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Keeping your customers engaged with your business can be a challenge. Your employees only have so much time to answer questions. And there’s a limit to what they can do to keep your guests entertained and engaged while in-venue.
That’s why you should consider investing in interactive digital signage. It helps you connect with customers by educating, informing and entertaining them. Keep reading to learn:
Interactive digital signage is exactly what it sounds like: digital signage that you can interact with. If you don’t know, digital signage is a type of electronic sign that displays dynamic content via screens.
Businesses can use digital signage (which is also called smart signage or intercative signage) to display ads, content, information and other things they want their customers to know. Smart signs are preferable to traditional signs because they’re easier to update and more effective at keeping customers engaged.
Interactive digital signage takes this a step further. They’re digital signs that your guests can manipulate according to their preference. Every person who interacts with the sign can access the specific information that’s most relevant to their needs without having to sit through ads and information that doesn’t matter to them.
Creating a relationship with your customers is an essential part of keeping their business for the long haul. But it can be tough to manage this on your own. Commercial signage displays can be supplemental tools that can help you connect with your customers in more meaningful and authentic ways.
Part of building a strong relationship with your customers is making it easy for them to buy things from you. Interactive signs will do that for you. You can use them to share crucial information with guests so that they can get what they need from you faster.
You can also use interactive digital signs to make it easier for guests to sign up for contests that you’re running. This can be a great way to build a rapport with a customer without ever having to interact with them.
At the very least, you can use this strategy to gather some valuable information from your customers, such as an email address and a name. You can then turn around and use this information to market to that customer in a more targeted way than you would be able to do otherwise.
Now more than ever, people want to know where their food comes from and what its nutritional profile looks like. But you don’t want your employees to have to take time out of their work to look up this information and share it with your customers multiple times per day.
An in nteractive digital screen signage can solve this problem. It lets you share whatever menu information you want with your guests so that they can access everything they need to know on their own.
Digital interactive displays can also be fantastic for large venues. Maps can be useful in these spaces. But they offer no way for your guests to personalize the information that they see.
Interactive digital displays make it easy for your guests to find exactly what they’re looking for. You can set up a program that simply asks your visitors where they want to go and then provides them with custom directions to that place. This can eliminate a whole lot of confusion and wasted time.
Customers tend to ask a business the same questions over and over again. Interactive signage display will reduce the number of times that your employees need to answer these questions.
You can load your interactive digital display board with a set of FAQs that users can navigate themselves. This will make it easy for them to find the specific answers that they’re searching for instead of having to wait for a traditional digital sign to display the answers for them.
The check-in process can be a real bottleneck for clinics and hotels. When your venue is busy and the check-in process can’t keep up, patients will have to wait longer to see a doctor and guests will have to wait longer to get into their rooms.
Interactive digital signage can help you avoid this. You can set up your displays so that customers can check themselves into their appointments or hotel rooms automatically. This will also free your employees up to focus on other tasks, which could improve their efficiency quite a bit.
For some businesses, keeping customers entertained and engaged is what it’s all about. Interactive signage displays can make that easier for you to achieve. You can load the displays up with engaging games that customers can play from their seats.
Interactive signs can even connect different guests from your venue to one another. For example, you can use the screens to get your entire bar involved in a trivia game. You can even create themed nights to go along with these games to get more customers into your bar or restaurant.
You’re the best judge of what your business needs to thrive. With interactive digital screens, you’ll have a new tool at your disposal for making that happen. You can create your own interactive digital displays for advertising, informational display, game or something completely new. Interactive smart signage will give you the tech that you need to bring your vision to life.
Interactive digital signs may be even more valuable in the post-COVID world. Smart signs, in general, should become increasingly important as consumers become more aware of the benefits of social distancing to remain healthy. This type of dynamic signage lets customers get the information they need without having to interact with an employee to get it.
But traditional digital signage can’t answer all of your customers’ questions. You need something that they can interact with for that. That’s why interactive digital signage will be much more important in the coming years.
You can use interactive signs to encourage your guests to explore your offerings in more depth. For example, you might have an interactive display with your menu on it. Your customers could use the display to see which ingredients are in your dishes and what their nutritional profiles look like.
Other types of businesses can benefit from using interactive signs in the post-COVID world as well. A clinic could install interactive signage so that its patients could check in on their own. This will help them see a doctor faster while also allowing them to keep their distance from others if that’s what they prefer.
Interactive signs can provide businesses with a lot of value in the wake of COVID-19. But you may still worry about whether your customers would want to use touch digital signage displays if they’re concerned about the spread of viruses.
However, this isn’t actually a huge worry. The CDC said that surface transmission is not a major way that COVID-19 spreads. Additionally, there are lots of hardware companies that sell touch screens with anti-microbial displays. If you buy these screens and let your customers know that they’re anti-microbial, most will have no problem with using them. Plus, there are signage solutions that make it possible for customers to interact via their own mobile device, entirely removing any concerns about infection.
Clearly, there are lots of ways that your company can benefit from using interactive digital signage. If you’re ready to invest in it, then you’re probably wondering what exactly you need to focus on procuring.
Interactive digital displays are made up of a few straightforward components. The first thing that you’re going to need is some screens. You don’t necessarily need to make all of these touchscreens. Instead, you can save yourself a bit of money by just buying standard LED, OLED, or LCD digital signs to hang in places you know your customers won’t be able to reach.
Next, you need content management software that can help you manage your interactive signs. UPshow has one of the best in the business. Our platform makes it super easy for you to display a wide variety of interactive and engaging content to your customers.
Finally, content is the last piece of the puzzle. This is what you intend to show your customers through your interactive screens. It could be a menu, health and safety information, games, Over-the-Top (OTT) entertainment channels, something else or all of the above.
Interactive digital signage can be a tremendous asset for your company. It enables you to engage your customers in a wide variety of ways while also freeing up some of your employees’ time for other tasks. Using interactive signs could be just what your business needs to excel in the post-COVID business environment.
However, interactive signs won’t do a thing for you unless you also have a powerful content management system. That’s why you should check out UPshow. Our platform makes increasing your customer engagement a breeze.
Get in touch with us to learn more about how we can help.
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Digital signage is everywhere. 70% of Americans say they’ve seen a digital display board in the past month. It’s no wonder that the global market for electronic signage is expected to eclipse $30 billion by 2025.
With stats like these, your company may be ready to start utilizing smart signs. To do so, you’ll need to find the right digital display boards. Don’t worry if you’re not sure how to do that. We’ve put together the following guide on electronic signage boards to help you out. Keep reading to learn:
Digital display boards (also called smart screens) are screens that present multimedia content to an audience. They’re often made from LCD and LED screens. Business display boards are used to interact with their customers in more engaging ways than traditional signage allows.
There are several benefits to using digital signage boards. They’re easier to update than traditional signage, for one. Business owners can quickly change advertisements, menus and other information on an electronic display, taking away the need to physically print something or remove anything from their walls.
Electronic display boards also offer interactivity. Companies can use electronic display boards to run entertainment, display fun trivia questions or even share guests’ social media posts. This helps businesses provide their consumers with more engaging experiences.
Indoor digital signage is a catch-all term that you may see thrown around while looking for digital display boards. It can include everything from freestanding displays and digital information boards to digital menus and posters. As the name suggests, it just means any type of digital signage that you keep indoors.
Digital posters are exactly what they sound like: posters with a multimedia display. They’re hung on the wall and available in both portrait and landscape orientations.
Digital posters are a good choice for business owners who want to save space. They typically hang flat against the wall. You can use them as digital advertising boards for your products or simply as digital announcement boards to convey important information to your guests without infringing upon the limited space you have in your building.
