Updates from the Strategy Institute

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Wednesday, November 19, 2008
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, MediaTile has a large presence at Strategy Institute's Building Your Digital Signage Business Summit this year. And a lot of the session conversations has revolved around digital signs in the retail environment.

Lunch, however, was a pleasant surprise. I sat at a table with individuals who are either interested in a corp comm network or already have one in place to help corporate communications. Two people from a VA hospital in Kansas City, MO, installed a network to help get messages to employees first and then families and patients second. One of the screen locations they've found that works best is right dead center between two elevators that employees use. The screen sits right above the up/down button.

Genius. But what's most amazing (and frightening) about this group is that they developed the solution themselves. They did not know that digital signage solutions existed!

Susan PowterAAAAAHHHHHHH! Stop the insansity!!! (Yes, that's Susan Powter.)

I hope this blog helps reach this particular audience to let them know that there's an easy digital signage software and hardware solution out there.

We discussed how difficult it is to measure digital signage ROI in internal communications. Employee surveys are a solid route to go, but the data isn't as reliable as what's found in the retail environment. Defined data can be a sticking point for those requesting it, but we discussed that engagement numbers seem to tell the best story for any ROI "calculation."

Stay tuned sports fans. If anything else comes up, I'll drop in a quick post.

Comments for Updates from the Strategy Institute

Thursday, November 20, 2008 by Paula Cassin:
In terms of measuring digital signage ROI...like Angela Sinickas says, pick a specific project (i.e., efficiency initiative, push to reduce onsite accidents, facility inspections/ratings improvement). Then use digital media to reinforce the information staff need to know, drive them to websites, entice them to enter the competition/take the quiz, educate them... You can then measure something more directly related to business metrics: 1. Better inspection results = less fines, higher rankings 2. Fewer accidents = money saved, better record, etc. 3. More lights turned off/recycling/less waste = money saved... As much as Employee Engagement is valued, it's hard to relate it to dollars which is what you need. Even Employee Retention gets closer to dollars than engagement itself. So I'd suggest you stay on the back of some existing customers and see if you can capture data around a specific initiative! Even better if you've got multiple locations, one with signage and one without...See what difference the signage makes for a single issue. We're doing this now with our desktop software trials - working with prospective customers to run an actual 'campaign' in-house for them. We pick a specific issue, set up visual messages in Snap Comms tools which get sent to the trial group of employees, while simultaneously sending out 'equivalent' messages the traditional way through email/intranet. Measure the results. It's working well. It takes more effort but the resulting numbers are worth their weight in gold.