Boosting Customer Engagement With Interactive Digital Signage Solutions

The term “interactive digital signage solutions” has become a sort of a catchphrase that is thrown in frequently but often lacks any substantial meaning. This article is going deeper into the whole interactivity feature and what it really means in practice.

Digital signage customer engagement is still the best on the market and mastering it allows you to reach better sales goals and nail it in your industry. But in order to do that you should clearly understand how interaction works when the screens are involved.

Why engagement is important in the first place?

Rare are the spheres that have weak competition. The uncertainties in the world economy and the negative effect of the pandemic have given birth to the new order when you have to fight hard for every customer. Some may say it’s a problem, but we will say it’s an opportunity. 

Customer engagement is at the core of making a sale. We’ve entered the era of the “experience economy”. Spending money now is only about the product or the service itself. It’s about the whole experience that goes with it. And only those who understand that and adapt are destined to be on top. 

Experience economy takes many forms. On one hand, we talk about the rise of the value of the experience itself. Like, for example, paying for a paragliding lesson. However, the lion’s share is this concept lies in the fact that customers expect brands to provide the best shopping experience too. 

The “how you shop” is now more important than “what you buy”. Of course, this doesn’t reflect every single industry but it’s a general trend that moves the markets.  

Stats are curious too. 

- 86% of buyers would pay a premium for a good experience - Forbes

- more than 3 in 4 millennials (78%) would choose to spend money on a desirable experience or event over buying something desirable - Eventbrite

- since 1987, the share of consumer spending on live experiences and events relative to total U.S. consumer spending increased by 70% - Eventbrite

And as business-customer interaction is a part of the experience the takeaway here is that engagement is extremely important in 2023 and beyond. Thankfully, original interactive digital signage has got you covered there.

Interactive digital signage solutions as a way to innovate

Innovate or die sounds harsh. But the truth is always hard and the sooner a business changes according to the challenges (present and future), the better. COVID-19 has shown that. Brands that had dipped their toes in digital were well-off. Those who didn’t had a nightmarish time. Many went out of business. 

Having interactive digital signage solutions available to consumers proved to be a saving grace for many companies. One element to it was the fact that the experience economy has already kicked in. The other was the prevalent importance of digitalization and consumer devotion to it. 

Lockdowns wiped off the businesses that didn’t spend enough time before the pandemic on developing online shopping. That felt at its most painful in retail. Brick-and-mortar stores have been in complete agony over the absence of visitors and income. However, many used their e-commerce incarnations and survived. But they only had a chance to do that because they have innovated before the pandemic happened and listened to the right advice. 

And the advice was always digitalization. This vector was true pre-2020. This trend is even more relevant post-COVID. So are you paying enough attention to it? Is your company adequately equipped for the future?

Many faces of digital signage customer engagement

Many know digital signage technology under the simplified term that "it’s just screens". Sure, it’s always about the displays but one has to look at it as a whole marketing system, a network, and an interactivity-first philosophy. It should be treated seriously as it can lead to serious advantages. 

And no matter whether you are a petrol station operating 3 screens or a huge retailer with 1000+ displays. It’s always about the strategic approach. Size matters but strategy matters more. 

One of the domains where digital signage really shines is customer engagement. At the end of the day, screen technology is just an extra-effective communication tool. Humans crave connection and conversation. The screens ensure it within the relation business-customer. 

But don’t look at it simplistically, it’s a complex phenomenon. It’s not the LG, Panasonic, or Samsung LED panel that will create a bond between you and a customer. You have to design the experience first and then the digital signage software will make sure that it is properly communicated to the visitor. 

This is what’s sophisticated about digital signage customer engagement on one hand, and what’s unparalleled on the other. The versatile character of digital technology allows brands to be limitless in the customer engagement experiences they design.

When you’re deploying digital signage, it’s not just another marketing tool, it’s a universe of creative capabilities, no less.