Image credit: Images_of_Money, Flickr
So you think you’ve got a solid business plan for your digital signage install. You might have already sorted out the tactics of the project such as the hardware and software you need, the content you want to display and the team that will manage the system. The only thing you need to do now is convincing your Manager/CEO that this is a worthwhile investment. Ouch. Is this a panic-inducing idea? Well, for all of those struggling with getting funding here is a list of questions you should be prepared to answer when facing your board.
What inspired us: McKinsey’s questions for board members considering the adoption of a new digital technology, questions that your Manager or CEO might be reading right now…
Without further ado- here they are and good luck!
1) How is your new digital signage solution going to help you win against traditional and new competitors? A faster delivery of information to the interested parties, more agility in responding to external circumstances or access to a different audience can all be factors that grant you a competitive edge over competition. Whatever those might be, they should be clearly identified right from the start (depending on your organisation’s circumstances). The answers to this question will help you clarify the purpose of the system and ‘’sell’’ the investment to your management.
2) How will digital signage improve your operational agility? IT systems in general help businesses implement, speed up or change certain processes at low risk and costs. When it comes to digital signage, this system can help your business decrease the time to market for new products, services or brand messages by allowing you to push out new content in almost real-time (hence making you more agile than your competitors).
Make sure your digital signage supplier is also agile enough to respond quickly to your requirements and support you in your journey so you can adjust and update your solution quickly.
3) Will it help you meet and exceed your customers’ expectations? Think about the ways in which your digital information displays will improve the lives of those watching them. 
– Will they provide access to information to those that don’t have it (not everyone has access to emails or phones all the time), help people make a decision, inform them about products and services they need when they’d want to know about them?
The entire project must be thought out with your audience in mind right from the beginning. If it brings them no benefit they won’t care about it no matter how much money you put into it. At the end of the day, most people have their smartphones and tablets with them- a great source of information and entertainment that you have to compete with to gain their attention.
4) Are you aware of all that the technology has to offer? For your plan to leverage the full potential of the technology and increase its ROI, you must have a thorough understanding of the different ways in which digital signage can be used. Besides automating communications (digital signage software like digitalsignage.NET allows you to display certain messages at a certain time of the day and week for a set amount of time), digital information displays can be used to:
– stream live videos from special events;
– displays social media and other RSS feeds and web pages to keep content fresh all the time;
– connect your digital screens to your EPOS or third party system to display messages based on variations in certain factors (stock levels, weather & temperature etc.)
Image credit: return the sun, Flickr
The flexibility of this marcomms channel allows you to use your digital advertising screens for a variety of purposes. This implies that the investment could confer several streams of revenue, an enhanced ROI, an idea that will only please your board.
Here are some ideas of goals that your digital signage solution could serve, besides your main ones:
– support a cause and/or charity
– selling advertise space and generating extra-revenue
– streamlining a process (like communicating to your non-wired employees).
– decreasing the amount of paper your organization consumes or the email overload we all struggle with nowadays.
5) What are the skills you need to set up the best digital signage system you can. Do you have them in-house? Beware of the weak links before the 
project sets off and fix them in time before they affect the bottom line. A weak Wi-Fi signal, poor or no content creation skills or insufficient staff can compromise your investment and make the technology useless. So ask yourself:
– What are the potential bottlenecks threatening your digital signage install?
– How can you overcome them?
– Are you able to manage them if they appear later on in the process?
Making a SWOT analysis and coming up with solutions to potential issues will prove that you know what you’re talking about and you’ve done your homework, making your CEO more willing to entrust you with the money that the project requires.
6) Are you comfortable with the level of risk involved by your investment? The truth is that sometimes things can go wrong. Unforeseen circumstances like natural disasters, financial problems can compromise your system’s ROI (and bring it to zero). Be aware of the level of risk involved.
Hopefully, the answers to these questions will help you ‘’sell’’ your idea inside your company, mitigate risks better, use the system to gain ground against your competition and squeeze any goodness you can out of your investment. The specific context of your company will potentially shed a different light on these aspects, bring up different new ones and determine the importance each will have in the grand scheme of things.
If you’ve got any ideas of questions that our readers should answer to show that they have what it takes to launch their digital signage project, please help them out by sharing them below. Learn more about digital signage by downloading our white papers or by requesting a free consultation.
About Dynamax
We are one of the longest standing digital signage companies worldwide and for more than a decade we have put every effort into developing best-of-breed digital signage software solutions, able to meet the communication needs of organisations large and small. Here are a few companies that we’ve recently helped with their marcomms.
