Smart devices are training all of us to expect interactive digital information at our fingertips. We are becoming more and more responsive to information displayed digitally over traditional print communications and increasingly we’re expecting it to respond to our needs. This is important to keep in mind when considering your customer’s experience. Although online shopping continues to grow, in-store shopping is not going away; it’s only evolving. In a progressively online and interactive world, digital signage in a brick-and-mortar setting is vital to creating the in-person shopping experience customers now want. Not only does interactive digital signage help you create this experience for your customers, it provides you with a whole world of data with priceless insights about how to better engage your customer audience.
Learn more about digital signage in, “What is Digital Signage?”
How Interactive Digital Signage Creates an Experience
Along with the advantages of sharing relevant information with your customers in an entertaining way – such as through music and video to communicate promotions and information about your brand – interactive digital signage can take the customer experience one step further and connect them to an almost e-commerce experience. Through interactive digital signage portals, your customers can shop all your products – every size, color and variation – that may not be in front of them. Engaging your customers by creating a personalized, relevant and entertaining experience will make them more receptive to your messaging and keep them in your store for a longer amount of time. You let them choose the shopping experience they want, feel good to get exactly what they are looking for and with the right software, learn about their shopping habits too. How personalized can the experienced be tailored? Very. With Anonymous Video Analytics, faces are recognized by a camera and calculated. Software can detect, for example, gender and age and present content tailored for the specific demographic. This also works if a group approaches, recognizing whether it’s an age cohort or possibly a family. Messaging can also be tailored to respond to the direction from which an audience approaches so as not to advertise a section of your store which that person has already walked through.
What Interactive Digital Signage Data Can Do
Analytics are vital for retail success. With them, you can determine what your customers are doing, what they want or need and what they are looking for. Responsive digital signage allows your customers to share this information with you by tracking what they touch. Reports on key metrics including impressions, dwell time, age, gender and more and be captured and this data about their choices can put together a portrait of what their preferences are. Data from your signage can be routed to your choice of analytics cloud platform for you to analyze, automate and store.
Go one step further with beacons
Turn your customers’ own smart devices into interactive digital displays working on your behalf with beacons. Beacons are transmitters that detect Bluetooth capable devices, like smartphones and tablets, within a short radius and send triggers your app installed on the device. Beacons and interactive digital signage can even work together. Connect them to your loyalty program and you can provide your customer with possibly the most relevant and meaningful messaging all the way through point of purchase. Every event can then be captured, from the items selected to the watched videos and the parts of your store visited, all adding to your data pool for analysis.
Summary
Interactive digital signage has become highly sophisticated and is only going to get better and more prolific. The amount of data available by harnessing this technology will help you provide your customers with the relevant shopping experiences they can’t get by shopping online. In return, you’ll gain vital insights into what they want and how you can better live up to their expectations – even when they may not be aware themselves what they expect. Ready to move forward with Digital Signage but not sure where to begin? Read “Your Critical Digital Signage Planning Checklist.”
