88% of marketers say that interactive content helps them stand apart from the competition.
However, to get the best results from this strategy, you need to take advantage of the right channels for sharing interactive content.
That’s why digital signage should absolutely be on your radar — it’s the best way to share interactive content that will help your company stand out from the crowd.
Understanding interactive digital signage
What is digital signage?
Digital signage is a type of electronic signage that uses LCD, LED and other display technologies to display digital images and videos. Companies and organizations frequently make use of it for marketing.
With the right screen and software, you can make your digital signage interactive. This is essentially the same thing as digital signage, with the crucial difference that it allows people to interact with the content through touchscreen controls.
Why is it important for digital signage to be interactive?
Interactive digital signage is worth investing in because it helps companies engage their audiences in more compelling ways. It can help you increase the amount of time that your target audience spends engaging with your brand, increasing overall engagement and potentially prompting increased sales.
Different options
Interactive digital signage is highly customizable. Many people keep it simple and use a single screen to display their interactive content, but you also have the option of getting creative by linking together multiple small screens and playing around with how the content moves throughout them.
Ultimately, with the right software, you can make virtually any type of interactive digital signage that you want. It’s why partnering with UPshow can be an excellent decision for your company.
How an interactive display engages your customers
Opportunities to display more engaging content
The biggest way that interactive displays can make an impact for your company is by opening up the scope of what you can do with your digital signs.
With interactive digital signage, you can display a wide variety of interactive content types. This can help you increase the amount of time that your audience spends engaging with your brand.
Attracts more interest from passers-by
Interactive digital signage can also be an excellent way to attract more attention from passers-by. If you display interactive content out in public, you significantly increase the likelihood that someone views your display and makes a connection with your brand. This is because people naturally pay more attention to content that they can interact with.
7 interactive ways UPshow can you increase customer engagement
The possibilities for interactive digital signage are practically endless! In case you need some suggestions to get you started, here are seven different ways that you can use UPshow’s digital signage software to increase customer engagement with interactive digital signs:
Let patients check themselves into your clinic
Interactive digital signage can be especially useful in healthcare clinics. You can use it to set up interactive kiosks that allow patients to check themselves into their appointments.
This is often worth doing because it can free up your staff’s time significantly. If an administrative team member doesn’t have to spend as much time on checking patients in, then that means they have more time to focus on the other important tasks they do to keep your facility running smoothly.
Patients often appreciate self-service options, too. When you give them the option of checking themselves in, it often reduces their wait time since it gives your staff more time to focus on the other administrative tasks that impact how long a patient waits to see a doctor.
Share in-depth product details
You can also use interactive digital signage to share more in-depth information about the products that you sell. There are a few different ways to do this and the right strategy for your company will usually vary depending on the industry that you operate in.
For example, maybe you run a retail clothing store. If so, you could set up interactive digital signage that customers can use to look up more information about the products they see in your store.
By providing this information to customers, you decrease the chances of them leaving your store to do more research at home and increase the chances that they make a purchase on the day.
This can also be an excellent strategy for restaurants. You can use your interactive digital signage to share more information about the ingredients that make up each of your dishes. Doing this can help customers with various eating preferences or food restrictions feel more confident about dining with you.
Allow customers to demo your products
You might also use your interactive digital signage to allow customers to demo your products. This strategy can be especially effective with companies that sell software and video games, but it can also be useful for many other types of businesses, including those that sell consumer goods.
For example, you might load up a digital version of your product on an interactive display and allow customers to interact with it in various ways. You could allow them to look at the product from different angles and explore some of its features, among other things.
Share interactive games
Games can be an excellent way to increase the amount of engagement that you get from your customers. People tend to tune out advertisements — but if you hide an advertisement for your brand in something like a trivia game, then it becomes more likely that the customer interacts with the ad and forms a connection with your brand.
Interactive digital signage is a great way to share entertaining games with your customers. There are tons of different options here, including catching floating items, moving around game pieces, trivia questions and whatever else you can think of.
This is a strategy that can work for nearly any type of company that uses interactive digital signage. But it can be especially impactful for bars, fast-casual restaurants and other places where people go to gather and have fun.
Run a contest
You might also use your interactive digital displays to run contests. These can be another fantastic way to boost engagement for your company.
