How to Transform Your Marketing Strategy Using Digital Signage

From the smallest start-ups to the largest conglomerates, digital transformation is essential for survival. With technology continually reshaping every industry sector, businesses have no choice but to digitalise their operations or else get left behind.

This drives business growth in a number of ways: improving operational efficiency; enticing new customers as well as retaining existing ones; opening up possibilities to develop new products and serve new markets… The list goes on.

Of course, marketing is not exempt from this wave of digital transformation. While traditional channels – think mail, print, radio, television – still have their place, nowadays digital channels are where it’s really at.

One such channel is digital signage.

What is Digital Signage?

For those who have never heard this term before, broadly speaking digital signage involves using commercial digital screens to display content. It’s a simple concept but the technology has evolved rapidly and now takes on many different forms for a huge variety of applications.

This means that almost every business, no matter what size or industry sector, can use digital signage to transform their marketing strategy.

Retail Sector

Retailers can take advertising content to a whole new level by replacing printed posters in shopfront windows with digital displays.

These printed posters are static by nature and often faded by constant exposure to direct sunlight. On top of this, due to high costs and long lead times associated with printing and replacing traditional signage, they usually go months or even years without being changed. This results in stale content that has lost its effectiveness.

In comparison, digital signage displays can utilise eye-catching motion and ultra-high brightness panels to grab the attention of passers-by. Keeping content fresh and running time-sensitive promotions is much easier as entire networks of screens across multiple locations can be updated instantly via the internet.

Plus, artificial intelligence can increase the relevance of content by personalising it to the viewer or changing it depending on external factors.

For all of these reasons and more, digital signage can be incredibly beneficial in helping retail businesses reach a wider audience and generate more conversions with their marketing materials.

This is more important than ever at the moment. With the pandemic necessitating increased adoption of online shopping, brick-and-mortar stores really need to focus on solutions that will draw people back in if they want to reverse this recent boom in ecommerce.

Food & Drink Sector

Businesses in the retail sector aren’t the only ones who can use digital signage to transform their marketing strategy. There’s also huge potential in the food and drink sector, especially for cafés and quick service restaurants.

Traditionally, these types of businesses use printed menu boards to display their offering. By upgrading to digital menu boards, so many more possibilities for marketing are unlocked.

For a start, as with the advantages for the retail sector, updating content is much quicker, easier and cheaper. By rolling out time-sensitive content in the blink of an eye, cafés and restaurants can create more dynamic marketing strategies – including advertising limited-time offers, highlighting seasonal items, and reacting quickly to competitor or market updates.

On a day-to-day basis, digital signage software can be used to create playlists where content changes depending on the time of day. For instance, showing breakfast menus in the morning, lunch menus in the afternoon, and dinner menus in the evening.

By targeting content to match what consumers are looking for in that particular moment, businesses can improve their customers’ experience by increasing the relevance of marketing messages. This, in turn, will drive more sales.

Corporate, Hospitality & Financial Sectors

Building brand equity has always been, and will always be, one of the most important aspects of marketing.

This is especially the case for businesses in the corporate, hospitality and financial sectors.

In these affluent sectors, creating a high-end brand identity is crucial and a key goal of marketing activities is to ensure that customers perceive the brand in this way.

That’s where digital signage comes in.

Stylish advertising displays and breath-taking large-scale video walls can give a modern, sophisticated feel to spaces like lobbies and boardrooms, while also reinforcing the brand.

Anyone who enters these buildings, whether it be clients, guests or employees, will be wowed by the technology. This inspires confidence in the brand and guarantees that relevant marketing messages are seen. 

Linking Digital Marketing Channels

Research shows that repeated exposures to advertisements are more effective at increasing brand favourability than a single exposure – even if the person doesn’t consciously recall seeing the ad.

That’s why omni-channel marketing campaigns are often so much more effective than single channel campaigns. By reinforcing the message over and over, it’s more likely to stick in people’s heads and convince them to take the desired action.

This is another way in which digital signage can be used to transform businesses’ marketing strategies, no matter which industry sector they’re in.

By linking digital signage to other digital marketing channels, such as by displaying live social media feeds or the company website, people are exposed to marketing campaigns while browsing the internet and in real life.

As a result, they will be more likely to choose that brand’s products or services in future.

By linking their virtual and physical presence in this way, businesses can also increase their reach to people who would never have seen their website or social media otherwise. This opens up a whole new pool of potential customers outside of their existing audience.

Recovery & Growth Following Economic Uncertainty

If you’re a business owner, you might be reading this article and thinking that digital signage sounds like an amazing way to revolutionise your current marketing strategy… But not until business picks back up and you recoup money lost during the pandemic.

Investing in new technology may seem like a risky move right now, but it could actually secure the future of your business.

Following the 2007/08 global recession, Kantar’s BrandZ data showed that companies who sustained a strong brand by maintaining their marketing budget recovered nine times faster than those who cut marketing spend.

Everybody knows the old saying “you have to spend money to make money”. It seems this is particularly true when it comes to marketing, especially in times of economic uncertainty.

Plus, the technology has advanced to a point where digital signage is now more powerful, more cost-effective, and more user-friendly than ever – so you get the most bang for your buck.

Key Takeaways

• Digital transformation of marketing is essential for business survival and growth.
• Digital signage is a key channel that businesses can use to do this.
• Some of the ways in which this technology can transform marketing strategies are: replacing printed advertising posters; enhancing menu boards; building brand equity; and increasing exposure to campaigns.
• Now is the perfect time to invest in this solutions to aid recovery after the pandemic.   

Chloe Weaver is a Digital Marketing Executive at Allsee Technologies. During her time in this role, she has gained a wealth of experience about marketing strategies and has been instrumental in shaping the marketing direction of the company during the COVID-19 pandemic. Allsee Technologies is a market-leading digital signage manufacturer with an impressive blue chip client portfolio. Founded in 2007, Allsee has offices, showrooms and warehouse facilities in Birmingham, United Kingdom, as well as Oostende, Belgium.

Company website: https://www.allsee-tech.com/

Company LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allsee-technologies-ltd/ Author LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chloe-weaver-b92138195/