Interactive Digital signage displays to create a journey

Optimize the customer or visitor journey with the right hardware and the right content

Interactive digital signage is all about communication, which is why having the right hardware and the right content is essential when you want to achieve your pre-defined goals. Who do you show what content, at what location or touchpoint and at which moment? The interactive digital signage display should help you achieve the goal of each touchpoint.

On this page we’ll give you 5 tips when integrating a interactive digital signage solution at your location. These tips hold for different verticals like retail, hospitality, education and healthcare.

Tip 1: Map out the path at the location

When deciding about what to install and where, it is important to first map out the path taken by your customers, visitors or guests, or think about the path you want visitors to take.

This way, you’re able to decide about the number and type of touchpoints you want to install.

Tip 2: Create the story with the right interactive displays on each touchpoint

When you mapped out the path, start thinking about the story you want to tell and to which key location(s) you want to guide your visitors. The content that’s shown on the displays should contain this story and help to achieve the goal of each individual touchpoint.

Typical goals for a touchpoint can be:

Awareness: this is typically one-way communication about a (new) product, brand, an event or waiting times. The goal of these touchpoints is to draw attention, guide visitors to (high margin) products or locations, and/or to introduce a visitor to your story. Short video’s or animations have proven to draw extra attention.
Interest: this is for example two-way communication with interactive elements to engage customers. That can be hardware with a touchscreen to enable browsing through an online catalogue, finding your way to that new product that was shown at the entrance, lift & learn technology for interactive information about a product, or other applications like searching for a free meeting room.
Desire: for example scanning barcodes from products on the shelf At this touchpoint, a first choice has been made by the customer or visitor and the goal of this touchpoint is to confirm that he made the right choice and give that last push, in order to continue to the next touchpoint. Content can hold examples of social proof, extra product information and features, or extra promotions.
Action: examples include payments on (POS) kiosks, booking a meeting room or self-check in at a hotel. This touchpoint is typically the touchpoints that aligns important business goals that generate turnover.
Loyalty: include touchpoints after the Action touchpoint to generate extra loyalty. For example scan loyalty cards for extra benefits or even to promote a good feeling with customers. This is known as the ‘Peak end rule’; customers or visitors mostly remember the last feeling they experienced at your location.

Creating a compelling story with the right touchpoints requires hardware that’s easy to install at the location. ProDVX devices are easy to install at any location using the Power over Ethernet option. This ensures power and network come in just a single network cable. ProDVX products can also be installed on any VESA mount.

ProTip: when generating awareness, attract attention in less than 3 seconds. Research has shown that people spend between 3 and 12 seconds looking at your screen. This means you’re safe if you can get your message across in 3 seconds. That’s why it is important to use short texts and clear visuals.

Tip 3: The wear-in and wear-out effect on displays

Research has shown that a target audience develops a positive attitude when a message is seen more often. Your target audience also needs to see a message more often if you want them to remember it.

However, when the frequency becomes too high or when a message stays unaltered for too long, your target audience’s attitude can turn negative. It’s an inverted-U-shaped-effect.

This is why you’ll need to carefully select the frequency with which your message is broadcast. The right frequency depends on multiple factors:

Repeat visits. Consider the number of times your target audience visits your location. For example: the answer might be different for a car showroom than for a supermarket shelf where the target audience does their daily grocery shopping.
Personalization. A target audience develops a more positive attitude when exposed to a personalized message. When a message is not personalized, the wear-out effect surfaces much quicker.

When you decide you want to refresh your digital signage content, also think about who will be responsible for doing so.

Tip 4: context effects of displays

A context effect is the effect of external factors on a target audience’s perception of your messaging. Examples include:

Environment
Timing and season of the year
Emotions and feelings
Weather

Environment

The environment greatly impacts how your message is perceived. Technologically speaking, the amount of (day)light has an impact on your digital signage content and the hardware. You’ll need a high brightness screens if you want your message to be seen.

Psychologically speaking, the environment can impact your message in many different ways. Priming and framing are popular terms when persuading a target audience, meaning that your target audience is in a specific mindset that affects how a message is perceived.

Timing and season of the year

Draw the attention of your target audience by making sure your content matches the season of the year. Even better: connect external real-time databases to automatically communicate real-time info and/or improve your digital signage content. This can be as easy as the weather forecast, or as complex as stock inventory levels. This way, you’re even able to automatically promote products that are close to their expiration date.

Emotions

Emotions and feelings greatly influence a human being’s behaviour. And our senses greatly affect how we feel. This is called sensory marketing and means that sounds or scent, impact how we perceive a message; both positively and negatively.

Weather

Sunlight or rain affects our moods. But it also affects our shopping behaviour. Interactive digital signage allows you to quickly make the best out of a rainy day! Or even include the local weather forecast to your content. This is great for travel agencies!

Tip 5: which content is currently available

This one is obvious, but often overlooked. The best content is visual. It draws the most attention and the processing speed of a visual message is much better. For example, when you’re designing great digital signage content, don’t forget to make use of photos and videos:

Commercials
Professional photos
User-Generated-Content
Influencer content

Don’t forget to clearly include your corporate identity and/or logo in the message to achieve the maximum level of recognition.