Why Your Business Needs to Start Using Digital Signage
Every marketing strategy has value, but digital signage offers several advantages you can’t get with static ads. Here are some of the best reasons to start using digital signage to market your business.
Your investment isn’t disposable
When you’re marketing through other methods, such as direct mail marketing or PPC ads, your investment is disposable. After mailing out, let’s say, 10,000 envelopes, you’ll never get those materials back so they can be reused. Similarly, once a PPC ad has run its course, it disappears until you buy more clicks.
Digital signage isn’t disposable. Once you purchase the equipment, it’s yours to use and reuse for the life of the hardware.
It’s also portable: You can take your display monitors anywhere you go, including if you relocate your business or decide to set them up at a trade show. Other forms of advertising are still worthy, but it’s nice to have at least one strategy that doesn’t require a constant flow of cash.
Digital signage can be highly informative
Digital signage is a great way to share information that educates consumers about your products and services. The content doesn’t have to be aggressively commercial or resemble an advertisement; it can be largely informative.
Before customers are ready to buy, many choose to gather information through research. They want to know a lot about the product or service they’re interested in, so at that point, they’re not yet focused on a brand.
If you make contact with them via digital signage, you can educate and inform potential customers who aren’t ready to commit. Influencing people at this stage in the buyer’s journey is almost as essential as landing conversions because it may lead to a sale later.
When you’re the one who provides information to consumers in research mode, and you have the appropriate products for sale, consumers are more likely to purchase from you.
Conversions begin with education
Getting a conversion happens in stages, but it begins with education. For instance, consumers looking for vitamins often research what each vitamin does and how it can be obtained from food.
Once the person figures out which vitamins he or she needs to supplement, the individual will start to research specific brands.
Digital signage facilitates physical engagement
We prefer for customers to interact with our brand physically. However, when that in-person interaction is not possible, virtual interactions are the next best thing.
You can do this with digital signage when your monitor is a touch screen. To obtain physical engagement, use your digital signage to call people over to the screen and invite them to start tapping buttons.
You can offer them a discount in exchange for an email address, or try to catch their attention in other ways. Many people love to play with interactive technology.
Try playing a video of someone who calls out: “Hey, you, come here for a minute, I’ve got something to show you.” People will know it’s not a live person, of course, but many won’t resist coming over to see what it’s about. Once the person starts interacting by pushing buttons, he or she will be easier to convert.
Physical engagement increases sales
Generating physical engagement is a tried-and-true marketing strategy. It’s been around forever—long before touch screen monitors existed.
Think back to the last time you opened a letter from a major company like Publisher’s Clearinghouse. Do you remember the envelope being fairly bulky?
To capture attention, Publisher’s Clearinghouse often put lumpy items like plastic keys or coins inside the envelope. Lumpy envelopes generate curiosity and persuade us to open the envelope.
This method is so effective, lumpy mail has a nearly 100% open rate. Once the envelope was open, you had to search through all the product stamps to find the particular ones that would give you some kind of bonus.
Then you’d tear off all the stamps, particularly any products you were interested in purchasing, and stick them to the order form. Sometimes you might have to scratch off a surface to reveal bonuses, discounts, and other prizes.
Why did they use stamps? Why not just use standard order forms and catalogues? The answer is simple: Getting consumers to interact with your promotional materials increases their commitment to buy.
Engagement through digital signage works just like lumpy mail
Although the medium is different, engaging customers through digital signage works somewhat like lumpy mail. Once you get a prospective customer to interact, it’s easier to guide them to a purchase.
Digital signage is a worthy investment
By investing in digital signage, you’ll be investing in a flexible and highly effective digital marketing strategy that may pay for itself with surprising speed. If you haven’t looked into this yet, start researching to see how major corporations use digital signage in their daily operations. Whatever success they have achieved, you could do the same.
