Modern cities are starting to look more and more like futuristic worlds seen in sci-fi films like Blade Runner.
A lot of this has to do with the widespread presence of eye-catching digital signage advertising. They’re everywhere now, in shops, restaurants and hotels, at bus stops, airports and stadiums, and beaming from the front and sides of prominent buildings.
Technology has profoundly changed people’s behaviours. For many of us, a digital screen is the first thing we look at in the morning and the last before bed. And in the time between, they’re in our pockets everywhere we go.
We have become a society that’s essentially raised on digital screens and our appetite for it is only growing.
The global digital signage market is expected to expand from USD $15 billion to over USD $24 billion by 2020.
With so much information at our disposal and so many distractions along the way, grabbing people’s attention is tough business, especially for retailers. Print simply doesn’t have the same pulling power it once did.
In today’s connected world, the most successful retailers are combining digital and physical interactions together to create a multisensory shopping experience.
The convenience of online shopping is hard to beat but digital signage is proving to be the ace up the sleeve for retailers. The benefits are numerous and we’ve narrowed it down to the 5 most compelling reasons why you need to start using digital signage.
1. Your Customers are Already Demanding It
In a Nielsen survey of 1,000 shoppers accustomed to retail digital signage, 42% revealed they would rather shop at a store with video displays, 68% said digital signage messages influenced their purchase decisions and 77% said it helped them learn more about products.
Shoppers are already using digital screens for every other aspect of their lives so there is almost an expectation to find a digital screen experience when they enter a store.
When other retailers are already engaging shoppers with a digital experience, what does it say about your brand when you’re still printing your message on paper? Can you afford to be seen as stale and behind the times?
2. It Breathes New Life to the Shopping Experience
The human eye is more attracted to moving images and dynamic videos than to static displays.
Digital signage allows you to combine text, graphics, sounds and videos to make your message more compelling and visually arresting.
They have the versatility to not only inform or sell but to also entertain your customers. Place them in the right areas and you can, for instance, turn dreaded spots like the waiting line into points of entertainment. Studies have shown that digital signage can reduce a customer’s perceived wait time by up to 35 percent.
3. It Reduces Waste and Costs
Stop and think about the costs and environmental footprint of print advertising. Trees are cut down, toxic inks are used, printing and transportation costs add up, someone has to be paid to display and remove the print ads, and then to throw them away for it to end up in the landfill.
Even though digital signage screens consume energy to run, nothing has to be physically produced or wasted, making it a much more eco-friendly option.
4. Act in time with Unparalleled Freedom
The retail landscape moves fast. In order to do well, you have to react to market conditions quickly, whether it’s changing inventory levels or new competitor offers.
What you need is time-sensitive advertising. But the nature of printing is time-consuming. Messages have to be manually printed, placed and removed which can lead to a lot of missed opportunities.
In just a few simple clicks, a digital signage screen allows you to tell multiple messages, change them on the fly in real-time and schedule their appearance at different times of the day.
5. Grabs Attention and Keeps your Customers Engaged
Today’s high definition digital signage screens are simply stunning to look at. Incredibly sharp picture quality and vibrant colours mean your message will have a better chance of cutting through the noise and grabbing people’s attention.
It gets better. Digital signage is no longer just a one-way dialogue from you to your customers, now you can use it to deliver interactive content which really opens up the types of experiences you can create for them. Think ordering kiosks, promos with elements of gamification and social media activations.
Stay tuned, as in the coming weeks we’ll be diving deeper into all the exciting and creative ways you can engage your customers with digital signage screens.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
This guest post was written by Davy Qian, product manager at Wired Store, a leading digital signage and audio visual company based in Melbourne, Australia
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