Why Digital Signage is a Must-Have for Internal Communications

Are you missing out on a powerful communication tool that's often overlooked? If you've been struggling to grab and maintain your workforce's attention when broadcasting internal messages or trying to share information without straining your resources, then digital signage might be the solution you're looking for. In this article, we'll explore 6 reasons why digital signage can improve your internal communications strategy.

What is digital signage?

Digital signage involves using screens (or digital signs) throughout your workplace – whether that’s around the office, warehouse, retail store, distribution centre, or more – to communicate information to employees. To start sharing internal communications messages on a digital signage screen, you'll need three essential ingredients: a screen, digital signage software, and your internal comms team!

We all know that static images can quickly become stale and fail to capture attention. That's why digital signage, with its dynamic and visually engaging nature, is such an attention-grabbing communication channel.

6 reasons why digital signage is an essential communication channel for internal communications

1. Draw attention and increase employee engagement

Digital signage increases employee engagement by delivering dynamic, lively content that attracts and holds people’s attention.

If you’re struggling to drive traffic to your intranet or SharePoint pages digital signage screens can help by making employees feel more engaged with the content displayed on the screens. When your screens display content that directs employees to intranet pages, it can pique their interest and encourage them to visit those pages for more information.

Additionally, you can use digital signage screens to promote new content on your organisation’s intranet, such as company news, updates, new hires, leavers, or training materials. By displaying snackable snippets of the content on the screens, your workforce may be more likely to search for the full content on the intranet.

2. Doesn’t add to distractions

Attention is a premium in the workplace. Digital signage is unobtrusive, delivering high-value messages to your workforce without the need to open another email or chat, or navigating to the intranet.

Place screens in high traffic areas like canteens or cafeterias, break rooms and hallways so your workforce will see the message repeatedly yet still remember what they see.

Sharing the same content on repeat won’t do you any favours though; there is a right way and a wrong way of using repetition to leverage your internal communication. The wrong way would be to repeat the same message, word for word, across all your communication channels, non-stop. It’ll quickly turn into background noise and ignored. The right way to use repetition is to use spaced repetition to space out the delivery of your messages over time. Start with a higher frequency to begin with, then reduce the frequency over several months.

With our digital signage software solution, you won’t have to worry about scheduling spaced repetition for their messages as our solution has slides that have that capability built in. Just load all your messages and let it work its magic.

3. Efficient and effective

With one digital signage screen, you can reach many employees. Strategically placed screens around the office or workplace make it easy for employees to access your comms. This is especially relevant if your organisation has a dispersed workforce – it allows you to engage effectively with non-wired and non-desk staff such as production workers, couriers, maintenance crew and more. By placing screens in the right areas, you can significantly increase reach and engagement with all employees.

4. Share updates in real-time

Unlike printing out newsletters, corporate magazines, or sending out email blasts, digital signage allows you to make updates in real time. It’s the ideal platform for sharing time-sensitive information like emergency updates, the weather forecast, exchange rates, news articles and more. Most digital signage solutions allow you to integrate with popular workplace apps to pull data to your screens.

5. Target the right audience

A good internal communications plan will always have a specific audience in mind. Whether it’s to the wider company, the sales teams, or a regional office, digital signage will allow you to tailor messages to specific departments and locations. For Vibe users, it’s as simple as creating your slides, setting a schedule, and assigning it to playlists.

6. A flexible communication channel

Most digital signage content management systems will allow you to create and deliver a wide range of content such as images, video, text, and livestream – the best ones will even include templates to help speed up your workflow.

Digital signage has the flexibility to quickly and easily change content. For example, noticed a mistake on the health and safety reminder? It’s easy to edit the message and have your changes reflected in real-time.

The flexibility and versatility of digital signage makes it the ideal platform for sharing news, announcements, company updates and more.

In summary

Most internal communicators struggle with getting their workforce’s attention yet don’t want to add another disruptive communication channel because there’s already enough corporate noise drowning out their messages.

In this article, we’ve covered six reasons why digital signage is a powerful tool to have in your communication mix. Used properly, it can transform the way you capture attention, engage with your workforce, and share top-down messages. And it doesn’t have to come at the cost of your team’s time or budget – talk to our experts to see how digital signage can work for your organisation.