Digital signages are taking the limelight away from traditional, static signages. This is undeniable as the global digital signage market growth continues to surge.
According to Allied Market Research, the digital signage market, valued at USD 17.3 billion in 2018, is projected to grow to USD 32.12 billion by 2026. This indicates an estimated compound annual growth rate of 8.1% between 2019 and 2026.
It’s no wonder, digital signage experts would tell you. Using digital signages has several benefits.
Some Benefits of Using Digital Signages
Consumers tend to have a higher recall for ads and messages seen on a digital display than on static displays. Digital displays also tend to capture four times more views than static displays.
On the experience improvement front, digital displays reduce perceived wait times at checkout counters. Additionally, they provide information that consumers may be looking for and answer questions consumers may have. The way digital displays improve customer experience can lead to higher sales.
The recall prompt that digital signages provide may also increase sales. Apparently, eight in 10 brands that use digital signages found their sales increasing by up to 33 percent. Moreover, the increase in sales may be attributed not to planned purchases, but to impulse or spur-of-the-moment decisions.
Digital signages, moreover, need not be limited to prompting recall. You can even use it for personalized advertising.
A study found that you can use sensors to capture consumer moods at the point of sale, then use digital signages to display emotionally targeted ads. Apparently, emotional targeting improves product quality perception, increases purchase intentions, and boosts willingness to pay among consumers. These things can only mean stronger brand loyalty and higher sales.
Without a doubt, digital signages are here to stay, and you would do well to heed the call of the times and utilize them, especially onsite in your place of business. Moreover, to maximize the benefits of using digital displays, you may upgrade your digital signage network to include a content management system.
By the way, the term “content management” system refers to the software used to manage content shown or displayed on digital signages.
When to Use a Content Management System?
Rule of thumb: If you have just one or two screens, a content management system would be nice but unnecessary. You can load the content you need to play on the display onto a USB flash drive, plug it into your display’s media player, and that’s it.
Even when you have several screens, you may not require a content management system either. If all you want is to play identical looping content on all of your screens, you can still go the old “USB drive plugged into the media player” route.
In this second scenario, though, you might be criminally underutilizing your digital signages when you don’t use a content management system. It is best to use a content management system for maximum utility when you have several screens in your digital signage network.
Why Use a Content Management System?
The following are the most important reasons for using a content management system to manage your digital signage network.
Content and Content Templates
One of the greatest benefits of using a content management system is the available content, readily available content sources, and templates that usually come loaded with such software. Such features will make content authoring easier for you.
Some content management systems come preloaded with ready-to-use digital content for your digital display ads. Such content may be easily modified so you can add your branding elements and styles.
Some advanced content management platforms include software you can use to create digital content from scratch. To help you with content creation, some content management systems will also come loaded with templates, graphics, and video effects – or they will be linked to a central database where you can obtain such components for free or for a minimal fee.
Dynamic and Personalized Displays
In the men’s fashion section, your digital signages can display only ads targeting male shoppers. There could also actually be ads targeting female shoppers buying for the men in their lives (i.e., spouses, sons, and siblings).
In a section that features mix-and-match separates, your digital signage can show the possible combinations, or how the clothes in the section may be used to transition from an office to an evening look.
You can also use an advanced digital content management platform to show personalized messages. Using sensors that detect a person’s age, gender, and mood, the content management system can pull up content that best suits the context.
Updated Information Feeds
Suppose your digital displays need to display weather, temperature, foreign exchange rates, and news updates. Such a system requires automatically updating content. It’s a good thing then that some content management systems provide seamless integrations with auto-delivered, update-in-real-time data feeds.
Many content management platforms also now use HTML5, the latest version of the HTML markup language. This makes digital signages capable of automatically displaying up-to-date information when certain conditions or triggers are met.
Think of it this way. Rather than being simple monitors to display video ads, digital signages can become more like interactive websites because of advanced content management systems.
Digital Signage Management
The greatest advantage of using a content management system, of course, is the ease by which it will let you manage a network of digital signages, even one with hundreds or thousands of screens.
A content management system will let you assign content to specific displays and schedule the content on a per-screen basis. No two screens need to show the same content, unless you want them to do so.
You may also specify conditions that must be met before a particular signage will display specific content. For instance, you can add a condition to show the queueing message on a branch of your fast-food restaurant only when the people-counting system at that branch detects peak human traffic volumes.
With a sophisticated content management system, you can manage thousands of screens at different locations and still ensure that every screen in your digital signage network displays location-relevant messages.
For instance, a five percent sale announcement will only be displayed in stores where that particular promotion applies. Even in stores where the promo applies, screens could still display different messages, such as when qualifying purchases may differ from store to store.
Content Management Systems – The Way to Go
Content management systems are the future of digital signages. This technology will enable you to maximize the benefits of using digital signages in marketing and advertising. With the help of an advanced content management platform, you can transform your digital signages from mere digital monitors that show looping videos or slideshows to stand-out, interactive marketing and advertising materials.
AUTHOR BIO
Nicholas Giorgetti is the Managing Partner at 2.0 Concepts, one of the leading audio-visual experts in the Middle East. The company specializes in digital signage and video conferencing solutions, with experts designing, building and managing effective visual communications projects of all sizes. The team understands the technical infrastructure, implementation process, and operational models needed to implement communication projects of all sizes.
Also published on Medium.
