Worried about the cost of adding digital signage to your association’s conference? Consider these tactics for trimming the investment or realizing returns in other ways.

Start small. “If you can’t make all 10 rooms with digital signs, maybe you try two and test it out and see if it’s something that works for you,” says Veronica Mooney, director of new markets and education at Solar Energy Trade Shows.

Skip the network connection. Connecting displays to the internet is one of the biggest potential costs and challenges. Uploading content to the displays manually, perhaps on a daily or as-needed basis, can be a savings opportunity. Updates won’t be as fast as with networked displays, but they’ll likely still be faster than printing new signs.

Find a venue with displays built in. Meeting venues are seeing the trend, too, and getting on board. A common theme among venues highlighted in the Professional Convention Management Association’s 2014 Best in Show “High-Tech Venues” category was their impressive digital display installations.

Consider reduced expenses elsewhere. How many print signs can a digital display replace? And how much time do preprogrammed displays open up for your event staff to do other things? “To have one person dedicated to signs for meeting rooms would not be an efficient use of our time because we’re so small,” says Deidre Ross, MHA, CMP, CAE, director of conventions and meeting planning at the American Veterinary Medical Association.