Business owners can also place free standing digital display boards throughout their venues. These business display boards stand upright on their own. Often, a freestanding display will function as a kind of centerpiece in a space.
The downside of freestanding displays is that they can obstruct your customers’ space. But they’re also one of the best ways to capture your guests’ attention. You can even let your visitors interact with the display by purchasing touchscreen LCD monitors for it.
Freestanding digital media boards are a great way to direct your guests and advertise your products. Restaurants can even use them to let customers order their food.
Digital menus are entirely self-explanatory. They’re becoming increasingly popular in restaurants and bars. Business owners will find it much easier to update digital menus since they can do so through software instead of having to reprint all their traditional menus.
Customers enjoy digital menus too. Restaurants and bars can add engaging animations to them and display them in prominent locations so that everyone can read them with ease.
This type of digital display board is also very self-explanatory. Ceiling-mounted signage has the benefit of being less obtrusive than other types of display boards. But a ceiling-mounted digital light board comes with the downside of commanding less attention from your guests, which is why this type of signage is one of the least popular.
Outdoor digital signage can be tough to manage. You need to install it in a weatherproof casing to make sure that it doesn’t break. You also have to make sure that the system has good ventilation so that it remains cool.
The most common use-case of outdoor digital signage is billboards. But you may also consider installing something like a freestanding display outside of your business if you have a large outdoor space. You’ll just need to be very thorough during the installation process to ensure that signage will last.
As you shop for the right digital display board for your needs, this is one question that you’ll need to answer. Will you opt for interactive touchscreen displays or not?
You need to understand the objectives that you have for your digital signage to answer this question effectively. This can vary significantly from one company to another, and even from one of your digital display boards to another.
For example, you might have a freestanding board that you want your visitors to engage with to strengthen your brand image. In that case, it probably would be a good idea to invest in touchscreen technology.
Alternatively, if you just need to efficiently display your menu, then you probably don’t need to spend anything extra on touchscreens. Unless you plan on allowing your customers to order from that display as well.
Ultimately, the key idea is that you only need touchscreens if you’re planning on using them for a specific objective. Touchscreen isn’t the only way to connect with your customers either. There are various contactless communication options that can work with smart signs to form a nice alternative for customers who are a bit wary of interacting with touchscreen devices.
Here are a few reasons why you might choose interactive display boards:
There are lots of different digital display boards to choose from and your choice is going to affect which digital signage products you end up buying. . So how do you pick the right digital display board for your business? You start by spending some time thinking about what you hope to accomplish with your digital signage investment.
Do you want to keep your customers engaged? Direct them throughout your venue? Or provide a more personalized customer experience?
Maybe your goal is to make things easier on yourself. Digital signage simplifies advertising new products or services. You can swap out your in-venue ads digitally instead of having to continuously print out and hang physical posters or displays.
Start by figuring out the goal that you have for your digital display boards and move forward with the decision-making process from there.
Choosing the best digital display boards for your space can be a challenge. Here are a few additional questions you might want to ask yourself to zero in on the correct solution for your business:
Make sure that you have a clear understanding of your digital signage goals before investing in digital display boards. The last thing you want to do is spend a bunch of money on digital display screens and then spend another few months figuring out what to do with them. Doing so could waste a significant portion of your marketing budget.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution for digital display boards. The best way for you to use them will vary based on your business.
For example, you might have a smaller space to work with than many of your competitors. In that case, you would want to prioritize digital display boards that are unobtrusive. Options like digital posters and ceiling-mounted digital signage would work best for you.
But those digital screen displays wouldn’t serve your needs if you’re trying to make a statement with your digital signage. Large venues often favor big indoor digital display screens for advertising that prominently showcase ads, guests’ social media posts, engaging trivia questions and more.
It’s worth mentioning that you don’t have to stick with just one type of digital display board. You may find that you need a different digital signage strategy in different parts of your space. Investing in a few types of smart signage would be a good option in that situation.
Ways to use your digital display boards
Electronic signage boards won’t advertise your products or keep your guests entertained on its own. You need to combine the display boards with powerful software to make that happen.
That’s why you should give UPshow a chance. Our solution is the only in-venue marketing and engagement platform that delivers a robust suite of analytical tools alongside interactive entertainment and hyper-targeted marketing.
Our technology seamlessly connects all of your screens so that you can optimize the results you get from each of them. With UPshow, you’ll find it easy to unlock the full potential of your digital displays.
But don’t take our word for it. Try our powerful solution to experience the UPshow difference for yourself. Getting started is as easy as filling out this form to schedule a custom demo for your company. We look forward to hearing from you.
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Making your venue stand out from the competition can be tough. But smart signs (also known as digital signage) can help. They make it easier for you to keep your guests entertained while also accomplishing your marketing goals.
Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with digital signage for venues yet. Keep reading to learn:
Digital signage is an electronic screen display that conveys information to in-store audiences. These screens display videos and graphics that keep your audience entertained and informed.
Smart signs are more dynamic than traditional signage displays. With digital signage, you can change content as often as you want, enabling you to keep your messaging relevant. Plus, with digital signage solutions for venues, can complete multiple guest engagement tasks at once. For example, smart signs let you:
Digital signage is made up of several components. You need each to get the most out of your smart signs.
This refers to the physical aspects of your digital signage display. It includes screens, mounts, network components and any other physical objects needed to make your display function.
You probably already have existing smart screen hardware in your venue. For example, LCD and LED displays are two of the most common types of digital signage hardware. But they’re not the only types of screens you can use.
Venues can also use touchscreens for their smart signs. These make it super easy for guests to browse through menus, compare products and interact with your venue in meaningful ways.
It’s often a good idea to combine touchscreens with traditional LED and LCD displays. Larger displays are great for displaying content and ads. You can supplement them with smaller touchscreens to give your guests another way to interact with your smart venue’s offerings.
Software turns an otherwise normal piece of hardware into a dynamic smart sign. It controls the content that’s displayed on your devices and manages how your screens work together.
There are lots of smart digital signage software solutions available, each of which has its own set of benefits. For example, some digital signage software is only designed to entertain your guests with content. Others offer comprehensive engagement solutions that provide a cloud-based management suite, entertainment options and marketing tools .
Smart signs need to connect back to your content management system to provide the most value. Wi-Fi and mobile technologies are the most convenient connectivity solutions because they require no wires. But you may also opt for a hard-line solution in certain situations.
The installation process is also a very important part of maximizing the impact of your smart signs. When you’re installing your screens, make sure you consider their positions throughout your venue. You want to ensure your guests see the screens, but make sure you’re also considering how guests will interact with those screens. For example, a signage display right as someone enters seems like a great idea. That way, customers see great offers right away!
Consider this experience from your customer’s perspective. They want to enter your venue, not be caught in the entry where others are coming and going. Instead of smart venue signage directly at the entrance, consider a larger venue sign further in to attract attention and draw customers inside your venue.
You want to make sure that you position your digital signage displays optimally throughout your venue. This means striking the perfect balance between installation locations that are prominent, unobtrusive but not easily overlooked. For more on that, check out our white paper on overcoming display blindness.
Digital signage for venues is a great way to advertise and share important information with your guests. But if you want your customers to engage with your signs, you can’t use them for advertising alone. You should also use them to display content that your guests care about.
That can be more than just TV shows and sports. With smart signs, you can also display your guests’ social media posts or set up your touchscreens with engaging games. Displaying the right content is key to ensuring that your digital signage gets the traction you would like.
Nowadays, digital signage can be found pretty much everywhere. It’s common in doctor’s offices, gyms, bars and venues, among other locations.
