Digital signage has evolved into a highly efficient, appealing means of providing multimedia content for business owners, brand marketers, and advertising agencies who realize its benefits of informing, promoting and entertaining specifically targeted customers. The days of providing static content are behind us. The vast capabilities of digital signage can provide multiple, dynamic messages with full-motion video that can be changed by the minute, hour or week. When implemented effectively, digital signage attracts, and maintains the audience’s attention, and ultimately increases the chances of maximizing one’s ROI.

Costs associated with purchasing, installing and maintaining digital signage systems have decreased dramatically, while the technologies running these systems have improved significantly. Take a look around; digital signage is going mainstream, appearing in places such as airport terminals, large retail chain stores, and, of course, in Las Vegas, where this technology was first implemented. Digital signage increasingly appears in some rather unorthodox locations. Today, it’s not uncommon to see LCD and plasma screens in taxicabs, buses, elevators and even public restrooms.

Digital signage is no longer just for the big guys; the technology has become more affordable. Implementing a successful digital signage project, and, thus, maximizing ROI, depends on how well creative and technical forces come together. The creative aspect comprises content creation and management companies and advertising agencies, while the technical side includes audio-visual (AV) systems integrators and network operators.

The industry is beginning to understand the critical importance of creating attention-grabbing media content that targets specific markets. Content creation and management companies, the leading creative players, are evolving to fill this industry void.

Content creation entails much more than digitizing a looping CD or DVD that plays repetitively. New developments in digital signage software have created unlimited programming opportunities to create and refresh content to capture and maintain the customer’s attention. Business owners and corporate clients may now choose to display targeted promotions, news, streaming stocks, weather, music videos, traffic reports, and effective POS messages. Many of these messages can be displayed simultaneously and updated on demand via remote access.

Although the advertising agency may direct what specific marketing messages are to be displayed, content creators are best suited to recommend and implement software and design solutions. Once the marketing messages and software solutions have been established, then the expertise of an AV systems integrator is needed. Systems integrators should work closely with the content creators to ensure proper hardware purchase and placement.

With corporate marketing departments working exhaustively to keep up with promotional demands, an experienced content creation company, partnered with a systems integrator, can provide solid solutions to maximize the digital signage investment and reduce a marketing department’s workload.

Advertising agencies are already working with the lion’s share of large clients, branding and promoting products or services through traditional print media, direct mail, magazines, billboards, etc. Ad agencies already work with multimedia and production studios to create the static messages we all see throughout our daily lives.

Although static displays may be significantly less expensive, they take weeks, sometimes months, to update or change. Digital displays can be updated in just a few seconds based on store demographics, time of day, or even the temperature outside.

Ad agencies are beginning to use in-store digital signage as part of their overall ad campaigns. The end result of any ad agency working with (for-profit) clients is to increase sales, market share, and the company’s bottom line. The ad agency’s role in a digital-signage project will be directly related to the message they need the customers to see.

This will have a great impact on the digital signage software selected, display type (LCD, plasma, or video wall), and installation location. If a client isn’t under contract with an ad agency, they may directly team their marketing department with an experienced content-creation company from the start. Cooperative advertising with some of the business’ largest vendors or suppliers should also be considered to possibly offset installation and network maintenance costs.

AV systems integrators are experts when it comes to installing hardware like plasma screens, LCD monitors, video walls, projection screens, and accompanying sound systems. The digital signage integrator must go one step beyond traditional AV systems integration.

The chosen provider should work closely with the IT management and marketing departments for the installation and network infrastructure of your new system. Integrators need to understand that digital signage is a "solutions-based" system that requires answers to questions like: Who are my clients’ target markets? Will my clients be displaying product information, sales promotions, and vendor co-op advertisements? Or, will they be persuading an impulse buy at the checkout counter?

Selecting an appropriate integrator that can clearly define and understand the scope and objectives of the project will, in turn, afford the greatest return on the client’s invested dollars. Small- to mid-size businesses implementing less than 100 display screens often rely on content management and creation companies to handle the network operations of their project by utilizing up-to-date, digital-signage software. Larger businesses, however, will definitely benefit with the help of network operators.

Network operators, who are typically outsourced, provide the technical infrastructure for larger scale display networks, and serve to facilitate various needs of the content creation and management companies. Network operators use large-capacity servers that accommodate the storage of vast amounts of dynamic digital signage content.

Network operators can provide the capability to use "on-demand" content services via the Internet, T-1 lines or satellite networks, depending upon the application. Network operators can provide several other valuable tools, such as enabling remote access for content creation and management companies so that digital signage messages can be updated across entire digital systems. They can also assist in collecting valuable customer data from interactive signage displays, enabling sales and marketing departments to properly analyze campaign results.

To take advantage of the digital signage’s rapid growth, systems integrators and network operators need to build solid relationships with the content producers and advertisers to provide technical and creative knowledge that will create seamless solutions for corporate end users. Corporate clients can avoid getting overwhelmed with all this new technology and steer clear of costly mistakes by building a quality project team from the start.

A content creation and management company should always be brought in at the beginning of a project to conceptualize the needs and ideas that will reach the company’s ultimate goals. This will make it much easier for the technical staff (A/V system integrators, network operators) to provide the hardware and network support to complete the new digital signage project. Corporate clients should expect the content creation company to lead the creative and technical teams from design to completion.

To accelerate the growth in the digital-signage market, it’s imperative that the creative and technical partners team up to help educate and recommend solutions that meet the client’s needs and build a successful digital marketing solution that will ultimately maximize the client’s ROI.