Electronic restaurant menus – for any restaurant.

Another interesting concept in the world of technology is the use of electronic restaurant menus. The name of the concept itself seems exciting for the customers, so they can see what is on offer and what each item is in calorific value.  These days where every thing is digital, convenient and handy, developers are coming up with more ways that will help the people to take advantage of their quality time in a more sensible way. The concept of the digital restaurant menus are not that common in the traditional applications. The concept of digital signage is very popular among the people; different companies are opting for the electronic signage for better management on the production floor. There are many other applications that these signage serve such as shopping malls, hospitals, theatres and now the latest and the innovative use of the concept of electronic signage is the electronic restaurant menus.

Electronic restaurant menus – the modern twist?

At times, it so happens that people plan a meal whilst out shopping. It looks good when the staff of the restaurant are ready with the menu and also the prices so that it is easy for the customers to order the food as soon as possible. It is very irritating for the customers to wait for the staff for the menu, being informed of the daily specials and the like, the situation gets on the nerves of the customer. Now there are different LCD menu boards that are placed right at the table and hence one can go through the electronic menus and finalize the order without waiting for someone to come and attend. Digital signage these days have become the talk of the town, every body seeing these boards are now talking about them and appreciating them as well. People are immensely happy with the kind of service that is being offered with the help of these electronic signage systems.

Electronic restaurant menus also reduce queues.

Electronic restaurant menus are like another feather in the cap for restaurant owners. They have done a remarkable, attractive and a very impressive job with the introduction of these LCD menu boards. It is simple unbelievable how developers are coming up with the innovative and interesting concepts for the convenience of the people. People are appreciating this concept and readily using these concepts that will help in the better management in the restaurant, this ensures that when customers reach the pay booth they have decided on their meal and they place their order, so reducing wait times in the queue. Electronic restaurant menu is also one of the great and interesting concepts that have been introduced recently.

LCD Enclosure Global Limited produce a range of digital signage enclosures as well as providing electronic restaurant menus.

Digital menu boards in QSRs overview

Digital menu boards in QSRs are common place, due to the ability of the lcd menu boards of editing and changing content almost immediately, maximising profit and at the same time reducing queues.

Why now for digital menu boards in QSRs?

Digital menu boards in QSRs are increasing due to the new new legislation in the USA that states that all food items on a menu must be correctly labelled with the dietary information. SO imagine the nightmare this brings to a QSR. The quick serve restaurant will have to spend time and money on getting the menus reprinted if they do not go down the route of using digital menu boards.

The issue facing restaurant owners is that when the menu changes, it costs their business in the same vain when seasonal produce is at its most affordable, specials that incorporate the seasonal items cannot be sold unless all the dietary information is displayed, this is both time consuming and labour intensive.

Now compared to digital menu boards in QSRs, the electronic menu boards allow the franchisee to update content immediately and within a matter of 2 minutes a new item can be added tot he menu with all the relevant data to comply with the new legislation.

How to update digital menu boards in QSRs.

These digital noticeboards are updated using two methods and does depend upon the type of digital menu board you have, the most affordable has a built in media player that stores the ads on a memory card that is held within the media player. The other solution is a networked solution this allows for easy configuration using a network enabled media player that stores the adverts on a hard drive, the hard drive can play most content including Flash content.

Either way updating content is fast, however the network solution is ideal when a chain of QSRs have deployed digital menu boards and they want to update the ads throughout the chain across a country.

These electronic advertising players can be mounted in either portrait or landscape depending upon the area you can set aside for your digital menu, they also have mounting fastenings on the rear of they can be wall mounted or ceiling mounted above the checkout so that customers can see what is on offer whilst they are queue in line.

The software on the network media player allows for the screen to be split so various items can be displayed on one screen and supports numerous formats of content.

LCD Enclosure Global Limited produce a range of outdoor LCD enclosures as well as supplying digital menu boards in QSRs.

Digital menu boards and funding.

Digital menu boards have seen a fast growth due to the recent bill passed by the US Federal government, now learn how these digital menu boards are being used and also learn how some organizations are getting them from grants from the US government.

Case study of digital menu boards and their applications.

A Mississippi based Deli, McAllister’s Corp. operates a chain of 300 Quick Serve Restaurants throughout the USA, the management took the remodeling opportunity to remove the clutter static menu boards that increased wait times in the queues with digital menu boards.

The issues customers had is when they entered any outlet of this Deli, they were met with a wall of food choices, using a minimum of 13 static menu boards across the front counter. The management realized that the choice was too much and by the time the customer got to the counter to place an order they still had not made up their mind.

