By Steve Anderson
Businesses of all sizes are always looking for new ways to modernize, increase efficiencies, and improve the customer experience. To those ends, businesses often find success turning to new technology that gives them an edge over their competition. In fact, many successful businesses developed new technology themselves or adopted it earlier than their competitors. If your small business is looking for a great way to get an edge over your competition, you should consider using digital signage. There are many benefits to using digital signage, including (but not limited to) increased engagement, boosted revenue, ease-of-use, and improved recall and retention rates among customers. You can even improve employee engagement by using digital signage to raise morale and productivity, which contributes to your company’s overall success.
What is Digital Signage?
Before getting into the different ways that digital signage can benefit your business, it’s important to know exactly what it is. Digital signage refers to the use of hardware (LED screens, projectors) and software to convey information to consumers. Digital signage content can be static or it can be interactive. Signage has long been an effective business tool, but digital signage offers an unprecedented amount of control by allowing business to present new information more quickly and cost-effectively in a way that both engages and excites customers.
Benefits of Digital Signage
The benefits of digital signage are many. Most importantly, digital signage allows your business to deliver real-time information to customers. Did a popular product just get restocked? With digital signage, you can quickly inform people about it and avoid leaving potential sales on the table. On the other hand, if a popular product has just gone out of stock, you can use digital signage to inform customers about potential alternatives, rather than just letting them leave dissatisfied.
Digital signage also allows you to tailor the messaging to the specifics of the audience that will see it. In other words, if a product is more popular in one location than in others, you can tailor the messaging of the digital signage in that one location to reflect that. All too often, stores try to save money by diluting their messaging to the point that it applies to all (or most) locations. Digital signage allows you to drive sales and keep customers and employees up-to-date with all relevant business information, all while saving your business money. Digital signage is not only beneficial for stores, as it’s been used across a variety of industries from entertainment venues to financial institutions with great success.
Increased Engagement
With digital signage, you can increase engagement with customers as well as employees. Providing customers an enjoyable and interactive option as they arrive in your store, office, or lobby will make them feel more positively about your company, and digital signage reduces perceived waiting times by as much as 35%. Optimizing the experience for customers can also increase brand loyalty, especially since digital signage captures over 400% more views than static displays. Additionally, digital signage contributes to a higher recall rate than traditional signage. Some studies have suggested that the recall rate for digital signage is 83%, which is significantly higher than traditional signage. By offering a more interesting, engaging experience for customers, digital signage has proven to be an excellent tool for a variety of different businesses.
Digital signage is also helpful for businesses trying to increase engagement among employees. This is important because, as noted in a report published in 2013 by the Harvard Business School, high employee engagement is among the top three indicators of success. In fact, companies with high employee engagement grew profits as much as 3X faster than other companies and had a lower turnover rate. How does digital signage contribute to better employee engagement? It can be used to spotlight employee successes, keep employees up-to-date about company programs or deadlines, or simply to display interesting or entertaining content.
If you’re looking to modernize your business, increase efficiencies, and improve the customer experience, you should consider utilizing digital signage in your business.
Steve Anderson is a freelance writer based out of Los Angeles. Follow him @stvndrsn.
