Why Digital Signage Strategy Should Include a Purpose for Every Screen

More and more retailers are recognizing the power of digital signage to improve brand loyalty and increase average ticket size. What many retailers don’t realize, though, is how much thought goes into where those screens go and what goes on them. A successful digital signage program starts with a solid digital signage marketing strategy, defining the purpose for each screen.

Define your digital signage program’s objectives

A digital signage program with carefully chosen objectives can become a powerful part of your marketing mix. Broadly, here are the six key objectives that digital signage can help you achieve in your store.

• Improve guest experience: Use digital signage to remove friction and smooth out the shopping and buying processes, making both an enjoyable experience for customers.
• Sales lift: Increase sales by attracting more customers and highlighting specific products or special offers.
• Corporate communications and employee training: Interact with and train employees by displaying meeting schedules, company announcements, news, and training materials.
• Advertising and monetization: Generate additional revenue streams by selling portions of your content playlist to promote endemic and non-endemic brands.
• Shopper data and analytics: Measure interaction with your screens, monitor customer interest and behavior, track customer traffic patterns, and more.
• Brand storytelling: Build loyalty by sharing information and company stories with your customers.
  
  
  

Screen purpose and measuring the success of a digital signage program

Once you have the broad objective you want your digital signage program to achieve, you can give each screen a role to play in achieving that goal.

How do you decide on the purpose for a particular screen? Start with your strategy and business objectives for your store. Every screen’s purpose should be determined by two factors: Your digital signage marketing strategy and where that screen is located in the store. 

For instance, if your overall objective is to increase sales of a specific item, you can give a screen in the street-facing window the purpose of attracting buyers interested in that item and bringing people into the store. Another screen can point shoppers to that item once in the store. And still another screen can highlight related items the shoppers might want to consider once they’ve found what they are looking for.

By limiting the purpose for each screen, you also make it possible to measure the effectiveness of those screens and then adjust your tactics. Is foot traffic up? No? Then maybe you need to look at the content you’re putting on that screen in the window. Are you selling more of the intended product but not seeing an uptick in sales of the ancillary products? Then maybe you need to look at the content on the screen that’s meant to increase awareness of those offerings.

One program, different objectives

While each individual screen must have a single purpose, that doesn’t mean your digital signage marketing program can’t have multiple objectives. In fact, you can have different screens with purposes that serves different objectives throughout the store. They can work together to support your overall marketing plan and create a connected customer experience.

When done right, digital signage can be a powerful part of your marketing plan. As you consider a digital signage program, determine your objectives and how you’ll use individual screens to accomplish those objectives. Keeping in mind, though, that while you can have multiple screens working toward multiple goals for your store, each screen needs a purpose.

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