Leveraging Retail Digital Signage for Omnichannel Retail Strategies

Announcement

This article will explore how retailers can effectively leverage digital signage as part of their omnichannel strategies to enhance customer experience, optimize in-store promotions, and improve operational efficiency.

Introduction

Retail digital signage has evolved from a digital display that features static content to an opportunity to capitalize on omnichannel strategies in the modern retail environment. As the retail landscape continues to change, stores can capitalize on digital signage in retail spaces to leverage customer engagement and higher purchasing.

Omnichannel retail: how it creates a seamless customer experience

Omnichannel retail strategies help to engage customers across multiple touch points. As a customer moves from one digital display to another, the applications and data go with them. This type of strategy can ensure better visibility and a higher impact on your customers.

Digital signage for retail makes this process significantly easier, combining convenient, personalized experiences in stores, over the phone, or while shopping online. Digital signage serves as a critical touch point in the omnichannel ecosystem, bridging online and physical retail spaces. 

Integrating retail digital signage in omnichannel strategies

When integrating retail digital signage and omnichannel strategies, you have the opportunity to display things that change automatically based on engagement from users, motion activation, voice commands, time of day, or even the seasons.

Creating immersive and engaging shopping environments

Engaging shopping environments can be curated with digital signage in retail spaces. Moreover, these types of experiences can alleviate labor costs while continuing to offer a personalized experience for buyers.

For example:

Buying jeans can be difficult because there are so many cuts, fabrics, and designs today. However, kiosks can be placed next to the main display for jeans with interactive and immersive features that ask consumers about:

• Fabric preferences
• Height
• Weight
• Where on the body they want the band to be 
• Lifestyle needs

This information could help consumers find the right type of pants for everyday use, special occasions, going out, wearing with boots versus wearing with high heels, and much more. 

From there, imagery technology can provide three-dimensional perspectives of what different genes would look like. Add to that a camera incorporation, and users could stand on a designated mark, have their picture taken, and use that three-dimensional perspective to merge with their picture for an even more personalized view of what the pants would look like on them.

Showcasing product demonstrations and interactive content

Interactive retail digital signage is a way to let shoppers increase their engagement and increase the likelihood that they will become loyal customers.

For example:

In a furniture shop, an interactive display could let customers build the type of room they want or walk through the journey of how specific furniture is made so that they know whether it fits their needs. They can change things like:

• Size
• Shape
• Seats
• Fabric
• Material

From there, customers would be able to place orders for the type of thing they want or be directed to the area where a similar product exists on the showroom floor. This is more likely to spark interest and engage customers and lead to several other purchases as customers look at suggested items that might fit with the piece of furniture they are interested in.

Displaying QR codes for product information and online purchases

Additionally, QR codes could be listed for product information. If you consider the example above of the furniture shop, when users generate the view of the room they want with the type of furniture, they could scan QR codes for more product information.

Tangentially, this could lead to spaces where online purchases are possible. Online purchases might include a custom item that does not exist on the showroom floor but can easily be ordered online and shipped to their house.

Promoting online offerings and services within the store

When consumers head to a retail store or a mall unless they're spending a lot of time on their phones, digital messaging simply doesn't reach them. But digital signage for retail offers a solution.

With digital signage in retail physical spaces, smart beacons can send notifications to users on their phones that there are nearby promotions or sales. Users have to opt in to receive these notifications. All of this helps to provide consumers with better prices, more convenience, and a wider selection. 

Similarly, during the holidays, staff schedules don't have to change to accommodate the need for seasonal displays to be removed or rearranged. Instead, carousel videos or images can be automatically updated through content management software, displaying information about:

• The opening of a new location
• New holiday sales
• Limited time offers 
• New products
• Seasonal store hours
• Loyalty clubs

Utilizing customer data to deliver personalized content and promotions

Utilizing customer data enables retail facilities to deliver personalized content and promotions based on interactions. This means better foot traffic and a lasting impression on consumers who are more likely to make purchases based on the personalized recommendations they get.

Adapting signage content based on customer demographics and preferences

Signage content can be adapted based on personal preferences and demographics. With a continual review of key performance metrics, signage can be adapted throughout the day to the personal preferences of shoppers. Moreover, the right type of content management system can make it easy for companies to release targeted content at different time frames based on demographic data.

Moreover, adaptations can incorporate interactive features that save companies money and create a better user experience. For example:

A retail store has long lines on the weekends, which can disrupt the traffic flow for shoppers and turn people away at the door who can readily see a long line down the center of the store.

The right type of digital signage for retail spaces can incorporate point-of-sale systems that offer speedy checkout services and alleviate long lines. By combining kiosk technology with advertisements and point-of-sale systems, companies can equally benefit from not having to hire more people during 15 to 20-minute intervals of heavy traffic or take customers away from other duties like answering customer questions.

Consider another example:

One company experiences high levels of returns every Saturday. Rather than trying to process all of those returns by hand, kiosks could incorporate return functions with interactive features in the digital signage in retail spaces and then have a drop-off section where the items in question and a return receipt could be collected quickly and easily by an employee.

Leveraging digital signage as part of your omnichannel retail strategies

Overall, digital signage serves as a crucial tool in omnichannel retail strategies. Retailers should assess their current use of digital signage and consider new strategies to enhance their omnichannel approach.

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