Everyone at WireSpring has been working their butts off to get our new FireCast Digital Signage EasyStart product completed. With the initial customer orders shipping next week, I thought it might be fun to talk about some of the businesses that could benefit from the product. These are all places I go to somewhat regularly, so I’m speaking from the perspective of an actual customer:

Yolk: This is a fantastic breakfast place in Chicago’s South Loop area. The lines are insane after 9 am on the weekends, so they could use the digital sign to entertain customers while they wait. I’m thinking profiles of their incredibly friendly servers, trivia, and local news and weather. Yolk could also use part of the sign as a menu board, displaying food pictures and prices to help people decide what to get before they even sit down at a table.

Ben Pao: Although you wouldn’t know it from the food, this is part of a decent-sized chain with many locations in the area. However, I bet very few patrons are aware of all the other restaurants that share the same parent company. So, they could use digital signage to display short clips about each of the other restaurants and offer a discount for trying them out.

Trader Joe’s: I buy about 90% of my food at Trader Joe’s, and it’s just a wonderful place to shop. Yet despite the incredibly devoted customer base, there are many people who pass by the store all the time yet seem to have no idea what it’s about. So, Trader Joe’s could put up digital signs facing out the window. These would show popular food items along with how much you save compared to Whole Foods or even the big box stores like Target. Plus, they could repurpose content from their excellent newsletter to help promote new products on the screens.

Now I just need to cram a demo player and screen into my bag for the next time I visit these fine establishments. And given the focus on dining and grocery, I also need to keep reminding myself that free food is not an acceptable form of payment for the product.