The SCREENS.tv Blog

Signage for Small Businesses? (2)

 

Technology is spreading. Over the last decade, scores of once-niche hi-tech gadgets and peripherals have become commonplace. Mobile phones are no longer the preserve of Filofax-wielding yuppies, games aren’t geeky any more, almost everyone has a home computer with internet access and multifunction printers have brought photocopying facilities into the home. Maybe digital signage could be the next niche technology to spread…

There’s more to captive-audience advertising than 42” plasma screens and professionally-produced presentations. You don’t need acres of wall space for a stupidly-expensive monitor, and nor do you need Steven Spielberg to carry your message. If you’ve a business where the public is allowed onto your premises, you can maintain a perfectly practical signage display with nothing more expensive than a digital photo frame.

Although designed for use in the home, displaying an ever-changing series of pictures taken on your digital camera, digital photo frames make an ideal low-budget signage solution. These days you can get a decent-quality unit, which can handle sound and short movie clips as well as jpegs, for around £50-£100. With a little work on your PC, you can then create high-quality advertising for your business, save it to the required memory source (usually an SD card) and loop it on your digital photo frame – much more practical than, say, playing a PowerPoint presentation directly off a computer.

Digital photo frames are useful for businesses of any size, even your local newsagents; it’s a great way to tell your customers Kit-Kats are two pence cheaper or you offer free delivery on newspapers and magazines. Much more exciting than day-glo paper and a marker pen.

Don’t overdo it, though. Shouting your message over migraine-inducing flashes of colour irritates your customers and drives your staff to distraction. Mostly-silent presentations, with the odd sound effect to herald particularly-important screens, work much better. You can start by looping a few jpeg graphics created in your picture editor of choice, and as you grow in competence and ambition, add some short movie stings or product demos. It’s fun!

It’s been said that Web 2.0 has empowered the ordinary man in the street to become their own publisher or documentary maker, with online blogs and YouTube videos reaching a potential audience of billions. With the same tools, you could create digital presentations previously only available to the biggest of businesses. Signage 2.0 begins here, folks…

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