Digital Signage – Personalising the retail experience

Many retailers have moved from asking: “Should I deploy digital signage?” to: “How do I use digital signage to maximise performance and create sustainable long term impact?” Dynamic behavioural merchandising is delivering the answer for retailers. Jason Palmer, STRATACACHE’s Director of Business Development, outlines the key features to consider.

Retailers are continually looking for ways to increase store performance.  Shopping is now an experience where services and products are targeted at each individual customer and their unique requirements rather than a one size fits all approach.

Whilst many businesses are implementing digital signage, few are utilising it fully to achieve maximum return and create a sustainable compelling experience for customers.

In a simple form digital signage gives retailers benefits over traditional in store marketing through speed and frequency of change of content; localisation of content and of course the inherent brightness and movement of content that catches the eye and powerfully conveys messages.  However, traditionally the scheduling of content has been based on historical knowledge of what was happening in the store, not what is happening in real time.

New advancements in digital signage have changed this to reach the customer in real time, giving greater understanding of the store behaviour and creating enhanced profitability.

Audience measurement and traffic analysis tools embedded in digital signage can be used to gain real-time knowledge of the store and create real-time tailored messaging.  If you knew, for example your customer's age, gender, where they have been in store, what they are looking at and touching, whether they were moving or in a queue would your message to them vary?  Now the message can vary.

When deployed as an integrated part of the marketing mix, advanced behavioural digital signage uses dynamic triggers of what is actually happening in the store to present customers with the most relevant, personalised messaging.  This creates a unique and individual experience, leading to increased customer satisfaction and improved purchase profile.

The increased knowledge of customer behaviour has also led to greater use of multiple small displays in stores that can provide a personal rather than mass broadcast message.  The use of devices, such as the SPECTRA PopTouch, takes this a step further with integrated response to touch, movement and near field communications. These interactive triggers can be used to further engage the customer with tailored content appropriate to the purchase.

We are now also finding that customers are now increasingly engaging with technologies such as Quick Response (QR) codes.  The popularity of smartphones and customers ability to use built in cameras has allowed retailers to provide personalised offers, coupons, instant product information, real-time questions and answers or even product-related games via digital signage.  This can increase immediate store performance but also allow the engagement with the customer to be extended beyond the shop door.

Digital signage is delivering the promise it has offered retailers to speak to customers as individuals. 

Retailers fully engaging with dynamic behavioural merchandising are receiving strong sustainable profit, along with detailed proof of performance for digital signage.  Customers are getting an exciting and compelling shopping experience. Using our experience from many large deployments, systems and research-based approach STRATACACHE is helping retailers globally achieve great results today.

About

Jason Palmer is Director of Business Development at STRATACACHE, the leading provider of innovative, efficient, scalable and cost-effective digital signage.  Jason has a strong background in creating digital media propositions for retailers that enhance the customer relationship.