But if you want to get the most out of your smart signs, you need to make sure that you put them in the right parts of your venue. There are a few rules to keep in mind while determining where your displays will go.
You should always try to place your smart signs in high-traffic areas. This rationale for this is pretty self-explanatory. Your displays will get more attention if they’re located where your guests are most likely to congregate. Restaurants should place smart signs by bars and throughout major seating areas.
It’s also important to think about the height and angle of your screens. They should lie within your guests’ natural field of vision. Eye-level is best if you can manage it. Your customers will naturally discover and engage with your signs if they don’t have to crane their necks and go out of their way to look at them.
Depending on the connectivity method you use, it may be important to keep your signs close to WiFi routers. The average 2.4 GHz WiFi router can reach up to 150 feet indoors. But your connection will be better the closer you are to the router.
You want to make sure that your venue signs can stream the content you plan on displaying through them without buffering. You’ll want to spend some time testing this before you install your smart signs in specific locations.
Other ways to utilize your digital signage
Smart signs keep your guests engaged. They’re eye-catching displays that attract your customers’ attention. You can use them to satisfy a variety of your company’s needs.
Smart signs can save you time and money on in-venue marketing. They’re a great way to share information about new drinks, special discounts and upcoming events.
You won’t have to print up new signage every time you want to advertise something new. You’ll just program your smart signs to display the ad for however long you want your customers to see it.
You can even advertise different things at different times of the day with venue digital signage. For example, you could prominently display an afternoon meal deal during lunch hours and swap over to an ad for your new drink during the evening.
Whether you operate a clinic or a bar, you never want your customers to be bored at your facility. Boredom tends to increase customer irritation and frustration. It can even make them anxious in a healthcare setting.
Smart signs will help you avoid this problem. You can use them to dynamically display content that your customers care about, including everything from viral videos to trivia questions. They’ll help you keep your customers engaged and entertained so that they’re more likely to think of your company favorably in the future.
54% of people who browse social media use it to research products, places and services. If your venue positions itself well on social media, it could see an uptick in business. Venue digital signage can help you make this happen.
Your guests are already taking pictures of themselves at your venue and posting them on Instagram. You can take advantage of that behavior by displaying your guests’ posts on your screens. Tell them to use your venue’s hashtag and you’ll feature them on your screens. You could see an increase in social media activity around your venue in no time.
Smart signs are also a great way to display reviews from your clients. Doing so could help new customers discover what makes your business special in a way that feels more personal than large review websites.
Venues can vary from one another in significant ways. The smart sign solution that’s right for your space may not be right for someone else. That’s why it’s important to spend some time thinking about which type of digital signage technology will allow you to get the most out of your venue’s layout.
There are a few hardware choices to consider. Standard TV screens are always an option. The three major types that you should think about are LCD, LED and OLED (organic light-emitting diode).
LCD displays are the cheapest of the bunch. They also feature a wider depth and weigh more than LED displays. These features have made LCD screens one of the most common hardware choices for smart signs in recent years.
But a growing number of venues are swapping over to LED panels. More specifically, they’re using LED panels that are back-lit, edge-lit and direct-lit. These features make it easier for a customer to see your screen from various parts of your venue. LED screens also provide a clearer, sharper image and brighter colors while using up to 50% less power than LCDs.
OLEDs are another alternative. These TVs feature a wider viewing angle than their LED counterparts. Additionally, the colors emitted by an OLED screen won’t get washed out when viewers watch the screen from extreme angles. Choosing OLED screens could make it easier for your customers to engage with your digital displays.
There are other types of displays you’ll want to consider as well. Touch screens can add a fun dimension to your venue. They may be a good idea for your space if you’d like your guests to be able to easily browse a menu, check themselves in or take a look at your upcoming events.
Smart signs can have a big impact on your venue. They’re great for keeping your guests entertained, sharing important information with them and advertising your products.
If you decide to invest in digital signage, the two major things you need to think about are hardware and software. Your hardware needs will vary based on your goals and the layout of your venue. But UPshow is the only smart sign software for your venue.
UPshow is the leading entertainment and marketing platform that drives engagement for your venue. It offers a cloud-based management suite, more than 500 channels of entertainment and numerous engagement solutions. Get in touch with us to schedule your custom demo today.
The need for contactless communication and customer experiences in the past year has created some very real challenges for businesses. But it’s also opened up some new opportunities for forward-thinking companies.
Leverage your business's screens to create touchless, interactive experiences for your guests. Not only will you increase safety; you'll also drive revenue, increase customer engagement and boost loyalty with this innovative technology. Check out these resources to learn more:
Everyone loves entertainment venues. They’re where we connect with our friends, listen to good music and unwind after a long week. But it’s been very difficult to enjoy venues since COVID-19.
More than 87% of in-person events were canceled in the early days of the pandemic. All-in, companies have lost more than $1 billion in revenue because of this. Thankfully, as vaccines start to roll out, more and more entertainment venues are getting the go-ahead to reopen from local, state and federal governments.
This is good news. But it doesn’t mean that venues can simply return to normal and expect their profits to do the same. Instead, venues need to adjust their offerings to align with consumer preferences in the post-pandemic world.
Digital signage makes this easy to achieve. It can bring safe, contactless fun to your entertainment venue. Keep reading to learn how:
COVID-19 is changing the entertainment venue industry in several significant ways.
People are becoming increasingly aware of their health and safety. Both your employees and your guests will expect you to do more to protect them in the post-pandemic world. Heightened health and safety protocols will likely become the norm because of this.
This may play out in a few different ways. For example, employers may ask their employees to go through health screening checks before working. Venues will also continue utilizing heightened cleaning standards and personal protective equipment.
Digitization was already increasing before the pandemic. But COVID-19 has made the shift to digital even more rapid than it was. This will be particularly impactful to entertainment venues.
Digitization will impact venues in several different ways:
People are more aware of how the spaces they frequent can impact their health. They know that spending a ton of time cramped closely together with others may not be good for them. Entertainment venues (and most other businesses for that matter) will have to respond to this.
Venues can do that by reorganizing their interior spaces. For example, some will want to create a layout that offers more space so that social distancing can occur when needed or wanted by consumers. FCM Hospitality restaurants, for instance, are emphasizing outdoor dining to keep guests and employees safer.
COVID-19 has introduced a new variable people need to consider when deciding whether to go out. Consumers have to weigh the health risk presented by crowded entertainment venues against the perceived value of attending the events they hold.
That means entertainment venues may need to be more creative to deliver better content to their guests. One way that you might achieve that is by using digital signage. You can even use exciting emerging technologies like AR to keep your guests entertained. More information on how to do that is included below.
COVID-19 has increased consumers’ awareness of how viruses spread and how to avoid infection. Many will prefer to purchase tickets, order food and interact with your venue digitally as often as possible. Venues who want to satisfy their customers will become contactless because of this.
Going contactless has a measurable impact on your bottom line. Depending on your business model, going contactless could reduce the number of employees you need to schedule at any given time or eliminate the recurring cost of traditional, paper signage. For example, with digitization, customers can order food on their phone and pick their order up without ever having to speak to an employee.
Venue owners can also leverage contactless devices, such as tablets, TVs, and customers’ own mobile devices, to increase customer engagement. This could help your entertainment thrive in the post-pandemic world.
Social media is everything nowadays, so your venue might as well get in on the action. Consider setting up a permanent DIY Instagram photo booth. You can place your logo on the booth and customize it to align with your brand’s image.
Encourage your guests to share their photos on social media and you could even score some free advertising.