WAND offered a solution that reduced wait time and boosted profits! This solution could be updated using the Internet to cover the entire chain to update content and to advertise daily specials. The solution increased business on an average of $300 per week and would pay for itself in 12 months. The test locations saw a huge rise in sales of specific items, such as a 51% spike for Buffalo chicken.

Funding digital menu boards.

Funding is one of the main issues with investing in new technology, now Jackson City Council has approved $50K of grant funding for use within local businesses to either grow or to retain staff, during these hard times.

One baker planned to purchase $10,000 of computer controlled digital menu boards, allowing the bakery to promote more items and to increase their turnover. These will replace the static menu boards and will comply to the new bill for menu labeling.

The council has over US$350K to give out and to support local businesses, so if you work in the Jackson City limits, you need to apply as soon as possible before the pot is empty, this way you could have state of the art digital menu boards in your quick serve restaurant at no cost to you. Some areas can apply for either $15K or $10K depending on their location in Jackson.

Digital menu boards come in numerous guises.

There are 2 main digital menu board solutions, these are either standalone or network enabled.

Standalone digital menu boards – these have a USB media player built into the rear of the screen and stores the content on a CF memory card within the player.

Network digital menu boards – these as the name suggests have a hard drive attached and the content can be controlled from any location, any where in the world.

LCD digital menu boards are available in sizes from 32” up to a huge 65”.

LCD Enclosure Global Limited manufacture a range of LCD enclosures as well as supplying various digital menu boards.

Outdoor digital advertising – measuring success.

Outdoor digital advertising is modern way to promote a brand, company or product, but it is essential to be able to measure digital signage solutions for their success.

Outdoor digital advertising solutions.

These solutions are unique in that they are robust enough to withstand the outdoor climate, so if the weather drops to a finger number sub zero temperature in winter and a roasting 130 Fahrenheit in the summer. The main components are usually some form of screen, a media player and an LCD display enclosure to protect the hardware from the extreme weather, as the extreme climates can harm the outdoor digital advertising solutions.

Monitoring outdoor digital signage.

But one thing is for certain, for an outdoor digital signage solution to succeed, the integrator needs to be able to demonstrate to the advertising client who and what type of people they are marketing too. Previously, this has been done with people noting down the demographics that the digital content attracted, however this was costly in both time and money, now outdoor digital advertising can be monitored and recorded.

One solution to monitor outdoor digital advertising campaigns.

If the advertising campaigns are not monitored, they could for your clients knowledge be in low foot fall area, resulting in a poor ROI (Return On Investment). There is a software solution that does all you need and more and you can even provide your clients with up to date data on who is viewing their digital adverts. Using this software takes the guess work out of who to target with the adverts.

How does the software work – tracking the outdoor digital advertising campaigns.

Simply a standard web camera or IP camera is fitted to the screens and then when anyone walks past and stops, it records their sex, how long they viewed the ad and even if they just carried on walking. This way the advertiser can target the age group and sex more efficiently, making the marketing campaign laser targeted.

The cost for the software is certainly an excellent investment as well as a good tool to demonstrate to clients how their adverts are being received by the target audience. Now the advertisers can tweak their ads to make them more successful and book knowledge of their product, brand or company.

A trial of the software can be downloaded here so give it a try and report back on how you found it.

LCD Enclosure Global Limited offer a wide range of digital signage solutions from LCD enclosures to digital menu boards for outdoor digital advertising.

Outdoor event signage – the options.

It would be a good idea to use outdoor event signage for promoting either a sports or leisure event. While this will help in encouraging new customers in order to take benefits of the special deals or to find out that an event is going on. Outdoor signage will help in providing encouragement. Digital signage is making use of plasma, projector or LCD screens which is hooked up to the computer to convey messages to the public. The messages that are on the digital events signage can be informative or commercial based on the intention of the owner and so for the targeted audience. Outdoor event signage will be really helpful in improving the efficiency of the business. The screens that will have messages may range from 12 inches to any size depending upon the purpose and application.

Conveying outdoor event signage message.

Outdoor events are very special because they are placed outside and can be in any climate. These outdoor event signage need to be given special care in many areas so that to make sure the visitors remain comfortable. The main aspects that need to be considered are the weather. In any season whether it is spring, summer, and winter or fall the events are planned a bit earlier considering the possibility of the inclement weather. One needs to follow some steps while going for outdoor event signage.

Planing an outdoor event signage solution.

When planning for electronic events signage one needs to make sure that the outdoor signage is clear and visible. Inflatable outdoor signage is an excellent way to direct the visitors. Inflatable are colorful, large and different they can stand out in crowds. One can also use arches for outdoor event signage and these are a wonderful choice for making entrances and as well as exists. Outdoor inflatable screens and displays domes will give quick accessible gathering place for that of intense sun, rain or cold, wind.
The most important factor that should be considered in outdoor event signage is fun because inflatables will give all sorts of ways to keep the visitors very interested on the advertisement.

