5 Examples of Digital Signage for Retail Stores
In the digital age, small businesses and retail stores face a lot of competition from huge companies like Amazon. Even retail outlets with their own digital stores face a lot of competition in a saturated market.
This means that for retail stores to be successful, they need to stand out from the crowd. Moreover, getting foot traffic into the store is only one of the first steps in the customer journey. Once a store manages to get customers into their store, they still need to employ a variety of methods to turn potential customers into paying customers and, hopefully, loyal customers that will come to the store time and again.
One of the best ways to increase the sales of a retail store is to employ digital signage. There are so many ways that digital signage can benefit a retail store. Digital signage works to increase foot traffic, it works as a great in-store marketing tool that can increase customer engagement and customer purchases, it can be used to generate brand awareness, and it can even help the store function by optimizing internal communications.
With a technology that has the potential to make some seriously beneficial changes for a retail store, it is no wonder that so many stores are now seeking out the best digital signage displays and employing the services of the best digital signage solution providers.
In this article, we will give you advice on how to harness the power of digital signage to make the most of this technology. First, we will address what digital signage is. Next, we will go over what it takes to get a digital signage system set up for your retail store. Finally, we will give five examples of some tried and true methods for using digital signage to benefit your retail store.
What is Digital Signage?
When we talk about digital signage, we are talking about the use of digital displays, such as televisions, LED walls, ipads, smartphones, and interactive touch screens, to display content.
Using digital signage software and hardware (i.e. physical digital signage player), as well as the templates provided by digital signage solutions, a retail store can display interactive apps, animations, videos, social media feeds, customer testimonials, calls to action, digital menu boards, wayfinding information, real-time data analytics, infographics, company performance metrics, and so much more.
In addition to the versatility of content that digital signage solutions provide for businesses, there is also versatility in the size of the digital signage display, which can range from the small screen of an iphone to a billboard, allowing a business to display digital screens strategically throughout the store.
Retail Store Digital Signage System Requirements ?
The first thing that you will need for a digital signage system is one or more digital screens. These can be anything from a tablet, to a flat-screen television, to a huge LED wall.
A retail store could benefit from digital displays of many different sizes, each serving a different purpose most suited to their size. In addition to a digital display, you will likely want to get a mounting system for your screen. This will help increase the visibility of the screen, which would be mounted to a wall or a pillar, and it helps to keep floor space open.
As a rule of thumb, a digital sign that is mounted at eye level or above is much more likely to catch the attention of a customer than one that is placed on the ground. Moreover, mounted displays simply look more professional.
The next thing that you will want to do is pick the right digital signage solution for you. You have two options for the types of digital signage solutions available. There are cloud-based digital signage solutions and there are hardware digital signage solutions that come with an in-house digital signage player and digital signage software.
The main difference between these two types of digital signage solutions is that with cloud-based digital signage solutions, you will be doing things like content management and digital signage design on the cloud through a server that is managed by the digital signage solution provider.
For these, you will typically pay a monthly fee for the provider’s services. With a hardware digital signage solution, you will do content management and digital signage design with the pre-downloaded software and templates that come with the physical-digital signage player.
With these types of solutions, you are less likely to have to pay monthly fees and will, instead pay a flat fee. Moreover, some high-end digital signage solutions like Loop TV give you everything you need for digital signage for free.
Once you have your digital display screens, your wall mounts, and your digital signage solution (whether it be cloud-based or hardware-based), you will be set to take advantage of the templates and start making eye-catching digital signage content.
5 Examples of Digital Signage for Retail Stores
There are simply so many ways that a retail store can use digital signage to their benefit that it can be difficult to decide which digital signage path to pursue.
What we have done in this article is provide 5 examples of digital signage in retail stores that have proven to be successful in achieving their goals time and time again. Even a list of five leaves so many methods out, but it is important to focus on the basics and then, once you have mastered digital signage, let your creativity flow and work to make a digital signage system that best meets your business’s needs.
1. Increase foot traffic with an eye-catching digital sign
The sign that you have in front of your store or those visible through your retail store’s windows is like the first impression on a date, and we all know how important first impressions are.
