The Digital Signage world has been getting more and more attention lately. In particular the industry segment for Digital Menu Boards seems to have a virtual ground swell. Restaurants of all types and sizes have started to make the move to Digital Menu Boards. There are some surprising things, and many lessons to be learned by the activity up until this point.
Small and Nimble
With Digital Menu Boards, our experience is that the greatest level of activity and adoption has been with the small to medium sized businesses. Larger companies can't seem to wrap their heads around the value, the operational implications or the processes necessary to make the move. Small and medium sized businesses however have seen the value and are quickly integrating Digital Menu Boards into new locations as well as retrofitting legacy locations. We have many clients who have between 1 and 100 locations that have been able to easily deploy Digital Menu Boards. These companies are getting a huge leg up on understanding the impact this technology has on the bottom line.
Test early and often
The biggest thing that we have seen is that experimentation and refinement is critical to maximizing Digital Menu Boards. Companies need to understand that Digital Menu Boards are dynamic, unprecedented testing tools. For example, if a QSR wants to introduce new value pricing, they can quickly put a test into place (in a few locations) to see the consumer response. They can refine their communication approach and quickly perfect it before rolling it out to the rest of their locations. This type of dynamism has never been available to restaurants, and the businesses who understand this are reaping the rewards.
It doesn't need to cost an arm and a leg
One of the things that may be keeping the larger corporations from large scale roll-outs is the perceived cost of deployment. I have heard quotes of 50K to 70K for a single location to deploy Digital Menu Boards. These prices are absurd, and of course would deter most restaurants (particularly QSRs) from deploying this technology. The reality is...The cost of displays has gone down dramatically over the past several years. Connect these displays to cost effective, easy to manage software, and this per location fee goes down to less than a third of those unrealistic numbers. At 15K to 20K per location, it seems like an obvious choice to make the switch for all of the major chains.
It doesn't need to be difficult
There was a day not so long ago where Digital Menu Boards required acquiring special skills or hiring expensive third party services to keep Digital Menu Boards working. This is definitely no longer the case. Systems like ours make it easy for restaurants of any size to quickly take control, and keep costs down. All of our clients manage their own content with very little effort, and can distribute management across an organization of any size.
The bottom line
The reality is that most restaurants, particularly QSRs and Fast Casual Restaurants, will be making the move at some point to Digital Menu Boards. The companies that are doing it now are gaining a huge advantage in understanding the benefits and use of the technology. In this case... the early bird is definitely getting the worm.
