How to Offer Digital Signage to Your Clients

By Web Design | 2 comments | Web Development

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Have You Considered Offering Digital Signage?

Very few Web design firms offer digital signage even though their customers could benefit from it.  If you’re a Web design firm keep reading as I dig into the opportunity and how to capitalize on it.

Web design firms with clients or prospective clients that have stores, professional offices, or any physical location where customers visit, have an opportunity to add to their service offering.

Digital signage has been around for quite a few years, but recently local businesses have been looking to digital signage for their physical locations. The signage offers restaurants, dentist offices, retail stores, and many other local companies the opportunity to market their message while the people are waiting, shopping, or enjoying a drink at the bar.

The issue these companies have is figuring out how to get started with digital signage.

That’s where you come in.

The Digital Signage Opportunity

The key to growing your Web design firm is to grow your client base while increasing the number of products and services for existing clients.

Digital signage presents a great upsell opportunity for your local clients.

You may not realize it, but you already possess the skills necessary to create amazing signage.  The design of the signage is similar to website design and development. Signage is a simple add-on service that offers opportunity for you to grow the company and increase revenue.

Digital signage is not offered by many Web design firms at this point. You can differentiate your business  by bundling digital signage services along with your current web design offering. It’s a great way to expand your services and stand out as unique and not a “me too” firm.

What Is Digital Signage?

You’ve probably seen examples of digital signage before. The typical signage display involves a monitor located in a common area of local business. The monitor looks like a TV, but the use is for digital signage content created with the goal of providing information for the people watching.

One example would be the waiting room at a local restaurant. A monitor could feature that day’s specials and even mouth watering photographs of the entrees.

A second example would be at a sports bar. There could be a digital monitor next to the television screen so patrons could view the fantasy football and scoring updates on the digital sign while watching the game on the big screen. Drink and food specials could also be displayed on the digital sign. As patrons watch the stats scroll across the screen they can also see the happy hour deals enticing them to order another glass of cold beer or a delicious appetizer.

There are countless uses for digital signage. I’m sure the wheels are spinning in your head now thinking about your current clients and how they could benefit from adding digital signage.

Here are some more examples:

Restaurant

College or University

Basic Company
Why Customers Need Digital Signage

Local businesses need digital signage to convert their traffic into customers. Many marketing activities focus on getting customers into a place of business. TV ads, radio ads, and other marketing is effective at getting people in the door, but once people are there it’s just as important to convert them into customers.

This is where digital signage comes in.

Digital signage gives businesses the opportunity to provide useful information while increasing the value of a customer.

Digital signage is a great service for you to offer your clients. Most might not even realize the opportunity they’re missing out on and would be excited to work with you on their signage strategy.

How to Create Digital Signage

Rise Vision is a free open source, HTML based platform for creating digital signage. You can create a free account and use the platform and templates to create your first digital presentation. The platform is easy to use and similar to other web content management systems you have worked with in the past.

There is lots of flexibility with the platform. You incorporate dynamic social media feeds into presentations. You can customize templates in Photoshop to create custom signage content consistent with your clients brand image.

How to Display and Setup Digital Signage

The most common question people have about offering digital signage is installation and setup at the business locations.

A monitor or monitors are needed as well as hanging hardware. A media player is required to for playing the content on the display.

There are people almost anywhere that have experience installing displays at local businesses. You can focus on the design and development of the presentations while someone else handles the installation at your customer’s location. To find recommended partners (see: Partners) that assist with installation and development for any and all digital signage.

How to Charge for Digital Signage Services

Digital signage is like designing a separate website for a client. You can charge for the initial design and development as well as the ongoing updates and changes required. The customer will likely want updates made on a schedule just as they do for their website.

You can charge by the update or you could include the signage as part of an ongoing package plan. This could include the design updates, content updates, and any support requirements.

Digital signage is a great way for your design and development firm to expand and grow. It’s a service few are offering, giving you the opportunity to differentiate from the competition while providing your local customers with something that can increase their sales and add value to the end consumer.

Are you interested in digital signage?

Sign up for a free account at Rise Vision and start exploring the possibilities.

About the author: Todd Hemme is a Director at Rise Vision, a free digital signage Web platform. See more great digital signage examples at the Rise Vision Template Gallery.