July 23, 2024 - Digital displays have become a cornerstone for effective customer engagement in today’s retail environments, providing dynamic and eye catching ways to communicate. Merely installing digital signage is not enough to guarantee a positive return on your technology investment (ROTI), though, and, to maximise their potential, retailers need to find the best ways to strategically leverage these tools in their business model.
Sven Beinlich, International Key Account Director for Retail at PPDS explains how Philips Professional Displays for retail can help to drive sales, enhance customer experience, and deliver a stronger ROI – all while also offering savings on energy consumption of 50 per cent, and even better catering for the 62% of consumers who look for brands that are transparent about their sustainability practices.
Strategic placement, energy savings, and content relevance
When considering the placement of your digital signage, it is important to consider where your high traffic areas are, and how you wish to direct your customers around your store. Finding the optimal location needs careful analysis and may need to be tweaked to suit your stock changes. Entry points, checkout lines, and focal points within the store are prime spots.
If you have static content to displays, say at point of sale, Philips Tableaux ePaper displays do not need to be plugged in to a power source to show your content, so they are highly portable, allowing you to adjust to find the optimal placement. With an Android SoC allowing easy remote content management, they are also an ideal paper replacement. Saving paper and energy.
Placement tip: Positioning your point of sale displays can change with the product you have on offer and your store layout. Selecting a more portable display works well in this scenario. Remember to keep them at eye level and easily visible.
For dynamic content – your videos – the Philips Signage 3000 Series EcoDesign is the most energy conscious display you can find, with the 65” model using around 70 per cent less electricity than its nearest same size competition, earning a C rated EU energy label and the EPEAT Silver Climate+ rating. All of this, without compromising on quality, capturing your customers’ attention while saving energy and money.
Going large doesn’t mean you need to disregard energy savings and more sustainable display options, either. The Philips Unite LED All In One 5000 Series brings the versatility and features expected in LCD signage, as well as the energy saving features – all in a box ready to be installed in around four hours. This groundbreaking display also benefits from dynamic and black screen power saving, with the ability to automatically and intelligently power down when not in use, and with a unique standby function that brings energy consumption down to just 0.5 watts, compared to 200 watts on other similar models, also saving energy and money.
Efficiency tip: Managing your store’s displays with a remote device management platform, such as PPDS Wave, helps to ensure all displays are running as efficiently as possible, allowing you to control and update them without using fuel, and making sure they are only in use when they are needed.
Whichever display you choose, make sure to tailor the content to your audience. Use analytics to understand customer preferences and behaviours and create content that really resonates. Highlight promotions, new arrivals, and bestsellers, and you can even showcase other brands’ content – more on this later! Make sure to update your content regularly to keep it fresh and engaging.
Interactive and personalised experiences
Interactive touchscreens, such as the Philips Interactive 4000 Series (T-Line) kiosk displays can be a great way of integrating a digital experience into your store (phygital – the mix of physical and digital), allowing customers to ‘interact’ with the content and feel more in touch with your brand. Features such as product search, virtual fittings, or customisation options can all enhance the shopping experience.
You can further this phygital experience by encouraging customers to sign in to their accounts with your store and using data-driven insights to deliver personalised messages. Leveraging the data you collect via loyalty programs allows you to show relevant promotions and recommendations, enhancing the likelihood of a purchase.
Engagement tip: Your interactive displays need to be visible and accessible. Position them with eye catching content and offers, and leverage software solutions designed to make the user experience as intuitive as possible, to encourage the customer to dwell and engage. You can find a range of retail focused software solutions on the PPDS ProStore.
Integration with omnichannel strategies
If your store also has a digital presence, ensuring your digital displays complement your overall omnichannel strategy builds a seamless experience for your customers. Syncronising promotions and messages across both online and offline channels provides a more consistent customer journey.
You can further leverage your digital displays to promote and provide information about click and collect services, allowing customers to order – even in store – and driving online to offline traffic, and vice versa.
Your digital displays can also be used to showcase social proof, displaying customer reviews and testimonials to build trust and influence purchasing decisions via customer-generated content that shows real life usage and satisfaction. And you can integrate your social media feeds to showcase live updates, user interactions, and brand activity, creating a dynamic and socially connected ecosystem.
Monetising your digital displays
You can maximise the ROI of your digital displays by selling advertising space to brands and suppliers. This not only generates additional revenue, it also helps to offset the cost of the displays themselves.
Your supplier and complementary brands will always be looking for new ways to reach customers. Offering advertising space in your store provides them with a direct line to consumers at the point of purchase. This can be a highly attractive opportunity.
Collaboration tip: Allowing advertisers to use dynamic content, including promotions, special offers, or time-sensitive campaigns, that can be updated in real-time, ensures their messages remain relevant and engaging. This can be easy with Philips Professional Displays with an Android System on Chip built in.
Easier to integrate with retail software solutions, content management and detailed performance metrics are all within reach. And retailers can also make use of PPDS Wave – the remote device management ecosystem that enables easy display management, including updates, maintenance and troubleshooting, content creation and control, and further energy saving measures.
Providing the option for other brands to advertise in your retail environment doesn’t just work for them. For instance, their new product launch, highlighted on your displays, will drive sales for that product, and others from that brand, encouraging sales, while also attracting more foot traffic to your store.
Digital signage displays are a powerful tool for retailers, especially when they are integrated and managed strategically. By focusing on placement, relevant and engaging content, omnichannel marketing, and clever collaborations, retailers can maximise the return on their technology investment.
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