The Power of Digital Event, hosted by Trust last week, focused on the transformative potential of digital signage in the retail industry. The session was moderated by Dawn Briddon, Product and Market Consultant for Trust, who has over 20 years of experience in marketing and product leadership, particularly in digital media transformation and adtech.
Dawn Briddon was joined by Trust colleagues, Matt and Adam, alongside partners including Samsung, Ergonomic Solutions and Evexi. In attendance was retail experts from the likes of the Channel Islands Co-op, Lincolnshire Co-op and the PriceWatch Group. Dawn highlighted the exciting era of digital transformation in retail, emphasising how new technology is revolutionising the in-store experience by engaging and converting shoppers in unprecedented ways. The heart of this transformation, she noted, is digital signage.
During the afternoon the group focussed on five main topics:
1. How to Unlock Greater ROI from Digital Signage
Changing consumer trends were highlighted, particularly the preferences of Generation Z and Millennials for immersive and entertaining in-store experiences. Dawn initiated an icebreaker, asking attendees to estimate the number of ROI benefits from digital signage and they named:
- The direct revenue returns include increased traffic and larger basket sizes with industry studies showing averages of up to 32% uplift.
- Indirect benefits cover omnichannel marketing uplift, enhanced brand recall (up to 47% recall rate cited), improved repeat sales, and cost reductions.
- Reduction in waste increasingly becoming a focus for some retailers with a focus on smarter inventory and promotional management to reduce costs and wastage through better alignment.
- Business future-proofing, creating a competitive edge through more immersive experiences.
- Sustainability as reduction of print.
- Employee engagement with retailers now using screens to motivate, train and engage their employees out of shop hours.
2. Best Practices in Digital Signage
The group shared insights on defining objectives for digital signage, grounding strategies in customer needs, and using AI for personalisation.
- Defining ROI and metrics at the start – start with a long-range business ‘vision’ and align your plans to achieve and fulfil this.
- Consideration of best placement of the screens, for example, captivating window displays (for attracting passerby traffic), finding best paths for enticing traffic through stores, best visual layouts, leveraging longest dwell time locations (outdoor/window/video walls/information points etc)
- Best digital experience, Trust use the best-in-breed partner, Samsung for high-resolution screen experiences.
- Engaging creatives, including animation and strong visuals to capture the audience’s attention.
- Controlled end-to-end experience including SLAs.
- Thought into the most effective times, get to know your audience, and when the best times to show the most relevant messages. Also, have the ability to advertise seasonally or in line with inventory numbers.
- Maximise your touchpoints and converge the online and physical experience.
- Drive loyalty and repeat store visitors and purchases by driving first-party registrations with apps and QR codes while also reaching out to customers post-purchase to entice them to shop with you again.
- Always continually test and learn, you will be able to develop ‘closed loop’ intelligence to continually optimise and drive ales uplift and performance.
- Have the ability to leverage new commercial revenue streams.
3. Best Practice to Deliver an Elevated Customer Experience
An average of 30%-80% of in-store audiences (and growing) are Generation Z and millennials. These younger consumers have different expectations of the shopping experience – seeking a more enhanced, visually- immersive and entertaining in-store experience.
- Retailers need to think of digital signage as an entirely new marketing medium – not just repurposing of print.
- To reap the best, you need to first consider your overall objective and understand your customer needs, considering the following:
- What your customers really seek from an in-store experience and the ‘emotion’ of shopping: do they want easier/faster, better value, better service, more engaging/enjoyable?
- Ensure you are achieving the right balance in the value exchange.
- Trial experimental discovery phase, with menu boards, customer service robots etc.
- Make it relevant to your in-store audience:
- Location-based Advertising
- Time-of-day promotions
- Content segmentation – separate displays for age groups etc
- Demographic profiling
- Keep it consistent – unified visuals.
- The major problem retailers are struggling with is data overload. They have lots of data but don’t know what to do with it, AI predictive analytics are increasingly looking to address this to drive the ability for more personalisation and tailored experiences.
4. How to Build the Right Infrastructure to Enable In-Store Digital Transformation
As we have seen with AI, the industry is rapidly developing and the explosion of supporting technology to be able to leverage insight and analytics to drive up better experiences and improved performance.
- Trust Digital Signage solution includes System on Chip, therefore reducing maintenance, and security issues.
- Link your digital signage with smart cameras to gain a deeper level of understanding of your customers. For example, where they dwell, most frequently visitor parts of the stores and which aisles are not getting as much attention.
5. Understand the Retail Media Opportunity
The retail media market is booming with it currently valued at £3 billion and projected to double. The main attraction is the high margins, 70 to 90% which is being successfully leveraged by businesses to lower prices, update technology and improve in-house marketing capability.
- Views on third-party monetization, in-store digital signage advertising, and the balance of brand control were explored.
- Trust advised on starting small with advertising partnerships and tracking market trends.
The final takeaways and insights from our retail experts included:
- Paul Newton (Lincolnshire Co-op): Highlighted challenges in ensuring screens are noticed by customers and their use in non-food stores.
- David McGrath (Channel Islands Co-op): Emphasised omnichannel strategies and improved customer experience while expressing caution about over-commercialisation.
- Claire Goddard (Pricewatch Group): Showed enthusiasm for expanding digital signage.
In summary, digital signage has proven to directly boost retail performance and ROI with on average, 70% of retail purchases occur in-store, making physical retail the most important marketing channel. As a leader in the retail sector, we provide an all-in-one solution which will significantly reduce your costs and provide huge benefits and agility VS paper. Assisting you to drive sales and generate additional revenue streams and ROI.
If you would like to discover more about the 10 ways to improve performance and ROI with Digital Signage, click here to download.
If your business is interested in the possibilities in which digital signage can provide your business, our team of experts would welcome the opportunity to discuss your digital strategy. Book your free store consultation today.