There's more to digital signage than just the hardware and software.
Leonie Smits, Digital Signage NZ managing director, argues the case for helping customers with relevant and compelling content as well.
As resellers of digital signage options in New Zealand are aware, we are on the cusp of bringing a whole new way of promoting, informing, educating and entertaining to market, with a move back to a one-to-one basis.
The advertising world has gone full circle from attempting to attract the masses via print, TV commercials and the Internet, to capturing the attention of the person already in the immediate vicinity of the potential seller.
While the initial response to providing the way to do this is to sell hardware and software, the plan to deliver ongoing relevant and compelling content should be paramount.
Many of the more obvious benefactors of utilising digital signage are not in a position to develop their own content due to lack of resources, and we need to factor in how we can assist them to plan and deliver their message.
Relationships across design, marketing and planning need to be put in place to take away this objection from the potential buyer of our services.
By concentrating on vertical markets, expertise in delivering a full service is made easier.
The content is there
When the initial contact is made with the prospect their first response is often that it will be too expensive, but they are curious enough to want to go to the next step, having recognised already in their day-today life how compelling moving images at eye level are compared to static posters and signs.
With the ability to also provide sound tracks and voiceovers the viewer has a much more interactive experience and can be guided to the next step to enquire or purchase.
We need to encourage the client to review the marketing material already available to them from their in house efforts, their suppliers and advertising agency.
Experts have done a lot of the desired content development and it just requires us to delve into the prospects' current campaigns and redeploy them to the digital signage proposed.
TVCs can be played on the screens and updated as their receive new campaigns and this had the benefit of reinforcing the message already delivered in their living room.
The ability to deliver time critical messages quickly across a national network is simplified by the software we can deliver allowing central control to have the ability to design, proof and upload a promotion or information in a matter of minutes.
Once again we need to educate the client of what is possible and to ensure the relevant staff in their office are trained so they maximise the relevancy of their screens’ message.
So many verticals bring different challenges and we need to deliver a level of comfort to our clients that we understand those challenges and have the experience and expertise to make the transition to messaging via digital screens an easy one.