How strategy can lead to success

by Matthew | 14 April 2012 10:51 am

By Oscar Elizaga
While digital signage has become a well-established medium for communications today, there still seem to be major stumbling blocks as it is adopted by new users. “I know we need to use digital signage,” says the typical executive at a company looking into the technology for the first time, “but I don’t know why!”

The key to addressing why organizations need to use digital signage lies in first understanding their target audience—in particular, what that audience wants to know precisely when it interacts with digital displays. Achieving that understanding, however, is much more difficult than it seems.

When it comes to developing a communications plan, for example, there seems to be a misconception that an organization needs to establish a stand-alone digital signage strategy. On the contrary, it is important to understand digital signage as simply one element or tool within an overall communication strategy, which may also include printed materials, online resources, broadcasting via TV and/or radio and public relations (PR).

Starting with an overall strategy is important in keeping communications consistent across all of these channels. The degree and nature of emphasis on digital signage within this mix of media will depend on the organization’s specific situation and vertical market.

Strategic steps
The typical retailer, for example, needs to begin its brand strategy by reaching consumers through TV, print or other advertising to inform them of its products or services. This first step raises public awareness.

Next is ‘direct-to-feed’ messaging, which may use radio ads or billboards to reach an audience on the go. This is the time for a call to action, though it may not only lead consumers directly to that retailer’s store; it could also lead them to a website.

The third step is when digital signage comes into play. At this point, the communications strategy moves forward to deliver on its earlier promise. If potential customers saw an ad in print or on a billboard, they will expect to see corresponding information on signs within the store to guide them to the advertised products or services. It is critically important for the brand’s promise to be delivered at the customer’s point of decision.

In addition to being developed as part of an integrated communications strategy, another essential element for the success of digital signage is its content. Organizations need to address digital signage as an ‘intelligent’ media platform that can remain current and interact with its audience, moving away from the traditional approach of displaying a static sign on a wall. Digital signage is also not TV, of course, and using it to recycle commercials seldom works well, if ever. The content should be compelling and attractive and include a call to action, but it needs to be created with the medium in mind.

Creating appropriate digital signage content depends on the dialogue the organization is trying to conduct with its audience. A retailer needs to understand its in-store customers and address why it is communicating with them in the first place. If it can do so, it can then use the medium to achieve its goals.

Once the strategy and content approach are established, an organization is ready to find the right software, media players and screens to deliver digital signage.

Integrating complementary technologies
Just as it is imperative to integrate digital signage into an overall communications strategy, it is also important to connect it with complementary technologies, so as to better target messages for individuals and to enable two-way communications. There are several ways to accomplish this with today’s highly connected—but also distracted—audiences.

Predictive analytics
Predictive analytics technology, as its name suggests, analyzes past patterns and transactional data to help companies anticipate future consumer behaviour.

In a retail environment, for instance, predictive analytics have been deployed to track customer spending and other behaviour patterns, both to improve customer retention strategies and to help cross-sell products to boost profitability per customer. By identifying staffing trends and needs, the retailer can consider which days of the week are the busiest and assign employees accordingly.

In terms of digital signage, predictive analytics can help organizations focus their content strategies based on a set of studied variables. The retailer might use digital signs to display weather conditions, for example, and if it is raining, the content could nudge customers to buy umbrellas.

In this sense, with predictive analytics, displayed content can include meaningful messages that address what viewers are looking for in the store or other environment, whether this means sales, offers, relevant news or other targeted content.

Taking this scenario one step further, some organizations are now combining their digital signage hardware and software with video analytics technology, which can aggregate anonymous data about the number of people viewing a digital sign, their average duration of attention and even their genders and age brackets. This approach is helping them gauge the effectiveness of their digital signage content and make changes based on who is viewing a screen at any given time.

Social media
The use of social media has grown exponentially in the past few years and continues to rise. Yet, similar to the adoption of digital signage itself, many clients say, “We know we need to incorporate social media into our strategy, but we are not sure how we want to do so.”

With employees talking about the companies they work for through social media channels and customers talking about the brands they use and enjoy, organizations need to connect with these communities—not only to listen to their experiences and opinions, but also to engage them further.

A digital sign can promote a company’s presence on Facebook, for example, and encourage viewers to ‘Like’ its page, perhaps by offering to share special offers and coupons. This can help lead to two-way communications.

Another option is to use on-site display content to invite visitors to ‘check in’ through an application like Foursquare. This can encourage repeat visits through various perks, such as naming a visitor ‘Mayor’ and displaying his/her name and face on-screen as such for friends and family to see.

Twitter also has a key place in a digital signage strategy, encouraging retail or restaurant customers to tweet about their favourite products or menu items.This can help a company feel more ‘local’ as it engages customers and increases their dwell times, which in turn can lead to additional purchases.

Kiosks
Self-service kiosks are gaining prominence at various points of decision, especially in grocery stores, movie theatres, quick-service restaurants (QSRs), hospitals, hotels, transportation hubs and tourist attractions. Many users prefer kiosks over other transaction options because they are faster and easier and can deliver more accurate services for their needs. Organizations behind the kiosks, meanwhile, see them as a way to avoid increasing labour costs—or to increase levels of service in tight labour markets where it would be difficult to add employees anyway.

The key to a successful kiosk, much as with other forms of digital signage, is to present visually compelling graphics and related content to showcase products and services and make recommendations as calls to action. As an intuitively interactive medium, a kiosk presents the opportunity for an organization to collect valuable business intelligence (BI), which in turn can lead to better messaging based on client behaviour.

Mobility
Each year, the quantity of digital content accessed on mobile devices—rather than through standard computers—continues to grow. A natural extension of this trend is for individuals to use their smart phones to interact with digital signs, e.g. to find additional information, look up reviews and receive coupons.

In this way, organizations can use digital signage to extend their online efforts to communicate with their customers. Each interaction provides the opportunity to improve upon these efforts.

Quick Response (QR) codes have become one of the most popular forms of ‘integration point’ when it comes to connecting digital signage with mobile technology. Consumers will scan a code from a screen to download additional content. The advantage of this ‘pull’ strategy is it means a sign’s viewers will still retain related information long after walking away from the site.

Making connections
Across Canada, organizations large and small are using digital signage to deliver targeted messages, exactly how, where and when they want them delivered. In this sense, digital signs are much more than just posters or billboards. They are using content from a wide variety of sources, but also connecting with many other media.

By doing so, digital signage can inform, influence, provide direction, reinforce branding, track key performance indicators (KPIs) and yield many corporate benefits, as part of a highly impactful interactive communications strategy.

Oscar Elizaga is senior vice-president (SVP) for the Americas region for Scala, which develops digital signage software. For more information, visit www.scala.com[6].

Source URL: https://www.signmedia.ca/how-strategy-can-lead-to-success/

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