If at all one is thinking whether these outdoor even signage works or not, then the right answer is yes it does. The only thing is one needs to be creative in the application and try to make thinking from the customer side. One needs to design the outdoor event signage so as they need to grab the attention of the customers. One can use the outdoor event signage for the whole year increasing the ROI.

LCD Enclosure Global manufacture a range of LCD enclosures used in outdoor event signage solutions.

Digital signage solutions exposed.

There are various options which can be taken into consideration for implementing a digital signage solution in order to promote the products of a business. Most of them do not know about these solutions. It is advisable to choose the best digital signage solution mix for the business, one look into the company which will help understand these needs. There is wide range of options that one can select from when planning for a solutions package. Several constraints, costs, additional expenses, software and hardware needs are to be accounted for before a decision can be made. Users can find the entire range of solutions across a number of websites along with information of costs and installation.

An LCD display enclosure is used for various purposes. An advertising screen enclosure mainly refers to the small format displays, these displays are located outdoors as an external video wall which is used for digital advertising and these work by splitting the signal on the media player and they are spread equally on the video wall.

Digital signage solutions – starting with the screen.

A digital screen is firstly updated remotely without any involvement of manual replacement the next benefit is that the content can be scheduled, by taking response ratings and effectiveness studies of the content. These modern digital signs however, need housing in a protective enclosure to prevent damage from water, sun, vandalism and theft. An enclosure for digital screens needs to fulfill various aspects of protection in order to be effective. The main considerations for choosing the digital signage enclosure should be weatherproofing by protecting the enclosed screen from rain and other elements, temperature control and physical protection to the screen.

Location of digital signage solutions.

The performance of a well placed digital display is better than that of advertisements that appear on television. Business persons spend less in installing and maintaining digital signage solutions than television advertisements which in turn increases the amount of time that a promotion campaign can be carried out. A cost effective method of advertising which assures better penetration of the market and product visibility because of their individual approach, these Digital signage solutions are considered to be the most effective advertising platform in these days. One needs to choose the right advertising package advertising their products. It should be remembered that they need to take in to account many factors so as to provide a best marketing cover for the targeted audience. The digital signage solution can be installed successfully depending upon the one you choose for your business very easily and is even easier to operate and maintain. Digital signage solutions are developing every single day, until they come complete in a weather proof enclosure at an affordable price a flat screen enclosure will always be needed.

LCD Enclosure Global Limited manufacture a range of flat screen enclosures that protect the digital signage solutions.

LCD menu board for more efficient customer experience.

An LCD menu board improves the customer experience in any Quick Serve Restaurant that deploys them, resulting in quicker service whilst using the LCD menu board to reduce queue times.

How does an LCD menu board work?

These digital LCD menu board solutions are used to advertise the menu items to customers, using high definition images with bright, clean text that describes the food and the dietary values of each item.

The LCD menu board can be purchased in either USB or network enabled mode, this is basically the ability and convenience of updating the digital advertising content using the internet or by a member of staff. This will depend on the number of LCD menu boards you intend on deploying and how you intend on updating the content on the LCD menu board system within the restaurant.

Compare an LCD menu board to a static menu

The LCD menu board has increased in demand due to the ease of use and the ability to update the content within minutes, rather than incurring huge printing costs. The LCD menu board shows the level of advancement in the quick serve restaurant industry, as previously fast food restaurant owners had been satisfied with the old light box and the printed menus that they displayed, however the challenge is how can a fast food restaurant update their menu and include the dietary values for each product quickly with minimal investment, this is how the LCD menu board has dominated the QSR market and now this is what separates a fast food outlet from a Quick Serve Restaurant, as the QSR will offer a sleeker more professional experience for the consumer, whilst reducing waiting time in line.

The issues with the printed menu is that over time the menu fades and daily specials cannot be easily added unless they are hand written – not very professional. This limits the sales opportunities that the QSR’s have cornered, as they can ad a daily special based on local available produce and put a special up on the LCD menu board in less then 5 minutes.

Customer winning LCD menu board.

The technology used in the LCD menu board displays the highly visual menu promotion, with attractive images of the food, so tempting consumers to make a buying decision, this in turn reduces the wait time as customers in the queue do not have to stare at a menu and try to make out the food offered as the menu is much clearer and allows the consumer to try different food items, rather than stick to the same old menu.

LCD Enclosure Global Ltd specialize in manufacturing digital signage enclosures as well as supplying a wide range of standalone and network enabled LCD menu board solutions.

Digital signage hardware interacting with buyers

Gone is the age when advertising agencies could make a consumer buy a product, now using digital signage hardware consumers are being lightly influenced in what to buy.

