March 14, 2019

How to Integrate Digital Signage Into Your Digital Media Strategy

Digital signage marketing - the buzzwords of the day. You’re either doing it as part of your digital media strategy or you’re being left behind.


If you’re not familiar with the ins and outs of digital signage marketing, keep reading.

These days, the need to create and deliver relevant, high-quality digital signage to your clientele can’t be underestimated.


Are you getting ready to launch your digital signage campaign? Before you go live, check out this guide to planning an effective digital media strategy roll-out.


Digital Media Strategy


The demand for focused, clever digital signage is always high. It’s a hot topic and is, therefore, part of a competitive arena of marketing.


Brand image depends on a digital media strategy that involves digital signage marketing.

The attraction of new technology is exciting and distracting. This hype makes it easy to abandon a strategic approach. However, in order to effectively make use of digital signage and signage marketing, it’s important to approach it like any other marketing tool.


You need a carefully designed digital signage content strategy to help you hit your goals and markers.


Strategic Digital Signage


The development of your digital content strategy should be closely monitored and carefully designed. It’ll take time, attention and good research to set up a strategic digital strategy that works.


If you don’t spend enough time and resources on this phase of your strategy, you may pay for it later down the line.


A carefully planned strategy for your signage will set your business up for success. You’ll need to put in the effort to create a solid foundation which will help you deliver strong, engaging content.

In the long run, this effort and energy will save time and money on the backend.


How Does It Work?


These days, advertiser-driven digital signage allows advertisers to buy airtime. This airtime is used to inform customers or potential customers about products, services, and special offers.

In addition, the digital signage is used to drive up sales at the point of decision, like a pay point in a retail space.


Digital signage is similar to other forms of advertising in that it can be purchased by marketers to reach customers on the sales floor. However, it differs from traditional advertising in its dynamic and relevant approach.


Below we’ll provide tips and tricks for successful digital signage in any scenario.


Content Is Key


Digital signage is only as effective as the content it showcases.

Today, the options are endless. Digital signage holds the potential of making the content bigger, brighter and more colorful than ever before. It’s also branching into space where it can be more emotionally engaging.


In some ways, it has to be engaging, divisive and eye-catching, as the market becomes more competitive and saturated.


Designers today ask, ‘how do I attract my audience?’ and ‘how do I keep them interested?’. They’re responsible for creating content that is both relevant and memorable in a market that’s saturated with mobile options.


Proofread Always


It’s important to understand that poor content precipitates poor customer experience. This negativity has a ripple-effect and creates serious damage to a company and its brand.


Incorrect spelling, typos or shoddy design on digital signage will be the first thing a customer notices. Digital signage is usually at the entrance, or in a reception area. Customers will, therefore, see it as the first point of their experience with the brand.


How is a customer expected to trust a brand that doesn’t take the time to fix or perfect their signage?


It’s therefore imperative that the mechanism of the message is subservient to what’s being delivered.


Identify Goals


The first step in creating a strong digital signage content strategy is to identify objectives and goals. It doesn’t matter what your goal is, as long as you’re aware of it, you can engage your customers. Your goal may be to boost sales by offering promotional content. Or it may be to entertain clients with humor while they wait in a bank queue.


Your goals are entirely dependent on the client and the company. Keep in mind that your possibilities are endless with digital signage. For this reason, it’s critical that you know your specific goals. This will help you to streamline your approach in this versatile platform.


Understand the Audience


When you’ve listed your goals, you need to be aware of the needs and expectations of your audience. Important questions to ask are, ‘who are we trying to reach?’ and ‘what do we know about them?’


For this, it’s useful to create a profile of your audience. A profile will help you understand the specific motivations and needs of your clientele.


In this way, you’ll gain insight and will be better equipped to tailor your message and communications for maximum customer engagement.


Conduct Market Research


Along with understanding your audience, it’s essential to keep your eyes and ears on the surrounding market.


In addition to the market around you, it’s also critical to do research on the kinds of content people enjoy and find engaging in certain instances.


Conduct specific research on what customers will respond to while sitting eating a meal for example. And what will annoy customers in a doctor’s waiting room?


If you find people enjoy listening to music, a digital display in a petrol station could display popular music videos. If that petrol station is located along a coastal route, coastal regions and tips could be featured. This enhances a holidaymaker’s experience.


Focus on Resources


What assets are currently available to you? Do you have product info, social media interaction or promo videos already accessible?


These assets are very useful for creating a dynamic digital content strategy. Be sure to draw on the resources your company or client is sitting on.


Along with this, it may be helpful to leverage customer data in order to create more personalized messages. If you have data available, make sure to use it within your professional and legal boundaries.


Timing Tips


Under this heading, there are a few important points to consider.

The timing of your message, length of content and the frequency with which your content is updated should all be carefully accounted for.


A clear example of this is a screen in a place with a two-minute wait period. A short queue in a post office, for example. In this case, it’s totally unhelpful to display content with a ten-minute segment.


In contrast, people experiencing longer wait times will quickly become annoyed with content that repeats every two minutes.


Humor Helps


Humor is well-known to be a powerful tool when it comes to successful marketing. It allows a brand to connect with customers in a positive, personal and engaging manner.


A playful injection of humor is known to transform a digital signage campaign from good to attention-grabbing. Once a customer’s attention is caught, a discussion can begin and content will be absorbed at a higher level.


Many marketers struggle with the first step of getting customers ‘in the door’. This is the crucial first step to converting them to a sale. Humor is one very effective way of doing this without being pushy or conceited.


Screen Placement


The type of screen chosen for the content will depend on a few factors.

These include, where the screen is located, who will be looking at the screen and what the people will be doing at the time of seeing the screen.


Content heavy in text usually takes longer to read and should be reserved for long queues and waiting areas. While content displayed near a cash register or point of sale can be used to quickly create impulse buys.


Improve Experiences


As we’ve said above, digital signage is replacing old traditional print media. It’s visually dynamic and has the potential to make people feel something.


Emotive content can be very useful in a well-designed video format. In addition, funny and light-hearted content has the potential to entertain people and improve their shopping or waiting experience.


The experience of the employee can also be improved with appropriate digital signage. It can reduce the load on customer service staff.


The importance of creating customer experiences in the retail environment is well-documented and has been proven to influence consumer decision-making at the point of sale, as well as helping to enforce branding and enriching the overall shopping experience.”.


Digital Signage Marketing


Now you know why today more and more retailers and businesses are recognizing the benefits of using digital displays and signage marketing. It’s clear that customers respond to the opportunity to visually interact with a brand’s products and promotions while still in the store environment.


Research shows that it’s highly beneficial to create this connection where the actual purchasing decisions are made.


In order to reap the benefits of this form of marketing, you need a solid digital media strategy.

Please contact us to chat further about your digital media strategy. We’re more than happy to provide support and personalized assistance in this regard.

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