Today’s retail environment has evolved at a rapid clip over the past few years, with consumer trends and preferences changing as technology intertwines with the shopping experience.
While online shopping and mobile pick-up orders have become more popular as convenient options, the National Retail Federation found that 80% of consumers are still shopping in physical retail stores. However, 53% of consumers surveyed by FullStory state that they are unlikely to return to a business that provides a poor digital experience. With this data in mind, businesses must ensure physical store environments provide a modern, digital touch that appeals to consumers and keeps them coming back for more.
For small and medium-sized retail businesses (SMBs) with limited budget, staffing and resources, it can be challenging to stay up to date and keep their fingers on the pulse of both consumer preferences and evolving technology solutions available for physical stores. However, employing digital signage is a simple and effective tool that modernizes a space and captures customers’ attention as soon as they walk through the front door. It’s a budget-friendly tool that thoughtfully targets a key audience to share new product announcements or seasonal sales, having a similar impact as an expensive commercial or social media campaign from a big-box brand. For retailers, digital signage can be an attainable marketing solution with maximum benefits, ultimately improving profitability and overall communication with customers.
High Quality, High Impact
Digital signage solutions have come a long way. The newest products on the market offer exceptionally clear image and video quality, delivering high-impact results for viewers. Those that boast higher 4K resolution instantly grab the attention of anyone who walks by with their crisp graphics. Further, DirectView LED (dvLED) displays have become increasingly popular within indoor spaces, offering high-bright large surface visualizations. These are long-term, reliable investments and alternative to LCD displays as they have a longer lifetime. Incorporating this technology into a retail space can fill blank walls and keep customers engaged while improving their overall shopping experience.
Deploy and Strategize
Before installing digital signage, retailers must determine the best location. Ideally, you would identify a spot with ample surrounding space so the digital signage can be the focal point, while also choosing a space that receives high foot traffic in order to reach the most people. Once a location is selected, you then need to decide the type of content that will be displayed, keeping the room’s lighting and viewer’s distance from the display in mind. Installing digital signage solutions with anti-glare surfaces can ensure content can clearly be seen in ambient light settings. It’s also crucial to have a thoughtful strategy on content creation. What will content look like and how long it will be featured on the screen before moving to another piece of information? Finally, perhaps most importantly, it’s important to stay true your business’ brand image to ensure the content make sense for your customers.
With today’s modern technology solutions, digital signage that has an existing or an added camera can be used along with artificial intelligence (AI) to offer unique insights such as time viewers spend in front of the display as well as estimated data on their age, gender and more. These environmental data points can assist in understanding customer attributes and behavior, offering a deeper understanding of your target audience. When using digital signage solutions in retail settings, you can learn as you go and gather audience engagement metrics to see how well current content is resonating with shoppers, and determine whether you need to course-correct and adjust.
Call to Action
One of the biggest benefits of utilizing digital signage within retail businesses is that it can showcase a call to action for customers to think and act on the content being presented. This can take a variety of forms, whether it’s a QR code bringing customers to a landing page or listing your business’ social media handles to encourage customers to follow and engage with your business in a new way.
You also may want to use digital signage to encourage shoppers to sign up for a newsletter or donate a percentage of a purchase to charity. This call to action can lead to an increase in revenue by upselling products, providing intel on limited-time sales, spurring impulse purchases, and ultimately building trust and loyalty with consumers. No matter the direction you take, having a definitive goal for your digital signage solution can help track its effectiveness, drive optimal return on investment (ROI), and communicate to customers exactly what you would like them to do.
Flexibility and Seasonality
For SMBs, incorporating digital signage into a space can ease the burden of having to swap out printed signs every few weeks with the latest business updates or seasonal announcements. Digital signage solutions offer retailers a simple, intuitive way to share content that is relatable and relevant to a target audience at a moment in time. Whether it’s the holidays or back to school season, businesses can accurately display fun, captivating static or video content that will not only inform customers, but will keep them actively engaged throughout their in-store experience.
Overall, digital signage solutions are a cost-effective way for SMBs to boost sales and increase customer engagement. Technology should be meant to make lives easier and digital signage does just that. It provides a multitude of benefits by giving physical spaces a modern upgrade, communicating information clearly to viewers, improving customer satisfaction and loyalty, providing businesses with the potential for increased profit, and driving a much better understanding of the target customer.
Kevin Christopherson is Director of Product Marketing, LCD & Projector at Sharp, which provides commercial digital displays to small and medium-sized retailers.
