Return on investment is a key aspect of deciding whether an outdoor digital signage campaign is worthwhile going ahead with. And while it can be difficult to evaluate the return you are getting, requiring time for the campaign to be assessed.
One aspect of the investment, however, can be ascertained accurately: the set-up costs.
It is essential before embarking on an outdoor campaign to calculate the entire set-up cost, that way you are more able to ascertain the likely return if you know how much it costs to start-up in the first place.
And if you are looking to make savings by calculating the start up costs you can often find methods of saving money. Often though, when totting up the costs of an outdoor digital signage project it can be very easy to overlook several aspects which can reduce the return on investment. So to help you, here is a list of items that should be calculated and possibilities of where savings can be made:
Screens A good high brightness screen is required. An outdoor digital signage screen has to cope with the brightness of the sun so a high nit value is required. Outdoor screens are very expensive but you can get away without one if you have a good LCD enclosure see below for protection.
Content Player These can vary from tiny devices to a full PC that is networked
Protection if going for an outdoor screen, it will still need to be protected from vandalism and theft try an outdoor LCD enclosure which will protect from impacts as well as providing weatherproofing.
Mounting often forgotten about but the screen will need to be attached to something.
Installation another cost often overlooked; it's not worth doing it yourself unless you really know what you are doing.
Maintenance/Repair another overlooked cost but unforeseen problems can occur and need to be calculated for.
Content Creation Again, only attempt yourself if you know what you are doing (not just technically but you need some knowledge of advertising to know what will work and what will not.