Digital signage hardware will interact with consumers.

One thing we have discovered in the past few months supplying our digital poster and digital menu board solutions, is that interaction with consumers is essential to build loyalty, informing the consumer of all the facts before they make a decision on purchasing the product.

One such solution is an interactive digital poster that has a segmented screen, displaying 9 various images of products, but the most important part of the advertising solution is not limited to the screen, as there is a bar code reader built into the unit and when a supported product is scanned to display the price a video is displayed for the supported product. When consumers interact with the digital poster they are gaining information regarding the product and once they feel comfortable with the product and the information they have obtained they will or will not make buying decision.

Digital signage costs

These interactive, digital signage solutions are not that more expensive than regular digital signage hardware. Solutions are available from sizes 26” to 55” and vary in price from $999 to $3,999. However the return on investment could be extremely fast, due to the interaction between merchant and consumer, as consumers realize how efficient it is to get the information they need when they need it, as there is nothing more frustrating than asking for addition information or specific questions and then not getting the answer to your specific question or information request.

Installing digital signage

Installation is a breeze, if you have ever hung a mirror these interactive digital screens are identical, the only difference is they have a mains lead so need to be installed near a wall outlet to power the unit.

Digital signage software.

The software used for this solution is embedded into the media player allowing most content to be displayed on the screen. The format for the content is to keep the relevant products and information in one folder, with multiple folders, so when a consumer touches an image of a Ford saloon car it then takes them to the options such as heated seats, heated windscreens etc.

LCD Enclosure Global Ltd manufacture a range of digital signage enclosures that are used to protect digital signage hardware.

Digital menu boards the affordable way

Digital menu boards are used throughout the USA to comply with new legislation for labeling menus, but there is an affordable way to promote the menu whilst informing customers of the calorific content of the meal.

Digital menu boards how to create a cost effective solution

There are several ways in which to provide a digital menu board solution, this ranges from buying a dedicated all in one solution that is the ultimate in digital menu boards. The second option is to purchase a regular television that you would use at home and providing it has a connection that can be connected to a computer you are ready to go.

The computer can be any small form factor PC, or even a more cost effective home PC, providing the computer can be connected to the television, the computer can be located in the back office and all is needed is to run a lead from the computer to the display.

Mounting digital menu boards on the wall

Digital menu boards can be mounted using the VESA pattern on the rear of the TV in landscape mode, this is probably the most common orientation used in the restaurant environment. Using a domestic television limits the orientation, as it can only be used in the landscape position.

Software for digital menu boards

This appears as “ a black art” to most restaurateurs, however software is needed to make the digital signage system work and this is what makes the attention grabbing content.

Digital signage software for the restaurant does not have to break the bank, there is one product on the market that costs around $99 and all you do is once the software is loaded onto the computer, you just add the images of the goods you are promoting as well as a good description of the food with the dietary information and input the price then the digital menu boards are ready to run.

To update the content on the digital menu boards, you would have to just go to the computer and add the content and the system is updated.

Standalone digital menu boards

These have a built in media player at the rear of the screen with basic software, however to update the content, an employee has to create the new content and load it on to either a flash drive or a memory card then swapping the old content with the new.

LCD Enclosure Global Limited is a major manufacturer of digital signage enclosures as well as providing various digital menu boards.

The iPad increased use for digital signage

The Apple iPad has been growing in use since it’s launch, due to the new iPad these gadgets have been used to display digital signage.

Why use an iPad for digital signage?

Well these gadgets are so sleek and versatile and now business owners are realizing that they can use their iPad to promote their services. For example a plastic surgeon can display some none intrusive procedures on their iPad in the reception area, so clients can see them and have an idea of what you could expect from them.

One high end restaurant uses an iPad to recommend wine to go with their dinner selection, and since the launch of this their sales have increased by 23% on the same period last year.

Ipad and possible problems in public areas

When any high demand product is put into a public area, it results in possible theft or worse still, damage! So if the iPad is to be use in public places, it had to be protected from theft or damage, the most cost effective way it to enclosure the ipad in a steel, ventilated case that is locked with high specification locks.

Now digital signage can be cost effective by putting the ipad into an iEnclosure from LCD Enclosure Global Limited, having successfully won a project for 82 units for a chain of Quick Serve Restaurants, they decided to add the product to their portfolio.

One major factor with the design of the iEnclosure is that it is manufactured from thick steel with a toughened glass viewing window, these were found to be more robust than a product made from Lexan, as when put under the same pressure the Lexan product shattered, also there where difficulties in locking the Lexan unit properly, but not with the steel iEnclosure.

LCD Enclosure Global Ltd manufacture a range of LCD enclosures for protecting outdoor digital signage as well as protecting ipad units when used for digital signage.