Success involves more than what you see on the surface
The digital signage industry is growing fast, and the benefits of it are becoming clear. According to a recent report, the worldwide market is expected to reach $23.76 billion by 2020, at a compound annual growth rate of 8.18% between 2015 and 2020. Behind such growth is the value digital signage adds to the bottom line: significant increases in brand awareness, sales and repeat business.
Digital signage communicates with targeted audiences in a more dynamic, engaging and effective way than other, more traditional mediums. Sometimes, however, companies that are considering digital signage put too much emphasis on the elements of it that are most obvious to their customers: modern, ultra-thin bezel displays, for example.
Markets1 and Markets Research: Digital Signage Market worth $23.76 Billion by 2020
Those are important, of course, but too much focus on them sometimes means organisations neglect the bigger picture. A successful digital media solution accounts for much more than what you see on the surface.
It’s what we call the digital media iceberg
We’ve broken it down into three key components:
- Really Sexy Stuff
- Pretty Sexy Stuff
- Geeky Stuff
If you’re considering digital signage make sure your focus extends beyond the sexy stuff
We’ll look at the less glamorous side of digital signage and provide some tips and tricks to avoid a shipwreck when you’re designing and implementing your solution. You’ll find that in terms of planning, decision-making and ultimate success, many of the elements that lie beneath the surface often are ones you want to bring to light first.
When you think of digital signage, the “really sexy stuff” immediately comes to mind: gorgeous displays showcasing amazing, dynamic content. That’s what everyone wants, and understandably so since they are the elements of signage that are most obvious to your customers.
Those same sexy elements of digital signage get us excited about its soft benefits: enhancing the customer experience, or how we assume people are going to react when they come into a store or restaurant with attractive, modern-looking displays. Among those assumptions? Our signage is so spectacular that customers are going to think about their experience days after. Or they’re going to be more brand-loyal because of it.
Displays are going to lose their luster, no matter how cool they are. But purpose-driven solutions will stand the test of time.
This pie in the sky thinking isn’t realistic and doesn’t address the heart of your solution: why are you considering digital signage in the first place? Displays are going to lose their luster, no matter how cool they are. But purpose-driven solutions will stand the test of time.
Sure, it’s tempting to plunge into screen types and sizes and spend time imagining content that’s going to make a big splash right from the start. And yes, both are critical in creating an engaging and memorable experience. But that doesn’t mean they are the first things you should consider in developing your digital signage program. Don’t be seduced by beautiful flat screens. They’re just a means to an end and should be considered much later in the process.
As we first move under the surface, we come to some of the less flashy details of digital signage. The pretty sexy stuff may not be as obvious as the really sexy stuff, but it’s probably the most important element of a successful project. The pretty sexy stuff centres on strategy and the answers to four, not-so-easy to answer questions:
- What’s my reason for using digital signage?
- How do I plan a program that supports our objectives?
- How do I develop and sustain content to achieve results?
- What hardware and software do I need to meet my business objectives?
Interestingly enough, a comprehensive media strategy that defines objectives for a program often is missing from most solutions. In fact, media strategy should be the cornerstone of your solution. This is where you define the what, how, and, most importantly, the why of your program. You need to clearly define your business objectives, desired results, and expected return on investment. Do you want to increase sales, enhance employee engagement, increase awareness of new products or drive higher-margin transactions? Having specific objectives and ways to measure them should dictate how you use digital signage, where you place it, how your customers will engage with it and what kind of content will drive those objectives.
Lockstep with your media strategy is an ongoing content design plan. Your content plan provides structure to your solution, ensures consistency in the creative design, execution, and philosophy, and defines the type of content that will deliver the best results. The development of a content plan takes into consideration your marketing programs, seasons and campaigns, your audiences, and the environment in which the content will be seen. It should dictate a clear strategy for the ongoing creativity required to keep your signage fresh and engaging.
One way to keep content fresh is by leveraging dynamic data: feeds from other systems and applications that offer information of interest to your audience. For example, showing real-time sales numbers from a customer relationship management system can keep employees plugged in. Or dynamically displaying hot products based on web sales can drive demand in-store. Such data integration keeps content fresh and can be very effective in engaging your audience. But choosing the right data and presenting it in a clear and meaningful way takes craftsmanship on the part of both creative designers and programmers.
While creating great content is critical, an ongoing content design plan. Your content plan provides structure to your solution, ensures consistency in the creative design, execution, and philosophy, and defines the type of content that will deliver the best results. The development of a content plan takes into consideration your marketing programs, seasons and campaigns, your audiences, and the environment in which the content will be seen. It should dictate a clear strategy for the ongoing creativity required to keep your signage fresh and engaging.
One way to keep content fresh is by leveraging dynamic data: feeds from other systems and applications that offer information of interest to your audience. For example, showing real-time sales numbers from a customer relationship management system can keep employees plugged in. Or dynamically displaying hot products based on web sales can drive demand in-store. Such data integration keeps content fresh and can be very effective in engaging your audience. But choosing the right data and presenting it in a clear and meaningful way takes craftsmanship on the part of both creative designers and programmers.
While creating great content is critical, designing the programming strategy for how it plays is equally important. A programming strategy should be developed for each unique display location and needs to account for the purpose and location of a display, the desired result, and the overall story you want to tell. Consider parameters around scheduling, playlists, message length and frequency, content refresh rate, and dayparting.
300 on the market, it can be tempting to roll up your sleeves and start work immediately to find the “perfect” CMS. But in reality, the CMS accounts for only one part of the total solution, and it must support your content strategy, not supersede it. Selecting your CMS actually comes relatively late in the planning and development process.