The idea is pretty simple. Start by advertising a contest for something valuable on your digital display. This might mean a free meal, free drinks, a free product or something else.
Then, use the interactive features of your digital signage to let customers give you their information to sign up for the contest. And just like that, you’ve got the customer into your marketing funnel and can retarget them later using the information they just gave you to enter the contest.
Help visitors find their way
Interactive digital signage can also be an excellent way to help customers get where they’re going. This is a use case that’s best for large establishments, conventions and other similar locations.
For example, maybe you have a store that’s located in a mall. You can place an interactive digital sign near your store’s entrance to attract the attention of passers-by. And as more people interact with the sign and look at your store while they do, you’ll likely see an uptick in the amount of foot traffic that you get.
Build an interactive social wall
Social media is one of the most effective ways for a brand to engage its audience and capture consumer attention. That’s why your brand may want to consider turning one of its interactive digital displays into a social media wall.
The idea here is to allow customers to browse your company’s social media accounts by interacting with the digital sign.
You can even use this as an opportunity to get more traction for your company online. For example, you could promise to display a customer’s post in your store if they use the appropriate hashtag.
This strategy can be effective because it helps to bring together your online and in-person marketing efforts. It’s a single method you can use to both capture more attention online and engage more with the customers that are in your store.
UPshow makes it easier to get started with interactive digital signage
We hope this article showed you exactly how effective interactive digital signage can be as a means of increasing your engagement with customers. But if you really want to get the most out of this type of in-venue marketing, you may want to invest in digital signage software that makes it easy to bring your vision to life.
UPshow is perfect for this. It’s an all-in-one tool that you can use to power your entire digital signage network. With UPshow, you can create your own customized interactive digital displays and choose from some of our pre-built templates.
Our software also allows you to manage the way you display your digital content from any internet-enabled device. This makes it super easy to ensure that your interactive displays are always playing on the right schedule.
But we don’t expect you to just take our word for it. Sign up for a free custom demo today to see exactly how beneficial UPshow can be for your brand.
The companies that are most effective at marketing their products and services rarely rely on a single channel to do so.
Instead, they take full advantage of the many different methods and platforms that businesses have access to reach their target audiences.
Digital-out-of-home advertising (DOOH) is a prime example of this. It’s an under-utilized strategy that can help companies unlock more of their marketing potential.
But what is DOOH advertising? And why is it a better option than traditional outdoor signage? We’ll answer those questions and tell you everything else you need to know about DOOH marketing in the article below.
DOOH advertising
What is DOOH advertising?
DOOH advertising is a specific type of out-of-home (OOH) advertising. OOH advertising refers to any type of communication that takes place between a customer and a brand outside of the home setting. For example, when you see a billboard, that’s a type of OOH advertising.
DOOH is distinguishable from this by the fact that it uses digital mediums of communication to connect with an audience. These include digital billboards, digital signage and any other channel that shares messages digitally.
Why is DOOH advertising worth doing?
DOOH advertising is taking up a bigger and bigger chunk of the total OOH advertising market each year, with brands investing in it more because of its effectiveness.
One study from the UK found that companies saw an incremental return of 46p for every pound spent (that’s around $0.63 for every $1.38 spent) — an excellent ratio for an OOH advertising campaign.
Analog signs
What are analog signs?
Analog signs are a traditional method that brands use to reach consumers while they’re out of their homes.
Any type of outdoor advertisement that you don’t display digitally is analog — for example, posters, billboards and static public transportation ads are all different types of analog signs.
Pros of analog signs
While analog signs are losing market share to DOOH because they can’t provide the same impact as digital signs, there are still some benefits to using this type of marketing strategy.
Most importantly, you will typically pay less to advertise on an analog sign than you will on a digital one. So, if your company is working with a strict budget and doesn’t plan on creating a dynamic, digital advertisement, then an analog sign may be a good option.
Cons of analog signage
Nowadays, the cons of analog signage definitely outweigh the pros. Here are some reasons why companies are starting to move away from this marketing method in favor of other options:
- You can’t update analog signs remotely
- Analog signs are more difficult to install
- Harsh weather events damage analog signs more easily
- Companies can’t display as engaging content on static analog signs
- You can’t connect analog signs to other technologies
Why DOOH advertising beats analog signage every time
There are tons of reasons why DOOH advertising can be a superior advertising choice to analog signage in the vast majority of situations.
