The role of insight in digital signage

Audience measurement

Audience measuring tactics come in all shapes and sizes. Click-through rates on touchscreens, impressions and conversions will help you to understand the impact of your signage, while facial recognition software, POS cross-references, sensors, beacons, RFID tags and readers enable you to dig deeper into how audiences are interacting with digital signage.  

Digital signage expert Dave Hayes rightly points out that data garnered through such technologies can “directly shape what’s on screens, and optimise the marketing and messaging opportunities presented by digital signage in a broad variety of use cases”. 

Location, location, location 

For digital signage to have the intended impact, it’s got to be placed in the right location. Insights on footfall in the area will help make sure you don’t end up installing a sign in a space where no one will see it.

On a more granular level, sensor systems that scan Wi-Fi on smartphones can tell you exactly where people go within a certain space (for instance, a shopping centre) and how these types of movements change depending on time of day or week and other factors.

Using insight to inform content 

You’ve pinpointed the perfect location for your digital signage, now you need to focus on creating content for it.

Compelling content is at the heart of every great strategy, digital signage or otherwise. Established brands will know by now the type of content that resonates best with their target audience. What they need to do next is ensure the content is conveyed in a way that suits the medium, and inspires, informs and/or educates viewers.

Insight can shape digital signage content in three key ways:

Type of content 
Depending on where digital signage is placed, demographics and traffic patterns can vary hugely throughout the day and week. With these insights, you can adapt the messaging accordingly – for instance, by advertising relevant products to commuters during the typical rush hours, changing to products for new mums or retirees within working hours.

Insights on footfall can help make sure that you’re playing key pieces of content when most people will see them.

Length of content 
Here’s where insights on dwell time can help. Do people linger around the area where your digital signage is located, or are they more likely to pass by? You need to adjust messaging in line with dwell time data, so that you don’t end up running a one-minute promotional video in a space where viewer attention is an average of ten seconds. 

As a side note to this, messaging should be kept relatively short and punchy, in order to cater to modern-day consumers’ ever-dwindling attention spans. It pays to follow the rule: condense your messaging to as few words as possible.

Position of content 
The data gained from heat-mapping technology can inform the content of your digital signage in terms of the placement of key messages. You’ll understand where consumers’ attention is held the longest so you can make sure you position the most engaging and/or most important bit of content in these areas.

If you need help creating a compelling content strategy that draws on consumer insights, get in touch with us today to discuss your needs.