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Digital signage was a for a long time considered a pipe dream as the cost of setting up and making the technology were considered to be too prohibitive for the average small business to deploy effectively in their advertising and signage campaigns. That was then; now the technology has become readily available to a whole range of applications in industries as diverse as hospitals, restaurants and the hospitality industry, institutions for both outdoor and indoor advertising. This means that the whole set of solutions are now available at a fraction of the cost that they were a mere decade ago.
In the past, setting up a digital marketing strategy meant that you had to invest a huge amount of money up front without being sure of the returns you’d get. Meaning that the ROI was not well understood or well measurable, you had to entirely rely on a vendor to install the requisite hardware and software to run your digital advertising campaign and in most cases both the hardware and software were unique to the vendor of your choice. Therefore, quite apart from the setting up requiring the skills of a highly specialized contractor, the management too required the input of a professional to make sure that everything was up and running as it ought to.
Software as a Service Platform
The cost of hardware in the form of digital display panels has been going down over the past couple of years and with it the increased uptake of digital signage solutions by the masses. The digital advertising professionals decided to come up with a set of standards, which forced the manufacturers of these displays to come up with a set of solutions that were mutually compatible. This means that the solution set cuts across whole motley of hardware including the digital displays which grace our living rooms as television sets. Secondly, the vendors came up with an internet based platform that is used in the management of digital display solutions. Thus, most vendors offer this solution as a Software-as-a-Service, SaaS platform.
Digital signage software has proven to be the tipping point for digital signage solutions since you can easily manage all your solutions from one central dashboard from anywhere in the world with the only determining factor being access to the internet. These software solutions are highly reliant on templates, which have made it easy for anyone, even those who are technically challenged, to come up with wholesome solutions which are professionally designed and well suited for the particular set of circumstances. At this point in time it is incumbent upon us to come up with a concise definition of the word template.
The Beauty of Templating
A template is quite simply a piece of pre-built software, which provides a pattern as to the digital signage advertisement and its primary distinguishing features. It can be easily and quickly customized to fit into any circumstances that you deem fit. This means that they are off-the-shelf complete digital signage solutions, which allow you to quickly edit all the content, images, texts, audio and visual elements for your purposes and deploy in real time for your particular set of circumstances. The templates are usually clustered together according to the ultimate use that they will be put to. Some of the common scenarios include use in; public spaces, public transport, stadia, retail outlets, restaurants and outdoors.
As such, the software which powers outdoor displays has made the solution an attractive option for many small business owners, thanks to the templates which enable them to edit, alter and deploy novel advertisements in record real-time. The type of software that comes bundled up with the digital solution are many and varied but they all have a couple of things in common, which means that if you master one type you will have mastered all the other types. Their primary defining factors is the ease of use; this means that you can alter the contents of the template with only very little technical skills and you can make the changes using the commonly used utility software from major vendors such as the Open Office and Microsoft Suite of productivity software.
What digital signage software can achieve for you as you design an impressive digital signage solution;
- Text – Most templates come up with a set of text, which is referred to as dummy text in the industry. This is placeholder text which gives you an idea as to how the completed design will look like with your content placed as a substitute. The software allows you to make changes on this dummy text and completely replace it with text that contains your specific message.
- Video and Audio – The editing software makes it easy for you to alter the video and audio according to your needs. You can therefore very easily upload audio or video embedded in any of the common containers and formats such as Mp3, Mp4 for audio-visual content. Thus, not only can you edit the template content but also you can opt to altogether replace the dummy content with your own bespoke creations.
- Images – The images that are bundled with the template can be quickly and easily modified according to your needs and wants. The software has built in capabilities which make it possible for you to alter the images in various formats such as gifs and jpegs for your needs. And it is a fairly straightforward and intuitive process which does not require too much skill on your part.
- Interactive Interfaces – This is what truly separates digital advertisement from the rest of the pack, the ability to easily and quickly combine all the above named formats namely; text, audio, visual and images into one compelling advertisement which has no peer. Couple this with touch screens, which allow for an immersive experience with the user and you have a winning digital signage solution which interacts seamlessly and richly with the user.