The digital signage portal is proud to release a new and exciting feature – the digital signage portal Video section.

The Digital Signage Portal Video section not only contains demos and tutorials but it also allows you to to share videos of digital signage.

What’s so special about this new feature?

It’s a great way for the digital signage community to share its knowledge and experience about digital signage.

Rather than just read about digital signage – you can actually see what’s out there and what has been done.

Is there a cost?

Access to the Digital Signage Portal Video section is free.

To add content to the Digital Signage Portal Video section you need to be a member but registration is free so join today!

Details

To check out this new feature visit www.digitalsignageportal.com/Videos/

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Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog News

It is surprising to see what how different businesses apply their content in the retail digital signage market. Not surprisingly, a very high percentage of digital signage applications focus on advertising – how to best create the most impact on promoting a sale. Depending on the nature of the business, the location of the screens and the intent of the campaign, this can prove to be a very effective strategy.

The other day I walked into a department store looking to pick up some outdoor gear. In the heap of trying to figure out what is best to buy, a digital signage screen in the middle of the aisle was playing short clips on some of the gear on how to use it, as well as offering useful outdoor tips. It was just like watching one of those “Infomercials” on outdoor travel.

It wasn’t till a few minutes later that it hit me – user experience. A strategy for making customers feel assured in their decision and comfortable of what they are buying, and bringing them back to the store. Now this is a different feeling that you walk away with compared to that of “I just scored a bargain!”

It will be interesting to find out what measures the store has in place for tracking sales made against the duration of the digital signage being played.

What will be even more interesting is to be able to track the number of sales made against the number of people entering that aisle looking for outdoor gear. In the wake of technology today, there are many tracking systems out there that do just that – track people’s presence, eye motion, and even human behaviour. But that is a different topic all together!

By the way, I ended up walking out of the store with over $200 in gear!

Discuss this topic here on digitalsignageportal.com.

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Category: Digital Signage Blog Events

Today, I entered a large retail store and surprisingly I noticed several small LCD screens and an old CTR TV scattered around the store. I believe these screens were used to promote products from various manufacturers but it was hard to tell because the majority of these were turned off.

I’m assuming that the arrangement between the retail store and the manufacturers is that the manufacturers would pay for the installation of the LCD/Monitor/CRT screen. The manufactures would then be responsible for displaying their promotional content by using a VHS or DVD player. When they have new products or promotions, they would be required to redistribute their content via a DVD or VHS to all their retailers. This is not only a time consuming process but the postage and distribution costs can also become very expensive.

Funnily enough, the CRT TV located in this store had an old VHS tape player connected to it and I was surprised to see this early adoption of digital signage as this should have already been phased out with the introduction of digital signage players. Basically, connecting a VHS or a DVD player was a very early method of implementing digital signage. The current method of implementing digital signage is to use dedicated digital signage players which are either embedded or small form factor PCs.

With the introduction of dedicated digital signage players, the process of distributing, scheduling, centralising and monitoring content via a local area network has enabled manufacturers to have more control of what and when their promotions are seen.

In many cases, I have seen DVD players displaying their screen saver rather than the actual DVD content – here is an example:

I have also seen situations whereby the LCD screen is obstructed by other marketing material or the screen is not even switched on. Many current retail stores in Australia are still using DVD players to drive content to their screen. These retail businesses need to start realising the true benefits that digital signage players can bring to their stores and to their customers. Some of these benefits are:

• they remove the need to have staff update content as this can be done remotely via the LAN or the Internet
• increase sales
• play live content from the Internet (news, weather, stocks, etc)
• monitor the status of the digital signage player, content and screen. The player and screen can be remotely managed via the LAN or the Internet
• content at different locations can be updated and centrally scheduled via a Content Management Server
• information to customers can be targeted at different times of the day

The benefits of digital signage players are endless, and it’s up to the retail business to start realising the ROI and urgently make the switch from DVD players to Digital signage player NOW.

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Category: Digital Signage Blog Info