How to Get Digital Signage Right

Often, when I’m working with clients on their digital signage deployments, they seem to lose interest a bit after we’ve discussed the hardware and I’ve moved on to professional services. Perhaps because digital displays share superficial similarities with the televisions and computer monitors we all have in our homes, many business leaders assume that their staff can handle the installation, configuration and management of these solutions on their own.

But, as a quick web search for the phrase “video wall collapse” will reveal, there’s plenty that can go wrong.

Learn how CDW can help you deploy digital signage to get your message across.

Digital signage can be incredibly valuable to your business, helping attract customers, sharing important information and boosting sales. But to get the most out of a digital signage initiative — and to make sure solutions work right from the very beginning — organizations should do their homework and consider site surveys and professional services, which can help with the following:

Infrastructure

A site assessment can reveal whether an organization has the proper network infrastructure to support proposed digital signage solutions. This is an especially important consideration for complex installations that draw data from multiple sources and include video. Some sites may need to run new cabling, or even beef up power capacity.

Physical Space Considerations

Those video wall collapses I mentioned earlier? They’re a real thing, and they’re the result of organizations failing to take the time to properly assess their physical sites. A site assessment can reveal the weight limits of walls before workers begin installing heavy, expensive displays, averting potential disasters. Other smaller discoveries can also save organizations significant time and hassle. For example, without a site assessment an organization may select equipment that is too large to fit through its doorways. Or, leaders might opt for a tight cluster of displays without considering how much heat the hardware will give off. Site assessments will catch these hurdles before the design process even starts.

Solution Design

Different digital signage solutions have quite different features, characteristics and aesthetics, and it’s important for organizations to select the tools that will help them achieve their goals. Professional services can be enormously valuable for organizations looking to design a flashy lobby installation — or even just looking to install a digital sign that advertises deals to passersby. While two screens may initially look similar, one may be rated for outdoor use while the other is not.

Installation

Getting the installation right is critical, especially for multipanel arrays that are meant to function as one large display. These displays should be seamless, and a tiny mistake in alignment can result in something that looks unprofessional or even off-putting. Even smaller details, such as coordinating the brightness and color of every screen, can mean the difference between “perfect” and “not quite right.” Have you ever been to a sports bar where multiple televisions are showing the same football game, but the colors are all slightly different? Now imagine how obvious these differences would be if the screens were sitting right next to each other, meant to be displaying a unified image.

Maintenance and Support

Like any other piece of technology, digital displays will eventually experience hiccups. But unlike most other technology solutions, many digital signage solutions are public-facing. You don’t want a blank screen — or, worse, an error message — staring out at your customers for long. Also, some digital signage is used in areas, such as command centers, where uptime is more than just a matter of aesthetics. Professional services contracts with options such as same-day, white-glove repair service can help organizations maintain focus on their business, without worrying that their staff will have to spend hours fixing a faulty digital display.