Tablet gaming is on the rise. You can tap into that growing market by bringing arcade and trivia games to your tables. They can be a fun way for your guests to compete with other people in the venue as well as people across the world.
You can set game tablets at each table, or create a truly contactless experience by using your TV screens and allowing guests to interact via their mobile phones.
Contactless ordering and digital tickets will be almost essential in the post-pandemic world. These features make it easier for customers to get into your venue and get what they need while they’re there.
As more and more entertainment venues begin offering contactless ordering and digital tickets, it will become the norm for the industry.
Special events like concerts and trivia nights are a great way to get people into your establishment. You may just need to rethink how you host them in the wake of the pandemic.
For example, if you have an outdoor space, you might want to host a concert out there instead of inside. Doing so could make it easier to space out your guests. Another strategy is to sell fewer tickets than you normally would.
Trivia nights are a bit easier to host in a distanced way. You can spread your tables out to an appropriate distance before the event starts and have guests order food and drinks from tablets or their own mobile devices instead of going up to your bar themselves.
If you host concerts and other special events, you might ask your guests to check in with a ticket as they arrive. Making this process digital is a good idea for a few reasons.
First, doing so can reduce the amount of time that a guest has to spend waiting to get into your venue. Second, when you reduce the amount of time a guest has to spend in line, you make it easier for them to remain socially distanced and safe.
Augmented Reality (AR) is a fantastic way to add a unique touch to your events. You can use it to provide your guests with another way to entertain themselves. Or you can use AR to keep them informed with directions and important pieces of information.
You won’t need to provide your guests with any specialized equipment to get this going. Instead, you can just create a QR code that a guest can scan with their phone to view your AR setup directly through their device.
Large events have used AR to enhance their guest experience for a while now. For example, at Computex 2016, VNTANA used its AR technology to allow consumers to interact with a wide range of concepts, products, and people. This same technology can be leveraged in smaller spaces.
Personalized push notifications can be a great way to provide your customers with important health and safety information before a big event.
For example, you might send out a push notification with the latest health information for a guest’s area a few days before the event.
This will show your patrons that you care and will help them keep safe while they visit your establishment.
Want to learn more about how push notifications can help you drive revenue? You can get our free white paper here.
Providing quality customer service is an essential part of keeping your venue safe and fun for your guests. You can do this digitally now thanks to modern technology.
For example, you might create an app with a knowledge base that contains answers to the most common questions you get. You could even create a live chat function within the app so that your clients can speak with an employee without having to wade through a crowd of people to do so.
You can coordinate your digital signage displays to get more out of the contactless entertainment options discussed in this article. For example, after your guests use your DIY Instagram photo booth, you can display the pictures they post on your screens to drive more engagement.
Similarly, you can advertise your app on digital signage to ensure your guests know what they’ll get from using it. You could even display QR codes on your digital signs to make it easier for your guests to access your AR offerings or find your contactless ordering page.
Adding digital signage to your venue is a fantastic way to provide safe, contactless fun to your guests. Digital signs make it easier to share important health and safety information, keep your guests engaged and provide them with the entertainment experience that they want.
Digital signage could be just what you need to prepare your entertainment venue for the post-COVID world. So why wait? Get in touch with UPshow today to learn more about how our digital signs can help you improve your venue.
Fill out this form and we’ll set you up with a custom demo so that you can experience the benefits of digital signage for yourself.
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From the invention of the vaccine to the rise of stem cell therapy, technology has always pushed the healthcare industry forward. As our society’s technological capabilities improve, we generally see a corresponding increase in healthcare innovation.
This interplay between healthcare and technology has shaped patient outcomes and experiences for hundreds of years. It continues to do so to this day.
Embracing modern technology ensures your clinic stands out from others in the area. Not only will this help you keep your patients safe and improve your ability to serve them, new technologies keep them engaged and eager to return.
Keep reading to learn:
Artificial intelligence will revolutionize the healthcare industry in several key ways. Some of these will be more applicable to your clinic than others.
For example, AI makes it much easier to search through anonymous medical records to understand large scale trends in illnesses. Healthcare professionals also use it to analyze patient data and figure out the best solution to specific health issues.
AI is already more effective than humans at certain types of medical imaging analysis as well. Google recently made an AI that does breast cancer analysis. It performed 11.5% better than the average radiologist from the study.
AI makes it easier for doctors to provide individualized care to their patients based on data. As treatment grows increasingly personalized because of this, it will become even more important to communicate clearly with clinic screens and through patient portals, which are easier to access through digital signage.
These are just a few examples of how artificial intelligence can improve the care a patient receives. Clinics that use AI in the future will be able to provide their patients with better results. They’ll become more successful as a result of that.
You may already know that virtual reality is training the next generation of surgeons. According to the Harvard Business Review, surgeons who train on VR perform 230% better than those who don’t. But you may not fully understand the potential that VR has for patients.
Healthcare professionals use VR headsets to reduce labor pain already. Women put on the device and find themselves in a calm environment where they are distracted from the pain they feel.
Researchers also believe this technique can work on patients who are dealing with pain from neurological, cardiac and gastrointestinal illnesses. Adding VR headsets to your clinics could help your patients manage their pain more effectively. You can use digital signage to advertise this service on your screens and increase the buy-in from your patients.
Healthcare trackers are fantastic. They provide wearers with important information about their health and well-being. Clinics can take advantage of this growing consumer trend as well.
For example, wearable technology makes it super easy for a patient to share their vital information with a physician. This makes it possible for the patient to receive a wide variety of healthcare services from practically anywhere in the world.
In the future, a patient and doctor will meet over a video call and talk about the health information the patient has relayed through their healthcare tracker. Clinics that embrace this type of telehealth early should see their patient loyalty grow as a result.
Genome sequencing is one of the most exciting emerging technologies in healthcare. Companies like Illumina are developing new machines that will eventually allow personal genomes to be made for less than $100. That’s staggering when you consider the entire Human Genome Project cost the U.S. government about $2.7 billion.
When this happens, the results will be profound. People will learn an incredible amount about themselves and their unique health and wellness needs.
They could learn about their sensitivity to various drugs, their family’s medical history, and undiscovered medical conditions, among other things.
Clinics that begin offering personal genome sequencing early will have a leg up on the competition. They can use the technology to deliver more targeted results to their clients.
Nanotechnology is another emerging field that forward-looking clinics can benefit from. It can help you provide your patients with a better healthcare experience in a few key ways.
First, nanotechnology can seriously reduce the number of invasive procedures that you need to perform. This is already happening. For example, the PillCam uses nanotechnology to perform colon exams in a noninvasive way. Using a tool like this in your clinic could be a great way to stand out from other providers in your area.
Nanotechnology can also provide you with more data about your patients’ health and well-being. For example, MIT has developed an electronic pill with nanotechnology. It can relay diagnostic information and release drugs on demand. Best of all, doctors can control the device with a common smartphone.
3D printing has numerous applications in the medical field. For example, a surgeon can create a 3D model of a patient’s spine to help plan their surgery. A dentist can scan a broken tooth to create a more accurate crown for a patient. And a doctor can use 3D printing to create new bio-tissues, blood vessels, and even artificial limbs for their patients.
Clinics that use 3D printing technology will provide their clients with more personalized and effective care. Those who embrace the technology early will earn a significant amount of goodwill with their patients.
Cloud computing is already widely used in the healthcare industry. In fact, a recent survey found that more than 90% of healthcare organizations use the cloud. But the industry isn’t using this technology in a cohesive, holistic way yet. Rather, most cloud-based datasets exist in silos that are independent of one another.