A final important note about content and content management: organizations often underestimate the amount of time needed to manage a solution, and typically do not have a dedicated team, or even a dedicated person, to manage a fully rolled-out program. While systems are becoming more intelligent, content management can still be an overwhelming task, particularly if you have a complex network (one with a large number of locations and displays) and granular messaging. Giving thought to the human element of designing content and managing technology is critical to a successful deployment.
As for hardware decisions, they’re important, but as we said earlier, often are made too early in the process. Your budget can be a limiting factor in determining what hardware to use, but decisions should be made based on the goals of your digital signage. Never let software or hardware dictate your solution; let your objectives and applications define your requirements.
We’re finally getting to the geeky stuff – the things that, truthfully, if you overlook, your project will have a higher chance of failure.
The geeky stuff is vital to the sustainability of your solution and is centered on its reliability, scalability, and uptime. These are the details that are critical to the success of your solution. Some of the questions you need to ask yourself include:
- How is everything going to work together?
- What happens when something goes wrong?
- Do I have the resources to make sure my system is running properly?
- How am I going to measure the success of my solution?
Interestingly enough, a comprehensive media strategy that defines objectives for a program often is missing from most solutions. In fact, media strategy should be the cornerstone of your solution. This is where you define the what, how, and, most importantly, the why of your program. You need to clearly define your business objectives, desired results, and expected return on investment. Do you want to increase sales, enhance employee engagement, increase awareness of new products or drive higher-margin transactions? Having specific objectives and ways to measure them should dictate how you use digital signage, where you place it, how your customers will engage with it and what kind of content will drive those objectives.
Lockstep with your media strategy is an ongoing content design plan. Your content plan provides structure to your solution, ensures consistency in the creative design, execution, and philosophy, and defines the type of content that will deliver the best results. The development of a content plan takes into consideration your marketing programs, seasons and campaigns, your audiences, and the environment in which the content will be seen. It should dictate a clear strategy for the ongoing creativity required to keep your signage fresh and engaging.
One way to keep content fresh is by leveraging dynamic data: feeds from other systems and applications that offer information of interest to your audience. For example, showing real-time sales numbers from a customer relationship management system can keep employees plugged in. Or dynamically displaying hot products based on web sales can drive demand in-store. Such data integration keeps content fresh and can be very effective in engaging your audience. But choosing the right data and presenting it in a clear and meaningful way takes craftsmanship on the part of both creative designers and programmers.
While creating great content is critical, an ongoing content design plan. Your content plan provides structure to your solution, ensures consistency in the creative design, execution, and philosophy, and defines the type of content that will deliver the best results. The development of a content plan takes into consideration your marketing programs, seasons and campaigns, your audiences, and the environment in which the content will be seen. It should dictate a clear strategy for the ongoing creativity required to keep your signage fresh and engaging.
One way to keep content fresh is by leveraging dynamic data: feeds from other systems and applications that offer information of interest to your audience. For example, showing real-time sales numbers from a customer relationship management system can keep employees plugged in. Or dynamically displaying hot products based on web sales can drive demand in-store. Such data integration keeps content fresh and can be very effective in engaging your audience. But choosing the right data and presenting it in a clear and meaningful way takes craftsmanship on the part of both creative designers and programmers.
While creating great content is critical, designing the programming strategy for how it plays is equally important. A programming strategy should be developed for each unique display location and needs to account for the purpose and location of a display, the desired result, and the overall story you want to tell. Consider parameters around scheduling, playlists, message length and frequency, content refresh rate, and dayparting.
300 on the market, it can be tempting to roll up your sleeves and start work immediately to find the “perfect” CMS. But in reality, the CMS accounts for only one part of the total solution, and it must support your content strategy, not supersede it. Selecting your CMS actually comes relatively late in the planning and development process.
A final important note about content and content management: organizations often underestimate the amount of time needed to manage a solution, and typically do not have a dedicated team, or even a dedicated person, to manage a fully rolled-out program. While systems are becoming more intelligent, content management can still be an overwhelming task, particularly if you have a complex
Avoiding a shipwreck
How to implement your digital signage solution
So now you know that the sexiest elements of digital signage aren’t necessarily those that should be at the top of your to-do list when you’re planning and implementing a program. What should be? Consider these steps, in this order:
Define your objectives
- Understand your audiences and their expectations.
- Consider other marketing channels and how they need to work together to drive results.
- Define success. What does it look like for your company? What are you hoping to accomplish with your digital signage?
- Define quantitative ways to measure success. Measures can include POS analysis for sales uplift, facial recognition for attention tracking and even the good old customer survey.
- Develop a media strategy and content design plan that will guide your work on an ongoing basis.
- Craft the content workflow process. It’s important to make the process as simple and efficient as possible, while making sure you have checks and balances in place to eliminate mistakes.
- Develop a programming strategy.
- Select the right hardware – displays, media players, tablets, mobile, etc. – to support your strategy.
- Choose a content management system that will support your creative and programming strategies and applications.
- Develop an implementation strategy that takes into account network design and integration and data integration.
- Create a technical support plan and implement a monitoring system.
CONCLUSION
Digital signage is being deployed in almost every industry and in an array of sizes: from single-site implementations to nationwide projects in thousands of locations. And with its contribution to brand awareness and sales, digital signage can be a fruitful investment.
But no matter the specifics of your program, remember that you need to think about the entire ecosystem – the sexy and the not-so-sexy. Like our iceberg, there is so much more to a successful digital signage solution than meets the eye.