3 cool examples to leverage digital signage for your compan
After decades of development and refinement, digital signage is now part of our daily urban landscape. For many of us, our first glimpse of digital signage was in the ‘futuristic’ 1984 film, Bladerunner. The effect was jarring and disorienting, thanks in part to intrusive digital signage and building-sized billboards.
Today, however, we have mastered the judicious use of digital signage. Designers ensure these digital tools don’t intrude, instead creating unique opportunities to interact.
Digital signage is almost unique as a digital out-of-home (DOOH) tool, due to its arresting, attention-grabbing qualities. Techniques like ‘gaze direction’ and the ‘self-relevance effect’ are frequently used to reach out beyond the screen and make contact with us in our busy everyday lives.
Statistics on the effectiveness of digital signage:
- An astounding 76% of American shoppers have entered a store they have never visited before because of digital signage alone.
- 68% of customers make a purchasing decision after seeing digital signage.
- Digital signage increases average spend by 29.5%.
Why digital signage is so effective – and how this can be used for business
Modern digital signage varies in scale from large billboards to discreet consoles for one-on-one experiences. This translates to numerous opportunities to deploy these tools in practically any location. Weatherproof outdoor digital displays are commonly seen in places like train stations and airports, for example. Interactive digital signage can bring a customer experience center to life with touch or presence sensors, providing unique customer-guided experiences.
Digital signage does much more, however, than just grab attention. This technology can ensure opportunities to connect with potential customers are rarely missed, even in the absence of salespeople or customer agents.
Powering Digital Signage with Digital Storytelling Software
Your digital signage offers added value to customers by being connected to digital resources and data flows. Each experience becomes richer and more targeted. It ensures relevance, by offering information, deals, or inspiration that truly matches the customer’s needs and situation.
Digital storytelling software Hyro is the ideal way for businesses to power their digital signage. Hyro can ensure that media offerings stay relevant and connected to data and further digital capabilities as these become available. Digital storytelling software like this is essential for businesses to easily update digital signage and it opens up the possibility for interactivity too.
New capabilities gained by connecting digital signage to data and software:
Interactivity – Businesses can display QR codes for prompting app downloads, instant personalized vouchers or deals. Customers can become engaged more deeply with sensor-driven signage. Interactivity is further enhanced with touch screens, gesture control (with Kinect cameras), and proximity to people or objects using RFID tags.
Customizability – Each experience can become customized to the person or ‘type’ of person, presence sensors, and Near-field Communication (NFC) technology. AI-driven recognition capabilities will also become more common in the near future.
Reusability – Digital signage that is connected is easier to maintain and update with new assets or campaigns, ensuring they’re evergreen and always relevant.
3 examples of digital signage delivering business value
Part of an in-office experience centerExperience centers are an important part of the customer journey. A customer visit to the experience center represents a ‘finish line’ for the Sales and Marketing teams, and a regular point of contact between the customer and your business.
Digital signage can help lubricate the journey through the experience center, by acting as a ‘warm-up’ for your main event (such as an Immersive Experience Room) or as a low threshold point of interaction. Sensors can detect presence or use of certain physical objects to add a new digital layer to a physical experience.
Customers can browse through your product portfolio on an interactive digital signage console in your waiting room, and explore digital stories in which other customers expound ways your product has helped them in their situation.
Tradeshow signageAttracting potential leads to your tradeshow stand is always a challenge, especially when the cost of attending these events must be justified. Getting more customers through your turnstile is a prerequisite, and this is easier when you have digital signage to intercept them. Acute customization can be especially useful, with callouts that are attention grabbing and intriguing. Digital signage can leverage moving images with eye contact and the self-relevance effect to snare potential leads as they try to walk past.
Once engaged, digital signage can become an interactive journey through your brand story, product portfolio, and customer stories. Once engaged, digital signage can become an interactive journey through your brand story, product portfolio, and customer stories. For this reason digital signage is widely used as a major component in a Customer Experience Center (CXC). Because Hyro-powered digital signage is fully adaptable, you can customize it for any purpose - including, intercepting people who aren’t expecting it!
Some CXCs exclusively use digital signage to fulfill all roles, but more often they’re employed as parts of a holistic experience design including an immersive experience. If you are using an Immersive Experience Room at your tradeshow (like the fully mobile PopIX), then your digital signage can become an interactive warm-up for your main attraction, and a way to let curious potential participants hang around, and see what’s going on at your tradeshow stand without needing to strike up a conversation. And because it’s totally customizable with Hyro, you can always create unique experiences for select audiences, locations, or events.
In-store or showroomIn-store and showroom situations are perfect for interactive digital signage, where the customer can require additional resources to make confident decisions.
Digital signage is often used in store or showroom settings because it can help customers explore options that might not be immediately apparent. It’s a well-known retail phenomenon that the more time spent in-store (often called ‘customer dwell time’), the more customers will spend. This translates to a 1.3% increase in spend for every additional 1% time spent in store. For this reason alone, giving the customer more time to consider saying ‘yes’ to a purchase is a smart move.
While customers take their time to think over their next purchase, they can convince themselves by exploring digital stories showing how each product has benefitted other customers, or by seeing different options or add-ons. The ability to add personalized ‘social proof’ like this to the physical retail or showroom environment is one of digital signage’s distinguishing features and benefits.
Connecting physical and digital worlds
People love the convenience of online shopping and remote working, but the hunger for real-life experiences remains strong. Digital signage can help bridge the gap between digital and physical experiences. It has the power to attract interest, enrich experiences, and enable free exploration.
Unlike purely digital channels however, digital signage keeps customers physically present and immersed. Furthermore, when the customer steps away this journey has the potential to be continued at home or on their phone. The careful use of QR codes, NFC, or apps can play a critical role in this. But above all, the ability to regularly update or offer interactive experiences is crucial.
For any business looking to keep their brand connected to the digital and physical worlds, digital signage is one important tool that helps bring them closer to this goal.
Digital Storytelling FAQs
What are the benefits of digital signage? Digital signage has the benefits of being eye catching, and dynamic. Content can be regularly refreshed, and interactive content can boost engagement even further. Using digital storytelling software or digital signage software, a new message can be deployed instantly without having to wait for printers or deliveries. Content can be easily updated in the blink of an eye, so there is immense potential for customized content too. Added together, these result in better sales figures and better customer experiences.
What are the disadvantages of digital signage? Digital signage primarily offers benefits, but there are disadvantages too. These typically relate to the hardware: it is a substantial investment that needs maintained from time to time. It also consumes power. Many of the possible disadvantages of digital signage can be avoided when businesses use software that allows media to be constantly updated and refreshed. This ensures a consistent ROI over time.
What is the future of digital signage? As technologies continue to reach for greater connectedness and interconnectedness, the future of digital signage is one where it’s part of an integrated multichannel experience. It already blends the digital and physical worlds; the next step is to keep each digital touchpoint integrated in the same personal journey.
What is digital signage software? Digital signage needs software to run it. There are two approaches to this: First, companies that rent out or manage digital signage in hundreds of locations need software for deploying the right media and monitoring each location; Second, businesses that have their own on-premise digital signage use digital storytelling software to get the most benefit from their hardware in the long term by updating digital assets quickly and enabling interactivity.
What is interactive digital signage? Digital signage becomes interactive when it can respond to the person standing in front of it. This can involve the use of sensors, cameras, and touchscreens to deepen the experience by allowing customers to steer the experience for themselves.
