How to Use Digital Signage for More Effective Corporate Communications
Effective communication is a key challenge for today’s corporations. A recent study found that people receive an average of 105,000 words, or 23 words per second, every day! How do companies lift their messages above the noise and reach their audience?
Emails are a popular way to share information, but, with people receiving sometimes hundreds a day, are they effective at sharing important information?
The answer to the corporate communication dilemma is digital signage software. By implementing digital signage as a communication tool, organizations open up a new, dynamic way to inform and educate their audiences.
There are a variety of benefits that digital signage software offers corporations:
- Provides visual reminders of key goals. Keeping an organization on track takes effort, and isn’t say-it-once-and-forget-it. Guiding forces like the company mission statement, core values, and company goals need to be reiterated to say at the top of every employee’s mind. With digital signage, leaders are able to enforce these important values in a highly visible, consistent way.
- Extends praise and accolades. Employee recognition is just as important as a raise. Companies can use digital signage software to thank a team member for a job well done, spotlight those who have won awards, and announce important milestones like promotions. There can even be messages welcoming new employees aboard, and acknowledging employee work anniversaries and birthdays.
- Showcases important key performance indicators (KPIs). Nothing increases a cohesive attitude like sharing victories and failures. Companies can accomplish this by sharing progress toward goals, and digital signage is a great vehicle. Using it to announce company information in leadership or departmental meetings, and to audiences throughout the office help everyone stay informed and keep their fingers on the pulse of company performance.
- Facilitates cross-department comparisons. Employees often get buried in tasks that relate to their own department and fail to keep up with what’s developing in other areas of the company. With digital signage, departments can be compared in a visually appealing, easily absorbed way. For example, marketing can be coded as blue, sales green, and IT can be coded as yellow. Graphs and charts can deliver information to all employees, breaking down silos and increasing cooperation across all departments.
- Offers flexibility of templates. Another key benefit digital signage software offers corporate communication is the breadth of messaging it can handle. Messages can be easily earmarked as recognizable depending on who they are from. A certain type of template can signal a message from the CEO, while another would be recognizable as being from the Compliance Department. If you decide to use an outside vendor to write and schedule your messages, you can work with them to design these templates in advance.
- Saves money on printing costs. Posters and flyers hung up around the office tend to look cluttered. In addition, their information quickly becomes obsolete, and they cost money to print. The clutter and expense goes away by using digital signage software in place of printed information. Schedule real-time announcements of information on the digital signage instead of printing it and decrease every department’s printing budget as a result. Plus, it’s less waste of paper and ink, so it’s more earth-friendly.
Using digital signage for corporate communications works well in a variety of ways. Some of the most common instances that corporations have adapted digital signage as part of their communication tactics are:
- Assists visitors. Inform vendors, clients, and job candidates of important information that enhances their experience in your headquarters. Wayfinding is one way companies utilize digital signage to communicate with visitors.
- Spotlight product rollouts. Announcing the dates for rollouts, all the associated events, and selling points of new products helps increase awareness and build excitement. You can also update staff periodically on the progress a new product offering is making in the marketplace.
- Entertain employees. Add digital signage to the kitchen and break rooms. By giving team members a way to turn their brains off from work for a few minutes with videos or games, you allow them to refresh and regroup so they’re even more effective when they go back to work.
- Announce breaking company news. New employees, new company acquisitions, shareholder reports, or other press releases are easily shareable on digital signage. Using this tool to make announcements creates a bigger splash than simply emailing employees the news.
- Showcase employee milestones. Strengthen employee loyalty and give a nod to an inclusive company culture by announcing notable personal employee achievements. Birthdays, a baby’s birth, years in their jobs, or wedding anniversaries are all “feel good” messages to share with everyone in the company. No matter how big the organization, this type of information gives a small company, cohesive feel that people will want to be a part of.
- Track progress toward goals. Watching a goal become closer to reality is exciting and motivating. Using graphs on digital signage to visually convey a company’s progress is a smart and positive way to get employees to give just a little more effort to reaching company initiatives.
- Share local information. There are certain pieces of outside information staff need to know. Issues with traffic, inclement weather, and other local news may be helpful to display on digital signage. This also helps companies get employees in the habit of paying attention to the messages being displayed.
- Honor employee achievements. Last but not least, everyone likes seeing their names in lights. Employee of the month, the sales person who closed the most business, the IT person who fixed a big issue, or the person who saved a top account can all be recognized company-wide via digital signage. Thoughtfully highlighting top performers builds morale and encourages job engagement across departments.
In conclusion, organizations of all sizes need to constantly look for ways to deliver their messages in ways that are memorable, timely, and effective. Digital signage software provides a tool to be able to share information to all employees about a variety of topics that are important for the company’s growth and success. By using digital signage, corporation communication can be more effective and the company’s culture and overall morale benefits from a more open, transparent organization.