Location, Location, Location

In real estate, the saying goes, the three most important things for a valuable property are location, location, location. Your house may be beautiful, but if it is in a run-down, crime-ridden neighborhood, you may not be able to sell it for a high price compared to a nicer area.

With a digital signage system, you can choose where you display your messages and what other content delivery mechanisms you use to reach your target audience. This guide gives tips on deciding the best digital signage location to display your messages.

Start your digital signage location evaluations by understanding your target audience. For example, are your messages for employees, management, clients, new hires, or some combination? The members of your target audience need segmentation to analyze the places where you are likely to get their attention.

Sophisticated messaging delivers the relevant messages to the appropriate groups that you target. Instead of deciding where the monitors should go to display messages, first, determine where the members of your target audience are likely to be found.

Place displays in areas with high foot traffic to get the most attention. These areas may be places that people frequently pass through on the way to somewhere, such as hallways.

If you want your messages seen, use more than one display. A good rule of thumb is to have a monitor display within about ten to 15 feet of everyone in your target audience who uses a specific room.

If you want your messages to be seen by the average person walking by, place the display at eye level. This height depends on the physical characteristics of your target audience. For example, children's eye level is much lower than that of adults.

The most common mistake is placing a display high up on a wall in a place where it is easy to ignore.

Track your eye movements as you scan a room. You can test this by holding a video camera at your eye level and turning it with your head as you move. Think about how a person normally scans a room and where they might look. Test your theories by trying this test using people unfamiliar with what you are doing and perhaps using digital signage mockups.

Guide the eyes by your placement of the message displays. For example, if you want people to be careful not to fall down a flight of stairs, do not put a flashing "watch your step" sign high above the entrance to the stairs. Instead, put it down low to attract the eyes to the place you want them to see to avoid an accident.

A captive audience is in a location where they cannot avoid seeing your message displayed, such as in an elevator, entryway, or place where people stand in line.

For example, you may place a display monitor(s) outside a cafeteria if normally a line forms during lunchtime at the entryway. People may hear and see such monitor(s) while waiting in line, as opposed to the messages getting lost in the noise and activity inside the cafeteria.

If you plan to use any text in your messages, the font must be large enough to be readable from the distance you expect a viewer to see it. The viewer has to have a clear line of sight to see the display monitor(s). It may be helpful to use various display monitors of increasing size.

For example, you may have a small monitor in the center of a table and a larger one showing the same message on the wall.

• Supporting Columns and Interior Walls: Digital signage on walls can be flush at eye level or positioned at an angle to face the target audience. A common placement is a high-traffic area that customers pass through while browsing in a store.
• Endcaps: Endcaps are at the end of each aisle. One use of this area is to place a small digital screen with content related to nearby things. The content may include a product demo or a sales offer. These screens may use a motion sensor to start playing and allow interactive control by customers.
• Free-Standing Displays and Kiosks: These displays and kiosks work well in any high-traffic area, except for the first few feet after entering a store. Those first few feet are the decompression zone because visitors pass through it to adjust to the new environment. Once past the decompression zone, visitors are more likely to use screens.
• Waiting Areas, Checkouts, or Customer Service Areas: The content displayed in these areas should be upbeat and entertaining to shorten the perceived waiting time.
• Break Rooms: Messages on display in breakrooms help establish and maintain the company culture.
• Work Areas: Displays in work areas help engage employees

When using a digital signage system, you want to make sure your content is compelling, information is accurate and relevant, and that your messages display properly in places where they are likely to be seen by your intended audience.

For example, if all your work happens at clients' sites and the work crews rarely visit the home office, putting up information about on-the-job safety on screens in the company headquarters would be pointless.

The Marketing Rule of 7's says that the average person needs to see the same message at least seven times to recall any part of it and maybe 20 or more times to take action. This strategy does not mean you should blast the same boring message repeatedly. Instead, you want to present messages that are similar in the message content but unique in presentation.

For example, diversity is interesting, so you may use a wide range of people from different cultures and ethnic backgrounds to present the same message.

We are ready to assist you with planning, designing, building, and deploying your digital signage system. Book a free consultation.