Our guide to the top 10 benefits of digital signage
We often hear the question ‘why use digital signage?’ from businesses that are considering using it for the first time.
So we thought we’d put together a short guide that summarises the top 10 benefits of using digital signage. We’ve also included some information about the psychology of how and why it works so well.
The popularity of digital signage is growing all the time. Hundreds of thousands of businesses around the world are discovering the benefits of using it. As a result, it’s starting to appear everywhere, from roadsides to hospitals, and cinemas to train stations.
Why is that? Let’s find out!
1. Unlimited promotional space and time
Unlike traditional print ads, digital signage provides an endless amount of advertising space and time. You can display your messages 24/7, and the only limit is when you close your premises or when your passing footfall reduces at night.
2. Quick and easy content changes
With digital signage, you can make changes to your campaigns quickly and easily using cloud-based software. If you notice that a campaign isn’t performing well, you can modify it in just a few minutes. You won’t have to wait for new prints or banners to be made, and you can correct any mistakes quickly and easily.
3. Creative freedom
Digital signage allows you to use lots of different types of content. Whether it’s animation, video footage, text, social media, live TV, news updates, announcements, static info with certain elements animated, or a combination of the above, the possibilities are endless!
4. More engaging than static signs
Studies have shown that people are naturally drawn to moving images and narratives, making digital signage more engaging than traditional static signs. One retail study found that the right message can drive incremental sales of 5 to 25 percent. Digital signage is a rapidly increasing market, which is testament to its effectiveness. A compound annual growth rate of 8% has been observed in the US.
5. Multi-purpose
A single display can be used for a variety of purposes, from staff training to promotions, and health and safety notices to showing live performance data. This is why digital signage can deliver such an impressive ROI, as it can support different company departments (e.g. sales, operations, HR, customer service) at once.
6. Self-service kiosks
Digital kiosks allow customers to take care of certain tasks themselves (e.g. making payments, finding information), freeing up staff time for other duties. They can also be used to cross-sell other services and products. Kiosks are proven to be popular with users, with studies finding that people find them interesting and tend to use them for extended period of time.
7. Attract attention from passing footfall
With outdoor or window displays, you can use digital signage to stand out from other neighbouring businesses. You can showcase promotions, advertise products, and publicize forthcoming events to passers-by, making them more likely to visit your premises.
8. Improve operational efficiency
Whether you have a large retail store, warehouse or visitor attraction, digital signage can be used to give guidance or information to help maximise efficiency. For customers, you can make polite requests (e.g. about a queueing system), while for staff, you can show performance data, H&S reminders, and communicate operational changes.
9. Consistency
Digital signage provides the ability to show the same content at multiple sites simultaneously and have central info/brand control. Using cloud-based software you can group displays in different locations and have them show the same or different content as necessary. This is especially useful for franchises or other companies with multiple sites, as it allows the timely delivery of product launches/promotions or company announcements across all of their sites at once.
10. Get instant feedback
For companies with large sites, touchscreens can be used to get valuable feedback about issues as they occur so staff/resources can be redirected, or issues rectified sooner. For hotels or visitor attractions, customers don’t always want to make complaints face-to-face so interactive displays can help them to give feedback on site, which reduces the chance of bad online reviews, which can improve your business’s reputation.
The psychology of digital signage
Want to know why digital signage works so well?
There are four key reasons that digital signage works so effectively:
- Human beings are hard-wired to pay attention to movement (it’s part of our ‘fight or flight’ instinct), so we are much more likely to notice moving images than static messages.
- We process visual images easily, so our brains will always opt to watch visual information rather than to read lots of text.
3. Our brains prefer stories. We are much more likely to remember something that appears as part of a narrative, rather than as random pieces of information.
4. If the narrative makes us experience an emotion as a result of watching it (e.g. happiness, curiosity, surprise), then this super-charges our brain’s ability to remember it.
Because digital signage is constantly showing images, movement and information as a narrative, it perfectly placed to exploit how human psychology works, making messages more likely to be noticed and remembered.
Taking the next step
We hope that this guide has answered the question ‘why use digital signage?’.
Overall, digital signage can offer numerous benefits to businesses of all sizes. With its flexibility, creativity, and potential to attract attention, it’s definitely worth considering as part of your marketing strategy.
However, as part of this guide, we also want to highlight that the results you get from digital signage won’t be the same for every business.
The results you get will depend on the type and size of displays you install, the quality and type of content you show, and a host of other variables, like footfall and audience demographics.
This is why it’s important to work with a good digital signage agency that will guide you through the process of buying, installing, and getting value from your digital displays.
If you would like to find out more about any of the benefits of digital signage discussed on this page and how they apply to your business, please contact us today to speak to a member of our friendly team.
If you’re considering using digital signage for the first time we have a lot of articles in our our insights library that may be useful to you, like ‘how to get a good return on investment from digital signage’ or ‘The top 20 most common digital signage mistakes’.
