Using Digital Signage Internally

By now, the usage and benefits of digital signage are clear to marketers. When I ask "what are your goals?" or "why indoor digital signage?", the most popular answers have been "to display ads to our customers at the point of purchase" or "to increase cross-selling opportunities." Every so often someone tells me they want to entertain their customers with news or trivia while they’re waiting. Almost all answers are customer-centric, and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, there’s a huge potential benefit that companies often overlook when planning digital signage use: Employees!

How many companies have push-pin bulletin boards hanging in a break room, hallway, or lobby that employees use to communicate departmental progress or personal achievements? I've worked in a few places that used this easy-to-ignore method of communication, and most of the time documents would just hang there unnoticed until someone took them down. Another issue that I've noticed with companies is the lack of interdepartmental communication. If you are in Marketing - What's going on in Accounting? If you are in Accounting - What's going on in R&D? You get the idea. Things change so fast that there's not enough time (or space) on the bulletin board. Using a digital sign for a company bulletin board is far more eye-catching than papers hanging on the wall and provides more flexibility. At Captive, we have a screen in each department. Each week, department heads send updates to the project administrator. So, right now, I can tell you what each department did last week, what they’re working on this week, and where we stand YTD on company goals just by turning around.

I found a really great blog that talks more about using digital signage for internal communication. Check it out. Let me know what your company does to communicate? Newsletters, bulletin boards, digital signage? What methods are you using today and how could it improve?

Face 2 Facebook with Digital Signage

Recently, I wrote an article that discussed combining digital signage with social media. In the video above, Coke Cola uses digital kiosks at one of it's summer festivals so those attending the event would share their experiences with friends and family via Facebook - Before they even leave the event!

This benefits Coke in a couple of ways:

Coke is encouraging people to tell their friends about the "good time" they're having in hope to attract more people to the event.

Plus, the post to Facebook will be there until the user takes it down - So, Coke is turning their customers' Facebook page into a Coke billboard

Digital Signage + Social Media = Very Smart Move

Digital Signage Projections

Now more than ever, marketers have more choices on how they will promote their brands' products or services. The internet has given birth to a wide variety of marketing avenues such as corporate websites, web advertising, email, social media, QR codes, and more. The emerging internet technologies have clearly had an impact on the amount of print materials marketers are using in their strategies. Why use print when you can go digital? Digital marketing is more dynamic, easier to change, and often has a smaller price tag.

Since its inception, there's no question that digital signage has made itself into one of the fastest growing marketing mediums on the planet. In March 2009, Digital Signage Magazine published an article that quoted MultiMedia Intelligence saying that “the digital signage market will more than double in size by 2012, having grown by 34 percent from 2007 to 2008." And here we are in August 2011 and DigitalSignageToday.com published another prediction by Global Industry Analytics Incs. They say that "the global digital signage market should hit nearly $14 billion by 2017."

With the growth of new interactive marketing strategies, what do you think will happen with print marketing? Can print survive in a digital world?