Customer needs should drive your business plans

When we launched Repeat Signage digital signage software 10 years ago in July of 2009, we had a clear business plan and marketing strategy.

We decided on the education market and in order to prove that the software was so simple to use, we invited school children to design a presentation for their reception area display screen.

To cut a long story short, a primary school in Devon took up the challenge, as a project for their 10 and 11-year old pupils, who enjoyed utilising their computer skills on the Windows based software. They took videos of sports day to add to their presentation, photos of school art work, and even learned how to create RSS feeds to bring live ticker-tape news feeds of their school activities. The school was so pleased with the result, they added this project to their curriculum.

So we had our target market, and soon school IT departments across the UK and US, and even as far afield as the Philippines, were creating their own presentations for their display screens. You may well ask why they didn't just use PowerPoint, which is an excellent graphics software package, and used for slideshow presentations in both the educational and corporate arena.  Digital signage software has additional advantages in that presentations can be scheduled to play at different times of the day or week, and can be updated remotely over the Internet (or the local network or from a website) from almost anywhere in the world. Plus the advert templates allow income to be generated by advertising complementary local services, such as piano teachers or dance studios.

What happened next, completely threw the marketing and business plan out of the window. In business, you have to be ready to adapt. We began to attract customers from many different walks of life, and found the software being used in a variety of applications - we were amazed at how some of the presentations looked, based purely on our customers' imagination.

I use the analogy of musical notes - the same set of notes, yet in different order create musical compositions from classical to pop and a lot in between. It was the same with digital signage presentations. By inserting pictures, rss feeds, videos, audio, animated gifs, documents and other media, presentations were interesting and varied.

So as we reflect on the dawn of our 10th anniversary, we have no specific type of customer, from no specific industry. What we do have are customers across the globe, creating their own digital signage presentations to promote and advertise their own products and services on display screens and video walls, across a multitude of industries.

We love to work with reseller partners who want to offer their customers digital signage solutions, and for example, an AV reseller supplying display screens and media players to their customers, can add Repeat Signage software, giving a total digital signage solution, that is easy to use and update presentations. I call this a win-win business opportunity, as sometimes we are asked if we supply the display screens and as we only stick to what we know best, software development, then we can suggest reseller partners in their area. Plus the success stories we feature help promote other businesses too.

Our business plan for 2019 is to work with new reseller partners who offer IT services, AV equipment or graphic design, or specialise in a niche market, such as care homes, hospitals, finance, hotels, restaurants, etc. We make it easy for you to work with us, as there is no stock to hold (digital download) and we cover 14 hours on week days for free technical email support, which works across most time zones.

Whatever your business plans for 2019, we wish you a very healthy and Happy New Year.

 Pictures show presentation samples - and we're not graphic designers!