In this section, we’ll cover seven reasons why DOOH ads are often a better solution for companies that want to reach their target audience while they’re outside of the home.
Capture the public’s attention
DOOH advertisements are generally much better at capturing the attention of passers-by than analog signs. That’s because these are dynamic, high-resolution displays that are simply better at catching the eye and holding a person’s focus than static analog signs.
Even if you don’t take many additional steps to make your digital displays interactive and engaging, they will likely still do a better job at capturing your audience’s attention simply because they’re being displayed on a digital screen.
Open up new possibilities for your marketing campaigns
One of the best reasons to choose DOOH advertising over analog signage is that this channel offers many additional opportunities for your brand to make an impact. With a digital display, you can get extremely creative with the type of content that you share.
Companies can use animations, various types of text and high-resolution imagery to create DOOH marketing campaigns that are truer to the feeling they wish to impart upon their audience. The options for doing this are much more limited with analog campaigns.
Update your signage remotely
DOOH ads are also much easier to update than analog ones. With a digital display, you can manage the content that you share on it remotely from any internet-enabled device. The same isn’t true for an analog sign, which needs to be physically changed — in-person — when it’s time for an update.
This feature helps companies be more dynamic and adaptive with their advertisements. If you realize that a campaign isn’t working the way you want it to, then you can quickly change it to a better alternative if you’re using a DOOH advertising method. This ensures that your business can quickly make the changes that it needs to get as much out of its campaigns as possible.
Swap between multiple screens at set intervals
Another cool feature of DOOH advertising is that you can use it to swap between multiple screens at a set schedule.
This can be really effective because it lets you tell more of a story with your ads. It enables you to build a narrative into your marketing, which can help you hold your audience’s attention for longer periods of time.
But you can also just use this feature to share multiple ads for different products on a single screen. For example, if you run a clothing company, you could advertise multiple items without having to pay for space on an additional billboard.
Integrate with mobile devices, social media platforms and the internet
Companies can also integrate their DOOH ads with various technologies, which helps to make them more interactive and engaging.
For example, you could use your DOOH ad space to share trending news stories while advertising for your brand. This can be an excellent way to grab more of the public’s attention.
Similarly, you can tie your DOOH campaigns to your social media accounts. For example, you might choose to display social media posts of anyone who uses your company’s hashtag. This can be an excellent way to tie your online and in-person advertising campaigns together.
Reach people when they are most open to engagement
Life is very busy nowadays, with many people tending to ignore advertisements while they’re on their electronic devices working or socializing.
OOH advertising helps you to reach consumers during the brief parts of the day when they’re not occupied with other things, and are most open to your messaging.
Analog signage allows you to do this as well, but since it’s not as effective as DOOH ads, it limits the methods you can use to attract and hold your audience’s attention.
Offer interactive engagement
Interactivity is another huge benefit of digital out-of-home advertising that analog signage simply can’t match.
There are various strategies to explore here, each of which could be an effective way for your company to boost its engagement numbers.
For example, you might try using your DOOH ads to share games that your customers can play (in-between ads for your company, of course). You might also do things like share a map of the area that the public can use to find their way.
The key here is that by allowing the public to interact with your DOOH ads, you make it more likely that they engage with them and form a connection with your brand. This simply can’t happen with analog signage.
Display QR codes
DOOH ads are also perfect for sharing QR codes with your audience. These codes are a fantastic way to take an offline lead and get them into your digital marketing funnel. You can tie the QR code to an app download, an email list signup form or whatever your preferred method is of getting new prospects into your funnel.
UPshow makes it easier to create your company’s customized DOOH marketing strategy
DOOH advertising is a powerful way to help your company reach its marketing goals — but you need to choose the right digital signage software to get as much out of this method as possible.
That’s why you should seriously consider partnering with UPshow. Our digital signage software is full of templates, customization tools, dynamic content scheduling features and more. You can use it to quickly and easily optimize your DOOH displays to help your company get as much out of its marketing budget as possible.
Don’t believe us? Try UPshow for yourself to get a first-hand look at exactly how much you can benefit from using our platform.You can visit this link to schedule a free custom demo with us today.
