Digital signage drives retail sales

Reported by HUSHIDA

Digital signage is quickly becoming more common in retails ranging in size from one location mom and pop stores to massive chains. However, many potential users express doubts on how they can justify the upfront cost of digital signage. How can they measure an ROI with a display?

Measuring ROI in sales

There are a number of ways to measure the return-on-investment for displays if you have well defined objectives such as increasing sales or boosting coupon redemptions. Once you have these objectives in place, you can plan entire campaigns around them with your digital signage.

"A primary objective might be increasing overall sales, or sales of a specific product (like a high-margin item or inventory that needs to be moved). One way to measure return on investment could be to run rich media content for a defined period and measure sales over that specific time frame. Sales ROI also may be measured in coupon redemption," Mike Tippets, VP, enterprise marketing, Hughes, said in an interview.

For some companies, traditional mediums such as fliers might not be as effective as they used to be, so digital signage can help boost overall customer awareness on products, specials, coupons, loyalty programs and other information.

Food Lion, a grocery chain operating in 10 states in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern U.S., found that its weekly flier wasn't as effective due to the fact that not everyone carries it around, so it began to use digital signage,  buyer and Hispanic Latino BRG Chair at Food Lion, said in an interview.

"We've rolled out digital signage solutions in close to 75 percent of our stores nationwide, primarily in our deli/bakery departments. The signs promote specific products (including push items and seasonally flavored items), specially priced items, how to earn discounts through our loyalty program and more," Rodriguez said. "Since introducing digital signage, we've seen a double-digit increase in sales which we attribute in large part to the signage innovation."

Measuring ROI in engagement

There is more to ROI than just a boost in sales. For example, depending on your objectives, you might want your digital signage to help boost brand awareness or coupon redemption or social media engagement or something else entirely.

"There is additional ROI to realize beyond sales. For instance, retailers may use digital signage to drive loyalty app adoption or to measure customer interest in products or promotions via the use of QR codes," Tippets said.

There are a number of ways to measure overall engagement with digital signage. One simple way is to ask customers about it in customer satisfaction surveys and pay attention to whether customers are talking about the digital signage content on social media.

Rodriguez said "customer response to the digital signage has been overwhelmingly positive, with increased customer satisfaction evident in our customer surveys. Shoppers consistently make positive comments on our social media, and to our associates about the signage, so we know they're taking notice."

Retailers can also use more advanced technologies to measure customer's engagement with digital signage. For example, a company could integrate facial recognition technology to capture a customer's demographics or mood when they approach the display. They could also use internet-of-things beacons to analyze customer's paths throughout the store and see how long they look at a display.

Tippets said this information offers, " critical data on customer demographics, traffic patterns, dwell time, and attention spans. That data may also be overlaid with factors like time of day or weather. The business intelligence gleaned from digital signage can inform operational and marketing decisions to maximize ROI in a single location or across multiple sites."

Of course, it can be easily to get overwhelmed with all of this data, which is why retailers need to always keep their objectives in mind when using digital signage, so they know exactly what to look for.

Beijing HUSHDIA Technology Co., Ltd., referred to as HUSHIDA, was established in May 2010. After the establishment of the company, the company has developed pragmatically and steadily. With the advantages accumulated in liquid crystal display, product design and software development, it has gradually entered the field of intelligent business display. Equipment production research and development and intelligent software and hardware integration development, and launched a series of intelligent business display products and integrated solutions, business coverage of domestic provinces and cities, exports to many overseas countries and regions.

In recent years, through focusing and focusing, HUSHIDA has formed three business divisions: “Smart Commercial Display, AI Artificial Intelligence, and Commercial Display OEM Factory”, and established a complete one-stop IoT intelligent business service ecosystem, committed to becoming China's leading company. One-stop smart service provider.