This will change over the next decade. Healthcare companies are starting to bring all of their cloud-based data together to create large datasets. The goal is to feed this data into emerging technologies that deal with big data.
Clinics can use the impending improved cloud integration to their advantage. They can learn more about their practices and their patient outcomes. Then they can use that information to look for opportunities for improvements.
Smart devices are part of our daily lives now. But they aren’t super popular in the medical field yet. That should change over the coming years. There are several opportunities for clinics to begin using smart therapies to improve the care they provide to patients.
Some healthcare executives believe that smart drug delivery devices will be huge in the next decade. There’s an opportunity to create smart insulin pens, inhalers, and even pill packaging. The goal of doing this would be to track more data about how therapies work both inside and outside of clinical settings.
Analysts can feed this data back into other emerging technological solutions, such as artificial intelligence. The powerful combination of smart therapies and AI could lead to breakthroughs in how clinics treat their patients.
The right digital signage solution turns the screens you already have in your clinic into information and entertainment hotspots. The perfect package may include interactive kiosks, touch screen portals, video screens and digital information boards. Adding digital signage to your clinic could provide your patients with a much better healthcare experience.
For example, digital signage speeds up the patient intake process. With it, patients can check themselves in instead of waiting for in-person assistance.
Digital signs also make your clinic’s wait time more bearable to patients. But not every digital sign provider is the same. UPshow’s digital signs offer more than 500 content channels. Your patients won’t notice the wait as much if you provide engaging entertainment.
You can even use digital signs to share important health information with your visitors. For example, you could display wellness tips relevant to your practice on the signs, or use them to explain common treatment procedures.
It’s also worth mentioning that digital signage can improve your employees’ performance as well. Digital signs can complete some of the tasks that your employees would normally have to do themselves, thereby freeing them up for more important work. This includes contactless check-ins and streamlined patient intake with digital forms that patients can fill out online.
Additionally, you can use digital signs to provide recurring staff training and deliver emergency information across your team in an instant. These features are employee-facing. But as your employees perform better, the care that your patients receive from them will improve.
Digital signage gives you numerous ways to improve your patients’ healthcare experience with a single technology. This key benefit is why integrating a digital signage platform with traditional TV screens in healthcare clinics will be criticalin the years to come.
Technology is a constant driver of progress in the healthcare industry. The most successful clinics are the ones that stay on top of technological improvements to always provide their patients with the best care possible. You can do the same by leveraging the screens already in your clinic to communicate better with your patients.
Digital signage makes it incredibly easy to educate your patients about your offerings, procedures, and general health and wellness. They double as independent check-in devices and entertainment screens.
Why not try digital signage for yourself? UPshow makes it incredibly easy to do so. You can fill out this form to schedule a free custom demo today.
The pandemic has had a massive influence on the fitness industry. Gym closures across the country forced consumers to reinvent how they take care of themselves. With the rise of at-home fitness, the future of gyms is somewhat uncertain.
However, greater involvement of technology in the fitness industry is one saving grace. Gym technology can prepare your gym for the post-COVID world by investing in new types of fitness technology. These investments will help you retain members and get them excited about visiting your facilities.
Keep reading to learn:
Adding digital signage to your gym is one of the most effective ways to make it stand out. Screens powered by reliable digital signage gym technology can significantly improve your members’ experience in several ways.
To start, digital signage helps inform your members. You can use digital signs to share information about upcoming classes, your health and safety requirements and workout suggestions.
Digital signs your guests engaged while working out. For example, you can use digital signs to display pictures of workouts your members have posted on social media. You can also offer a wide variety of engaging entertainment channels to your guests, including news, sports and reality TV.
But digital signage can do more than keep your members engaged while at your gyms. It can also be a super-effective, new marketing channel for your company. You can use digital signage to display promotions that you’re running and advertise the products that you sell in your gym store, among other things.
Learn More About Digital Signage for Gyms
The global wearable technology market in the fitness industry already tops $32.63 billion. Analysts project it to grow even more in the coming years. Consumers find wearable tech valuable because they want to understand their fitness journeys on deeper levels. Wearable devices allow people to track progress over time. They can measure improvements in:
The next generation of wearable technology will generate even more powerful insights as your guests progress on their fitness journeys. Selling them at your gym could make it a more attractive place for your members to workout.
There are a few ways to do that. You could purchase a set of wearable devices for users to wear while working out at your gym. Or you could update your existing services to make them compatible with wearable technology. By ensuring that your machines offer wearable technology integrations, you create new ways for your personal trainers to coach guests.
Investing in smart gym equipment is the perfect first step towards creating a technologically inclined fitness center. These machines enable your members to connect with their preferred fit-tech solution. With that capability, your guests will be able to track their workout data over time regardless of where they work out on a day-to-day basis.
You don’t necessarily have to purchase the latest gym equipment to make this happen either. Startup companies like GYMSYM have built sensors that will retrofit existing machines with smart capabilities for a fraction of the price.
The gamification of workouts is a booming trend in the at-home fitness industry. Companies like Peloton have built multi-billion-dollar empires on the simple premise that workouts are more fun when they’re part of a game. This usually means turning a workout into a competition to see who can perform the best.
Adding gamified workouts along with innovative workout equipment could increase your members’ loyalty. They may be more likely to visit you consistently if you display real-time leaderboards on TV screens to encourage your guests’ spirit of competition.
Investing in wearable technologies will make this easier to achieve. But adding modern fitness gear that enables gamified workouts to your fitness center could also be as simple as purchasing the right machines for your members to use.
Every gym needs scales so that its members can track their weight over time. But you can help your fitness center stand out from the competition by investing in smart scales that offer enhanced capabilities.
Smart scales are essentially just scales that connect with a smartphone. But they offer a bunch of additional features that traditional scales don’t. For example, a member can use a smart scale to track their:
By offering smart scales along with the newest exercise machines, you give your members even more information about their fitness journey they won’t get anywhere else.
Smart scales aren’t super expensive either. You can purchase them for as little as $20 each.
Things in gyms help people who visit the gym but what about people who are unable to make it on some days? Virtual reality (VR) is an emerging technology with serious potential for the fitness industry. Big-name brands like Pure Fitness and Virgin Active are using it already to simulate the experience of personal training from anywhere in the world.
High tech gym equipment like a VR device allow fitness enthusiasts to connect with their personal trainer or take a class while at home or on the road. Consumers have grown more comfortable with working out at home through the experience of COVID-19. Investing in VR coaching and classes could help your high tech futuristic gym continue reaching guests that prefer to continue their fitness journeys from home.
Online coaching fitness tech became a necessity for gyms impacted by COVID-19 closures. But don’t expect the trend to die down now that fitness centers are reopening in the United States.
Across all industries, people are looking for services that offer greater flexibility. Online coaching is one of the best ways for gyms to respond to this growing consumer sentiment.
When your gym offers online coaching and classes, it gives its guests the ability to workout anywhere and any time that they wish. That’s a fantastic way to differentiate your company from the competition and to keep it front and center in its members’ fitness journeys.
Younger generations want to do more than work out by themselves. They not only crave new gym equipment and technology but also interactive experiences that they can share with their friends. Integrating entertainment into your fitness classes offers the perfect solution. Look to companies like SoulCycle for inspiration.
Companies like SoulCycle excel because they offer a sense of community to their members. Your gym may want to look into doing something similar. If your guests enjoy themselves while completing your fitness classes, they’re much more likely to return to them in the future.
Post-workout recovery is super important. The recovery time between workouts allows the body to repair micro-tears in muscles, reduce inflammation and increases performance in future workouts. Recovery takes time, but tools like percussive therapy devices can speed up the process. Percussion therapy devices are a new fitness technology that can help your members get more out of their post-workout recovery.