An eye-catching sign can make all the difference between a customer simply walking by your store and a customer deciding to check out the goods and services for sale in your store. Moreover, if you have a good first impression, people will be more likely to look upon your products and the rest of your store with a more favorable impression. Just think about it: who would be more likely to buy a product?
Someone who walks into your store with skepticism about the quality of your products or someone who walks into your store expecting to find great products? Clearly, the second person is more likely to make a purchase in your retail store.
This is where digital signage comes in. An attractive, visually pleasing, and eye-catching digital sign is simply the best way to make a good first impression on potential customers walking by your retail store.
With digital signage, you are able to employ animations, videos, moving text, high-quality images, and branded logos that people simply won’t be able to pass by without a second look…then a third…and then, they very likely will walk into your store.
Traditional signs simply do not have the versatility of digital signs displaying carefully curated content. Not only do traditional signs not have the versatility of traditional signs, but people are used to seeing them, so they are far less likely to catch someone's eye and hold their attention.
Moreover, digital signs give you the functionality to change what they are displaying in real-time. Imagine that you are a clothing store and it is hot outside. You might display images of people wearing your summer collection on a beach in the blazing sun.
Then, it starts to rain. In a matter of minutes, your sign now displays your newest rain gear. From shorts and crop tops to rain jackets and boots in a matter of seconds. It should be quite clear how this kind of dynamism can greatly increase the foot traffic to your store.
2. Highlight sales and calls to action in your store
Once people are in your store, you can still use in-store marketing to seal the deal, transforming potential customers into paying customers.
A great use of digital signage is to use your digital displays to highlight any sales that you are having in your store. Moreover, you can use your digital signs to issue calls to action, telling the customer that certain products will only be available at their current price for a few more days.
You don’t need to just highlight sales and calls to action. You can also use your digital signs to promote new products or products that you are eager to sell. With eye-catching visuals, you can call the customer’s attention to these items, which will increase the likelihood that they will buy them.
This is true both for new customers and repeat customers. The repeat customer might be familiar with the majority of your inventory and will be pleasantly surprised that a visually appealing sign is taking them right to the goods that they have never seen before.
3. Use social media walls to promote customer engagement
Social media walls are displays that show real-time posts that people are making on social media about your store. There is no doubt that marketing that comes from a store can be effective. However, there is little that beats real people talking about how great your products are.
When people walk into your store and see a social media wall that displays people talking favorably about your products, they will want to hop on the bandwagon and get some of the products that everyone is talking about.
Moreover, social media walls promote customer engagement. Seeing a social media wall will increase the chances that people who enter your store and make purchases will also post on social media about your store.
Some may even make the posts while they are still in the store and be pleasantly surprised when their own post ends up on the social media wall. This kind of customer engagement and interaction between store and customer is the type of method that helps to create loyal customers.
4. Improve internal communications
Digital signage is revolutionizing employer-employee communications in business from all sectors, both big and small. Digital signage can be used to relate messages in a visually appeally and easily understadnable way.
Typically, employers will communicate with employees through email, but emails are so easy to miss, and if there is a lot of information, as is often the case with long emails, there are many who simply won’t retain all of the information.
Digital signage, with its ability to convey information with text, images, videos, graphs, infographics, and much more, is a much more effective way to communicate information and will increase the chances of full comprehension and retention of information among employees.
Good communication is essential to a smooth working business. When employees know what they are supposed to do, they will undoubtedly perform their jobs better and with more confidence.
Moreover, clear communication leads to greater employee satisfaction, and happier employees will likely translate to better service for customers. In this way, digital signage for internal communications enhances both the employee experience and the customer experience.
5. Generate an alternative revenue stream with advertisements
One of the greatest aspects about digital signage that not nearly enough people talk about is that a retail store can actually use digital signage to make some extra cash by showing advertisements from other companies.
Of course, a retail store will not want to show advertisments from competators, but there are so many companies looking for fertile ad space, that finding a non-competator does not need to be too difficult. Diversifying revenue streams will increase your bottom line and increase the sustainability and resilience of your business.
Make the Most Out of Your Retail Digital Signage
As should be clear, there are so many reasons why a retail store would benefit from a good digital signage system. If you want your retail store to increase foot traffic, convert more customers, create customer engagement, improve internal relations, and maybe even earn an alternative revenue stream, then you will very likely want to consider integrating digital signage into your workplace.