fits within current spend flexibility
Scalability – See if platform can manage expanding screens in future seamlessly
Customer Support – Check responsiveness to queries for any troubleshooting needs
FAQs
What kind of content can be displayed on digital signage?
Digital screens are highly versatile to display images, text, illustrations, animations, videos, graphs and charts, social media feeds, websites, and TV broadcasts among others.
What are some tips for creating effective digital signage content?
Follow these best practices – use high definition content of right screen dimensions, limit text quantity with large fonts for readability, leverage colors strategically and keep animations short. Also pick apt dwell times based on expected viewer duration.
How to measure the success of my digital signage network?
Use QR codes or special offers linked to signage content. The redemption levels or microsite clicks will reflect viewer engagement. You can also gauge impressions and dwell time. Integrate analytics tools for detailed insights.
Final Words
Digital signage advancements make it possible to captivate audiences with visually rich and interactive content. Strategically placed displays help develop brand awareness, trust and loyalty among customers. They crucially influence behavior leading to higher sales.
This curated list of top digital signage platforms provides amazing choice based on business size and needs. Carefully review the options to determine the best fit solution that upgrades your signage capabilities. Design captivating displays to impress audiences and accomplish business goals faster.