These gym devices apply targeted pressure to massage sore, tired muscles. By reaching deep layers of muscle, these devices help speed up recovery.
When your guests use modern gym recovery equipment like a percussive therapy device, they reduce their pain, increase blood flow to targeted areas and reduce muscle inflammation. Making these devices available to your members could make them more likely to continue working out at your fitness center. You can even advertise them on digital signage so that more of your members engage with them.
Float tanks are another fitness technology that can improve your guests’ post-workout recovery process. You’ll fill up these tanks with water and magnesium sulfate. The magnesium sulfate works to relax sore muscles and build up proteins in the joints. This leads to an accelerated recovery time.
Adding float tanks to your gym could make it stand out from the competition. They could even be a new source of revenue for your company. You could charge guests a small fee each time that they use the tank to pay yourself back for the investment you make when purchasing them.
The modern fitness enthusiast wants to track every part of their health and fitness journey. Your gym can take advantage of this trend by developing a total mobile fitness application for its members.
For example, F45 Studio has developed an app that includes daily meal plans, calorie trackers and even meal delivery. Investing in an app with capabilities like these can ensure that your guests remain in your fitness center’s ecosystem while working towards their fitness goals. Plus, advertising your helpful new app is easy with digital signage gym technology! You can track interest by including a QR code with your messaging. The QR code can deliver guests directly to the app download page, lowering the friction for your members while giving you plenty of information about engagement
Modernize your gym is easier with UPshow
Technology and fitness are all set to be the best pals in this new age. However, if you have to start with just one new investment in fitness technology, digital signage is the way to go. Digital signs provide new avenues of engagement, allowing you to communicate more effectively to your members about all your gym’s offerings. They also make it much easier for you to advertise personal training sessions, class sign-ups and products from your gym store.
UPshow makes bringing digital signage technology to your gym a breeze. We offer more than 500 channels of entertainment to choose from, along with several powerful marketing features to help your gym grow.
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The pandemic has disrupted numerous economic sectors but perhaps none more than the restaurant industry. More than 110,000 eating and drinking places across the country closed their doors either temporarily or permanently.
It’s almost never been this challenging to find success in the restaurant business.
But that doesn’t mean success is impossible — especially now that restaurant restrictions are easing up across the country. Restaurant owners just need to get creative about how they engage their customers to achieve their goals.
Improving your restaurant’s customer experience is one of the best ways to prepare your restaurant for success in the post-pandemic world. If you’re looking for tips on how to do that, you’ve come to the right place. Keep reading to learn:
Many restaurants struggled to adapt in the early days of the pandemic. But a full year has passed since the first quarantine orders went out. In that time, restaurateurs have discovered how to change their businesses to be successful. Let’s go through four examples of that.
The world is becoming increasingly digital. For a while, it felt like restaurants might be immune to this trend. But the pandemic changed that. It brought digitalization to the restaurant industry remarkably quickly.
Digital loyalty programs exemplify this shift. Digital engagement is soaring during the pandemic and loyalty programs are one of the best ways for restaurants to take advantage of it.
Other digital offerings are becoming more commonplace too. For example, more restaurants are offering options for digital and mobile payments. Similarly, restaurants are investing in payment kiosks, digital menus and other digital tools to provide their customers with a smoother dining experience.
COVID-19 has also seriously impacted restaurant supply chains. That has forced companies in the industry to take another look at their menus. When the pandemic was at its worst, many restaurants had to significantly cut back their offerings.
In response to that, some restaurant owners are choosing to prioritize local ingredients. It’s a trend that may continue.
Similarly, restaurants began offering non-traditional items during the pandemic. This Zagat Survey found that 38% of consumers ordered non-traditional delivery from restaurants during this time, including meal kits, grocery items and alcoholic beverages.
Since restaurants were successful with these offerings, they’ll likely continue.
Takeout and delivery orders are becoming more common too. Before the pandemic, 69% of consumers ordered takeout. That number has grown to a staggering 88% during the pandemic.
People want to return to indoor dining. But many industry experts expect the demand for takeout and delivery to remain high after the pandemic is over. Restaurants are responding to this by building out these capabilities.
Restaurants are also shifting their layouts in response to the increasing consumer demand for takeout and delivery. Many are reducing the sizes of their dining rooms to make more room in the kitchen for cooking and preparing orders.
For example, Kanoyama is a Michelin-starred restaurant in New York City that’s set up a street-side table to sell meals to passing customers who don’t wish to enter the restaurant. It plans to keep this feature moving forward.
Customers have also become more wary of packed-in seating arrangements because of the pandemic. We may see restaurants permanently shift to spacing their tables further apart as a response to this.
Succeeding in the restaurant industry is tough. The restaurant failure rate in the United States is 60%. For yours to succeed, you need to keep your customers happy. That’s common knowledge. But many restaurants fail to deliver, often for the following reasons.
A Cornell University study found that many restaurants fail because their leaders don’t have a clear vision. One of the first things that you should do is come up with a mission statement for your restaurant.
Once you have this, you can make decisions based on whether they align with that statement or not. If you have a good vision and you follow it, then it’s very likely that your customers’ happiness will follow.
Restaurants that are fun and lively tend to be consumer favorites. But you could have the best atmosphere in the world and still fail if your food isn’t good. Providing your customers with the food they want starts by designing a strong menu.
Your menu should be full of food that you know your customers want. You also need to make sure that each dish your restaurant sells is profitable. You should figure all of this out before you release your menu.
Consumer preferences are constantly changing. The restaurants that do the best adapt to those changes with agility. This could mean everything from updating your menu more often to investing in new technologies like digital signage. The point is, you must be able to identify and respond to the shifting habits of your customers.
Trendiness is a good thing. But too much trendiness can be problematic. Especially when you try to embrace every new idea. Often, when things get popular, the market becomes oversaturated with providers for those items very quickly.
You should certainly look to take advantage of trends that are a good fit for your existing business. But make sure you do your research instead of blindly investing in the next big thing.
Restaurants need constant innovation to keep up with shifting consumer expectations. That can be tough. So don’t worry if your restaurant’s customer experience isn’t quite where you want it. You can use the following strategies to start improving it.
Digital signage is a fantastic way to get customers interested in your restaurant. You can display them in your front window and show off your best dishes. Or use them to show people walking by why they should spend money at your restaurant.
You can highlight the ethical sourcing practices that you use, show off your vegan dishes or let consumers know that you’re a locally-run, family-owned establishment.
Digital signage gives you the freedom to use all of these strategies at the same time with rotating display images.
Digital restaurant menus improve your customer experience by engaging them the moment they walk in the door. They’re also super convenient for restaurant owners.
Digital menus are much easier to update, which allows you to respond to shifts in your customers’ ordering habits faster.
Creating a digital menu can also reduce the time your restaurant’s wait time. Digital menus make it easier for customers to figure out what they want, which can reduce the amount of time that your staff has to spend processing each order.
There’s no substitute for good service. If you’re not already prioritizing it, then now is the time to do so. Consider retraining your staff. They should be friendly, ask lots of questions to clients, and always prioritize resolving customer disputes in the best manner possible.
The time that you spend doing this will be well worth it if your customers leave your restaurants happier as a result.
36% of diners follow restaurants on social media. That’s a huge pool of consumers that you can target with an active social media presence. Make sure that you’re posting regularly to keep your customers aware of special dishes and discounts.
Digital signs can help you with this. You can use UPshow’s digital signs to display your customers’ social media posts in your restaurant.
