Thinking Ahead: Planning for a Corporate Communications Network

When it comes to planning for a new signage network, where do you begin? Starting a new digital signage network (DSN) can seem a little daunting, from figuring out screen or array placement, the hardware, the content workflow, and let’s not forget the content creation. There are many moving parts that ensure you have the best communication tool in your comms arsenal. Follow along as we list out some of the things that really do require a "measure twice / cut once" outlook:

Who is your audience?

This is the first thing that you need to answer. Are you looking to communicate with the entire company? People in a factory? Senior management? Defining who you are communicating with will allow you to move forward with how and where you communicate with them. Keep in mind that you may be communicating with multiple groups of people simultaneously (for example, senior managers and factory workers), and must tailor your DSN strategy to reflect those audience profiles.

What are you communicating?

As basic as this question sounds, there are multiple levels to it: Think of it in terms of content "buckets" - for example, corporate and/or local comms, events, weather, lifestyle, news, etc. When referring to who your audience is, look at each group and list out what kinds of information they need to see, as well as what additional content they will want to see. In other words, look at what content needs to be communicated, and look at what specific content will resonate with that particular group.

You now have a baseline…. What's next?

Now is the time to start planning who needs to see what content when they need it. To do that, look at one group at a time. As an example, let's assume you are targeting your corporate workers at head office. What does their typical day look like? When they arrive in the morning, they wouldn't really need to know drive times, transit schedules, or that type of content. However, when they are starting their day may be the best time to schedule a corporate and local comms-heavy content rotation. During the workday, you may want an equal mix of comms and lifestyle content, sprinkled with some events. And in the evenings transit, driving, and weather may be most appropriate. Do this for every group.

Where are you communicating?

Now comes the time to think about your physical screen locations. Are there screens that target specific groups? Are all screens "equal opportunity" players? This will help you shape your content rotation and content schedule based on which groups are looking at which screens and when they are looking at them.

Want to talk tech?

Think about the ways that you will communicate with your team. Do you already have blogs or other sources of content that you can use to automatically add pertinent content to your screens? What do those data sources look like? What are the best tools to leverage that content to your screens? Are there videos? Do you need a workgroup and approval system? Answering these questions can help define what hardware and what signage platform should be used for your specific needs.

By which ways and which means?

There are many other ways of creating a comprehensive picture of your audience and their needs, but the steps above should give you a good starting point. Additional, more in-depth means of targeting the right content to the right audience can include tools like surveys, focus groups, and many other tools that will not only help plan out a new network, but help gather metrics when the time comes to review audience engagement and ROI over a period of time.

If you are looking to learn more on how to handle your digital signage network, have a look at our online courses. We also offer a large selection of subscription content that can help increase your reach and capture a larger audience. Telecine can help you use these tools, coupled with our many years of experience in the field. Reach out anytime for help by clicking here.