Blog

Last week, I attend the Digital Signage Expo in Las Vegas to get an idea where the industry is headed and look for new opportunities.  I’ve been working with digital  signage for a few years now in dentistry, banking and now moving into retail.  There were very few exhibitors who were demonstrating any new and exciting, but I did glean one very important  fact to me – Content is King!

I walked around thinking to myself, what about content? What about the audience experience? What about helping me drive more business and more sales?

Digital Signage is going through some of the same growing pains video production is going through. The hardware is cheap, the software is cheap. There are so many companies offering solutions that the price is being driven down dramatically and the cost of screens are dropping too.

Of course it is better for the end user if the cost is cheap right? Well, I think so, except you have people calling themselves digital signage experts, video production experts, content creation experts, but they don’t have a strong sense for branding, marketing, messaging and motivating an audience to take action.

And are they really experts? Some are and many are not. So beware.

I said Content is King right? Well, this is not completely actuate. What makes good content for your digital signage audience is nothing more than relevancy. What is relevant to them when they are watching the media on your screen.  In other words, expecting someone to think about plumbers while they are filling their gas tank up in not relevant to the guy buying the gas. Sure, you might get lucky and they just might be looking for a plumber at that very moment. But then they have to get a pen and paper or enter the number into their phone. Chances are with the thousands of marketing messages bombarding us every single day, the changes this person will remember you from that one touch is very slim.

I think you get it. It is a shot in the dark.

So what is on the mind of someone pumping gas besides the price of gas?  Who knows, but if there is a convenience store attached to the gas station, then maybe a few short videos about what they can buy in the store.  Maybe reminding them that the store sells great coffee, or fresh donuts, or milk, or sandwiches might get them to walk into the store and buy something. There are obvious brands who sell product in these stores who might want to take advantage of the brand impression.

But here is the problem. Many of the models around digital signage involve installing the system for free and then sell advertising. The business owner gets paid per ad played or some variation of that. Now you know why your favorite restaurant has installed those annoying screens selling all kinds of stuff which has nothing to do with the meal you are sitting down to enjoy.

By the way, this same rule applies to presentations, videos, meetings and social media. The more targeted your message to what the audience really cares about, the more effective your communication will be at achieving your desired results.

I would love you hear your thoughts and comments about this. Please also share some of your experiences and stories with me.

Sincerely,

Robert Grossman
Focus Creative Group