Tell guests to use your restaurant’s hashtag and post their meals so that you can share them on your screens. Social posts are a great, free source of social media advertising for you.
You could embrace all of these tips and it won’t mean a thing if your restaurant’s food isn’t good. But “good” can mean something different for every restaurant. The key is to meet or exceed your customers’ expectations.
For example, you might market your restaurant as a place to get healthy meals. If so, you need to make sure that your food is not only tasty but also healthy. Similarly, if you sell indulgent dishes, then make sure that you provide your customers with food that’s sinfully delicious.
The restaurant industry is going through a seismic shift because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Investing in digital signage is one of the best ways to ensure that your restaurant is prepared for these changes.
Digital signage will modernize your restaurant to ensure that it’s prepared for the pandemic-fueled shifts in consumer habits. And UPshow makes it easy to add digital signage to your facility.
You can use our signs to create digital menus, display your customers’ social media posts and keep them engaged with more than 500 content channels.
The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the restaurant industry. More than 110,000 eating and drinking places in the U.S. have either closed their doors temporarily or for good. Many of the restaurants that remain open are still struggling to bring in enough customers to pay their bills.
Beyond the financial impact, the pandemic has also changed the ways that restaurants interact with their customers. It has presented a new challenge: how to keep your restaurant’s customer experience personal from a distance.
Achieving this will require restaurants to embrace modern technology and shifting consumer preferences to find new ways of meeting their customers’ changing needs. Of course, this is easier said than done. But we’ve put together a guide to show you how to get started.
Keep reading to learn:
A restaurant experience can be considered good if it satisfies or exceeds customer expectations. So if you want to provide your customers with a great dining experience, you need to first understand what that looks like to them.
This can vary somewhat depending on the type of clientele you serve. For example, a good restaurant experience may mean something quite different to an establishment that serves family-style favorites as opposed to one that serves upscale entrees.
That being said, there are some themes that all restaurants can benefit from embracing. For example, customers always want friendly, personalized service. Your staff should treat your guests like the humans they are, not as just another check.
The quality of your food is also important. It should be consistently delicious and exactly what you promise your customers. The easiest way to provide a bad restaurant experience is to provide a guest with a poorly made dish.
A good restaurant experience also means providing efficient customer service. You should make the process of ordering food at your establishment as streamlined as possible. A fast dining experience can leave a significant, positive impression on your guests.
Restaurants that were doing well before the pandemic can’t automatically assume that they’ll continue doing well once it’s over. COVID-19 has irrevocably changed consumers’ dining preferences. Your restaurant needs to embrace these changes in order to keep up. Here are three examples of this shift.
When COVID-19 first hit, the majority of restaurants in the country had to close their doors to indoor customers. To keep their businesses alive, restaurant owners began offering delivery and pickup. Those services have become super popular. More than 70% of consumers have been using them during the pandemic.
A good number of these customers will be happy to return to indoor dining when the pandemic is over. But many will also develop a preference for either picking up their food or getting it delivered. It’s important that you continue offering these services to satisfy this shifting consumer preference even after the pandemic ends.
Consumers have never been more conscious of their health and safety. Don’t expect this to go away completely when COVID-19 passes. Instead, it’s more likely that a sizable portion of your customer base will continue caring deeply about the health and safety practices of your restaurant.
Many restaurants have had to furlough key staff members or lay them off entirely due to the pandemic. That makes providing the same level of pre-pandemic customer service very challenging for a restaurant. But don’t expect your customers to let you off the hook.
Your guests still expect you to provide them with excellent customer service. In fact, diners will notice poor customer service more than ever during the early days of your restaurant’s reopening because customers will expect the very best out of their first few in-restaurant dining experiences.
Many restaurants have already adapted their practices to better address the post-COVID needs of their guests. Here are five types of changes that we’ve seen practiced at increased levels since the pandemic.
Perhaps the most obvious shift: contactless pickup and delivery are hugely popular right now. These services blossomed out of necessity. But they should also remain important even after the pandemic ends. Customers have grown accustomed to ordering from restaurants in this way. Many will want to continue doing so.
For restaurants, connecting with customers in person has increased in difficulty during the pandemic. So, in response to that, some restaurants are embracing new types of technology. For example, many have used digital signage to build personalized connections with customers who they might not have been able to reach otherwise.
The pandemic has forced restaurants to get creative with their marketing strategies to stay afloat. Building partnerships with other brands opens up new channels to drive revenue. Restaurants that partner with other brands have the potential to expand their customer base tremendously.
Social media has played an incredibly important role during the pandemic. It’s helped restaurants remain connected with their customers even when there was no way to do so in person. It’s also a fantastic way to generate new interest in your business.
For example, nearly 3 out of every 4 customers have used Facebook to make restaurant decisions. Similarly, 71% of customers are more likely to recommend a restaurant that responds to them quickly on social media.
Reservations have played a crucial role during the pandemic. They’ve helped restaurants manage the number of people in their dining rooms to keep them safer for guests. This is a shift that should last well into the post-pandemic world.
More restaurants use text messages and emails to manage their reservations than ever before. Restaurants are also giving themselves more control over their reservation systems to ensure they’re as accurate as possible.
Changes like these are helping restaurants maintain a personal customer experience despite the shifting demands that COVID-19 has placed upon them.
The best restaurants continue to provide a strong customer experience to their guests despite the distance between them. They’ve achieved that in several different ways.
For example, as mentioned above, more and more restaurants are focusing on social media outreach. This provides you with opportunities to maintain relationships with your diners even when they aren’t visiting your restaurant.
Social media also offers the opportunity to perform outreach on a person-by-person basis. You can use that ability to answer your customers’ questions, respond to the comments they make, and generally forge a more personal relationship with them.
But restaurants have also had to focus on providing a personal experience from a distance to customers who are inside of their restaurants. One way that they’ve done this is by embracing new technologies like QR codes and digital signage.
Digital signage is one of the best ways to keep your customers connected. It offers the ability to utilize your in-restaurant screens to forge improved relationships with your guests. You get to choose exactly what that looks like.
For example, you might use some of your screens to display social media posts that reference your restaurant. This can be a fantastic way to build some hype. If someone realizes their posts will show up on screens at your restaurant, then they’ll want to share content they create for their 15 minutes of fame.
Restaurants also use digital signage and integrated QR codes to instantly provide customers with menus. This is especially helpful during the pandemic, as it enables customers to read the menu without having to leaf through a physical menu that would have to be disinfected between each use.
You can even use digital signage to incentivize your customers to take specific actions. For instance, if you want more app downloads, you can display a QR code on a digital sign that offers a free drink or side in exchange for a download.
Digital signage offers the ability to captivate your diners with in-venue marketing outreach. With it, you can grab your customers’ attention with interactive social features, and other eye-catching promotions that support your growth and sales initiatives. It’s the perfect way to prepare your restaurant for the shift in consumer demand that has arisen out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
If you’d like to learn more about how digital signage can help your restaurant, reach out to UPshow. We’ll set you up with a demo so that you can see precisely how digital signage and our platform can help you prepare your restaurant for post-COVID success.
Want to increase customer experience? Check out our Bar + Full-Service Restaurant Solutions
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to adjust to a new reality in which social contact is necessarily scarce.
This has created some very real challenges for businesses across the United States. But it’s also opened up some new opportunities for forward-thinking companies.
The pandemic-fueled resurgence of QR codes is a perfect example: more companies and consumers are using QR codes because they enable socially-distanced interaction between sellers and buyers.
If your company hasn’t embraced this shift yet, now could be the perfect time to do so.
