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Many companies are beginning to utilize cloud-based content management solutions to manage their digital signage content. In some cases, a cloud-based system can deliver not just better content but also a better customer experience through greater control, dynamic capabilities and easier rollout.

Greater Control

The first major benefit, according to Mike Tippets, vice president of enterprise marketing and organizational development at Hughes, is the ability to control as many displays as you need, whether you have a few LCD panels or thousands of displays.

There are a variety of ways cloud-based solutions can manage content. Many use playlists that users can push to individual or multiple displays. Others use a tagging system that, “lets the administrator simply tag content to display (or not) on a particular screen, set of screens, at a certain time and for a specific duration,” Tippets said.

Other features that help improve control include:

• Health checks to make sure all displays are running.
• Store and forward features which can continue to play content even if the internet goes down.
• Non-peak bulk updates.
• Dynamic capabilities.

Dynamic Content

Cloud-based solutions, if used properly, can also deliver more dynamic content, according to Tippets.

“A cloud-based solution is the best way to integrate dynamic content into a digital signage system. Hughes system will update dynamic information every time the content is displayed or on a pre-set schedule (e.g., once every four hours). The most dynamic content, of course, is live TV — and through our partnership with Dish, we can push out live programming at the click of a mouse,” Tippets said.

He also pointed out how systems can integrate a variety of dynamic content such as weather, social media streams and more. Cloud-based systems can pull content from sources such as a public URL, RSS feed or an API.

The real reason to use dynamic content is to deliver a story, according to John Jordan, chief customer officer at Total Wine and More, a wine, beer and spirits retailer.

“At Total Wine and More, our job is to tell a story — we believe that facts tell, but stories sell — and digital signage allows us to tell the story that brings the wine, beer or spirits producer to the customer as if they were there. Digital signage gives us the flexibility to leverage content from producers in a combined and coordinated effort, with content that we create internally,” Jordan said. “With four screens in each of more than 190 locations, we have a range of material that we want to display, depending on time of day and whether or not we are featuring a particular product or region, and with digital signage we can do this quickly, easily and with full confidence in compliance.”

Make rollout easier

For big retailers with multiple locations or even just large stores, it can be a challenge to deploy digital signage, especially since each display needs to be set up with hardware, software and a media player, not to mention the content.

For these larger rollouts, cloud-based content management can make it easier to get it up quickly and deliver interesting content to customers, according to Jordan.

“We were provided with logins and passwords for our various users and can make changes to any TV in any store, remotely. This also means that deployment in new stores is easy; we are up and running within a day rather than weeks of technical planning, security reviews and other necessary IT steps,” Jordan said.

Jordan pointed out that by selecting a cloud-based solution, Total Wine was able to focus more on content production to boost customer engagement and sales, rather than in technical planning.

By saving time on technology, retailers can get back to what’s really important: selling their brands.

Source : www.digitalsignagetoday.com