Andy Shevak, Manager of Digital Signage

I recently sat down with Andy Shevak, ASI’s Manager of Digital Signage, to have a conversation about the field of digital signage and how its technology and uses are expanding dramatically. We spoke about a variety of topics including the role that digital signage sales consultants should serve in working with clients and how clients, who are considering digital signage solutions, can benefit from determining their needs prior to speaking with a digital signage provider.

Andy Shevak, who has been with ASI since 2010, has an extensive digital background having worked as a buyer of consumer electronics for several top consumer electronics retailers. He has developed a network of partners over the years, which has enabled ASI to deploy best in class digital signage solutions for our clients. This is the first of several posts that will share Andy’s insights into the evolving technology, uses and deployment of digital signage.

Create List of Digital Signage Functions

Digital signage continues to evolve and the number of clients wanting to include digital signage as part of their signage solutions is expanding rapidly. Before meeting with a sales consultant Andy recommends that clients create a list of functions they want digital signage to accomplish within their organization. What are their digital signage goals? Digital signage has a wide variety of uses from communicating information to employees throughout their facility (and in some cases throughout facilities located around the world) to providing information to customers, visitors, students, suppliers and others.

Digital Signage Communicates Internally with Employees

Digital signage is an impactful way to communicate with employees in one location or many locations worldwide. Historically, such communications have been shared via printed (sometimes even handwritten) signs displayed in a variety of ways from memos posted in break rooms to flyers taped by elevators to posters shown on easels in hallways and other public spaces. Printed employee messages often are not professional in appearance, take time to produce and post, and often are taken down inadvertently and frequently not removed when they are no longer needed. Furthermore, it is difficult to maintain consistency and control over messages within one and between multiple locations.

Communicating with employees via digital signage has many benefits. Once messages are developed they can be deployed and viewed by employees within minutes. Employees housed in one location or spread worldwide can see exactly the same information at the same time, controlled from one point of origin. Systems can also be developed that allow some messages to be seen system wide as well as other messages being developed to appear in a region and/or a single location allowing combined central, regional and local message control.

Digital Signage Communicates Externally with Customers and Others

Digital signage is an equally powerful communication tool to reach an organization’s customers, visitors, suppliers, students, etc. Digital Signage is all about promoting an organization’s brand. It has to look and feel like the brand and communicate what a client wants to communicate in the manner the client wants to communicate it. Therefore, no two digital signage solutions will be exactly the same. A successful sales consultant should become entrenched in their client’s organization to ensure the development of a digital solution that accomplishes exactly what their client wants.

Digital Signage works in concert with architectural interior and exterior signage benefiting from the incorporation of the same aesthetic. Digital Sales consultants who work for a digital signage provider that also has extensive experience in standard interior and exterior architectural signage regularly work closely with architects and designers to make this happen.

Determine Types of Messages Your Digital Signage Will Deliver

As clients develop their list of their digital signage objectives, Andy recommended that besides addressing sign functions clients should also define the types of messages the signage needs to address both internally with employees and with their external audience. Digital signage utilization opportunities are vast ranging from cafeteria menu boards, wayfinding, and campus wide internal messages (such as parking lot construction updates, holiday celebrations and critical human resources announcements) to information tying in with advertising and marketing promotions. The uses for digital signage are only limited by one’s imagination with new uses constantly developing.

The more clients think through their digital signage goals prior to meeting with a digital signage consultant the better clients will be able to express their digital signage needs. Andy added that the sale of digital signage is very much a consultative sale with deployments ranging from basic to exotic and everything in between. Once consultants understand their client’s needs consultants will then be able to recommend the optimal digital signage solutions to meet their client’s goals.

John Selig
Marketing Manager