Integrating QR codes into your business strategy can help you drive socially-distanced sales by opening up new ways for you to interact with (and market to) your customers.
Let’s take a look at:
Let’s start with the basics. QR is short for “quick response.” It was invented by a Japanese engineer named Masahiro Hara in 1994. His goal was to create a faster way to track vehicles and parts during the manufacturing process.
Over the years that followed, a variety of additional sectors, including advertising, marketing, and online payment services, began using QR codes.
Today, QR codes are entirely mainstream thanks to the rise of the smartphone. The technology really began picking up steam in 2017, when Apple added a native QR code reader to the iPhone camera app.
Almost overnight, there were suddenly 700 million iPhone users who could instantly read QR codes anywhere they went without having to download a single app.
QR codes are capable of storing tons of data. Companies often use them to take information from a transitory source, such as an in-venue digital sign or a webpage, and display that information on a consumer’s cell phone. The consumer only needs to scan the QR code to access that information on their phone.
There are several ways that businesses are using this technology to increase their customer base. Here’s what they’re doing.
You can create a QR code that automatically sends consumers to the download page of your app when they scan it. This is a fast way to get more users into your ecosystem.
Some companies even incentivize their customers to do this. For example, a coffee shop might offer a free drink to consumers who have scanned QR codes to download the store’s app.
Companies are also using QR codes as part of their product marketing strategies. You can create codes offering special deals that customers won’t be able to find anywhere else. Place these in strategic locations and you could start to see an increase in your total revenue.
In the past, a consumer would need to call a store to learn things like where they’re located, their hours of operation and their menu (if they were a restaurant). Then came the internet, where people could visit a company’s website to learn all of this information.
Now, QR codes are making the process of sharing important information with your customers easier than ever. With a QR code, you can share your menu, directions to your brick-and-mortar stores, or virtually any other type of information that you might want your customers to have easy access to.
This is much easier for them than having to manually track down all of this meaningful information.
88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a website after a bad experience. So you might use a QR code to send your customers directly to the webpage that you want them to visit.
This could seriously reduce the risk of them having a bad website experience because they won’t have to navigate to your store, your blog, an email list sign-up page, or wherever else you want them to go. Instead, your QR code makes it easy for them to access the exact information they want when they want it.
Yes and no. You can generate and use static QR codes for free. These are basic QR codes that aren’t alterable after they’ve been created. They also don’t gather any tracking metrics and may not even last forever depending on where you make them.
You should only use a static QR code if you don’t plan on tracking the data from the campaign that you launch. For example, you might want to create a simple email or text QR code for consumers that you don’t plan to use in an ongoing campaign. If so, a static code will get the job done.
Dynamic QR codes tend to cost some money. As the name suggests, these QR codes are alterable after you create them. And they also generate meaningful statistics for you to track.
For example, a dynamic QR code could show you:
Having access to information like this can help you fine-tune your marketing efforts in ways that static QR codes will never be able to match.
Ultimately, both static and dynamic QR codes have their place in the modern marketing landscape. Each could potentially help your business reach its goals. The best choice for your business depends on its next QR code campaign goals.
COVID-19 has led to staggering growth in the usage of QR codes.
Restaurants, hotels, and retailers lead this surge in demand. These businesses share the fact that they’ve traditionally interacted with their customers in person. They’ve had to adapt to using QR codes during the pandemic to keep the spread of the virus controlled.
But don’t expect the usage of QR codes to die down after the pandemic is over. These codes create contactless solutions to timeless business problems. For example, they enable contactless payment and order pickup, as well as the seamless transfer of information that previously needed a human’s touch.
Take restaurant menus, for example. Customers used to have to wait for their server to provide them with menus. With QR codes, diners can instantly access a menu and pick what they want to eat before they even meet their server. This can be impactful for customers who only have a short amount of time to spend in the restaurant.
Due to the pandemic, businesses now recognize the value of QR codes as a means of generating attention and revenue. Some of the world’s largest brands, such as Nike, Marriott, and Nestle, now use QR codes to manage and scale digital marketing campaigns. This type of adoption indicates that QR codes are here to stay.
One of the most powerful ways for your company to embrace QR code technology is through digital signage. Digital signage involves the usage of multimedia screens to market your product or service to customers.
The beauty of digital signage is how easy it makes it to reach your customers exactly where they are. So your marketing campaigns can reach your customers whether they’re at their table, at the bar, or paying at the cash register. The number of opportunities to leverage digital signage inside your venue with QR codes is particularly impressive.
For example, imagine that your goal is to get more people to download your app. You could launch a digital signage campaign that utilizes a QR code, driving customers to your app download page.
Place this in strategic locations inside your venue and reward your customers for downloading it. They’ll be much more likely to do so since they’re already in your venue, especially if they can use the reward that they get immediately.
In-venue QR codes displayed through digital signage can also help you create highly-targeted marketing campaigns, integrated social media feeds and so much more. You can leverage all of these capabilities together to achieve stunning results for your company’s marketing campaigns.
But don’t just take our word for it. Consider giving UPshow a chance. We make customized digital signage software that can increase revenue generated through your in-venue screens.
You can schedule a custom demo with UPshow today. We look forward to hearing from you.
Prior to 2020, more than two-thirds of patients reported that the worst part of their visit to a doctor was being in the waiting room.
Post-pandemic, the solutions that previously were aimed at improving this experience — such as magazines, shared tablets or toys at the pediatrician — are no longer viable options. Not only are contactless, digital solutions needed for safety purposes, they’re also what patients have come to expect.
Luckily, many of the experiences that would benefit from digitization can be addressed using technology you already have in your clinic: your waiting room TVs. Here are some clever ways to use your screens to provide a digital-friendly patient experience.
No matter how much hand sanitizer you make available, patients no longer feel comfortable using communal clipboards and pens to fill out paper forms. Plus, the entire analog experience is tedious and inefficient.
When a patient enters your clinic, have your digital signage greet them instead, offering a QR code for them to scan so they can check in online. Allowing patients to fill out forms on their personal device reduces cross-contamination between patients and adds a layer of convenience to the process. Many digital forms can have some information pre-loaded. Plus, our phones store much of our personal data, and autofill will happily make digital forms much easier to fill out.
Mobile check-in removes anxiety around sharing materials or remembering personal information like social security numbers, adding to a more pleasant patient experience.
Let’s be honest. Magazines and kids toys have never been the most effective way to reduce perceived wait time, or to inform patients without scaring them — but your screens can do both.
Leveraging digital signage software on your TVs allows you to play soothing entertainment, like nature videos or cartoons, whenever you need it, without the stressful or irrelevant ads that you encounter with cable TV. In addition, some digital signage gives you the ability to create educational, interactive trivia. Patients can play along directly from their phone, creating a contact-free but engaging educational experience.
After implementing UPshow on their waiting room TVs, one clinic saw an 80% increase in patient engagement with on-screen content, and 50% of patients referenced the information in conversations with their doctor.
Satisfied patients are great. Satisfied patients who share their positive experience with friends, family and the internet are even better.
Take advantage of patients who are already engaging with your screens by displaying requests for reviews. Including a QR code alongside the request allows patients to take action right away, while the request is still top of mind. A quick scan of the code directs them to whichever review site you prefer, allowing your clinic to direct word-of-mouth where it’s needed most.
Good reviews of your clinic not only increase patient census, they also reaffirm the loyalty of patients who have shared their positive experience, making them even more grateful.
Successful clinics don’t keep their innovation behind the front desk — they use their resources to improve every aspect of the patient experience. Digital signage is a simple, cost-effective way to modernize your clinic’s waiting room. Want to see more? Ask us for a custom demo.
