This year’s ABA marketing conference was in Minneapolis, MN from September 13th-15th and for the 7th year running Captive was an exhibitor. Like every other year, there were many digital signage vendors and we fielded the age old question “How are you different from so and so?”
I think this subject is relevant for any customer in the market for Digital Signage, bank or otherwise. I remember walking the floor at InfoComm this past June and feeling confused and frustrated by the way each digital signage company seemed to blend into the next. Let’s face it, as much as each company tries to differentiate itself from the other, the goal remains identical. It is to get impactful media on a screen via a web based application in the easiest and least resource intensive way possible.
The problem with my goal summarization is that although true, it is very broad and vague to a consumer. With this in mind, I’m going to make a few suggestions on how a financial institution in particular might go about trying to decide on the best vendor for their digital signage initiative.
- Viability- The digital signage industry is growing at a rapid pace and because of this, it is an attractive entry point for many businesses, both big and small, that want to find a growth engine. In many respects this is a good thing because it keeps companies like Captive on our toes and ensures competitive pricing and features. The bad news is it can lead to poorly supported and executed systems that quickly become expensive and quite likely go unused. Be sure to check out the company you are purchasing from and get lots of references. If they don’t have an installation near you and can’t come up with some solid references, leave it to the next guy to be the case study.
- Experience- I may be partial but I think vertical experience from a vendor is more important in the banking space than elsewhere. Simply put, the financial industry is a tough place to do business of late and unless your vendor understands your challenges intimately and can explain to you how their solution is going to address your specific needs, you may want to look elsewhere. The reality is that there are several hundred vendors in the digital signage space but really only just a few that are recognizable brands in the financial industry. Use resources like the ABA exchange if you are a Bank or CUNA marketing if you are a Credit Union and ask your colleagues for vendors. If your vendor can’t come up with more than a couple customer references and explain to you what REG-E stands for, you probably don’t want them.
- TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)- During the ABA tradeshowmy explanation of the above question was that our goal at Captive is to deliver the lowest TCO to our customers as possible. In my opinion, the biggest cost driver of digital signage is not the software but the time it takes to learn and use the application as well as the price to create content that goes on the screen. Our customers spend less than 5 hours each month on average in our software and we think that is a good thing. As for content, Captive and several other providers in the financial space offer a wealth of content specific to the industry. This is important particularly for the Community Bank or Credit Union where the Marketing Director often wears multiple hats and is stretched thin on resources from both human and finance perspectives. Make sure your vendor has a full time content creation staff with industry experience. This will save you a lot of money in the long run.
- Support- As with any successful industry, there are many vendors of digital signage software that do not own the software like Captive does but choose to be a reseller. Clearly there is nothing wrong with this but it is an important thing to know before you purchase. As I mentioned above, there are literally hundreds of software applications in the marketplace but scarce few with any true scale of branch installations. Make sure you know the provider behind your vendor if you choose a reseller. Equally as important as understanding what provider is behind the reseller is to know how long the reseller has been working with the software provider. If the reseller has jumped from product to product in the last couple of years, that is probably a bad sign. Conversely, if you are talking directly to the software company, you need to know how often they update their product. At Captive, we are constantly making improvements but I know of many companies that have not done significant updates in years.
- Consulting- Many people think of digital signage as a magical instrument that once installed is sure to draw the eyeballs of every customer as if they had been desperately seeking this form of advertising their entire lives. And while many customer do get luck by simply throwing up a screen with content, it is important to have a provider that can walk you through screen placement, content creation and maintain an ongoing dialogue about the success of the installation. If your vendor can’t help you decide where to put the screen and then implement a method to judge success, you probably want to look elsewhere.
Those are just a few ideas but ones that will certainly add context to the decision of an interested customer in the financial industry looking for digital signage.
