Partnering for success

​DIGITAL SIGNAGE EXPO
CONTENT ADVISORY BOARD QA:

How do you advise your clients when it comes to budgeting creative services for a project?

The first phase of any collaborative digital experience is getting a better understanding of our client’s business objectives in order to help them establish and plan their ongoing content needs. We put these goals into context by evaluating effective digital solutions from both a business and customer perspective. This provides us with the framework we need to develop an effective creative strategy that covers all aspects of the digital experiences that will be created. We identify each unique medium and screen on which the clients’ messages will be delivered. We then proceed to create a consistent on- brand digital content strategy and develop digital creative standards for delivery along all potential mediums to maximize omni-channel points of engagement. This process enables our firm to develop unique and compelling digital experiences that meet our clients’ specific goals and needs.

In order to deliver a truly integrated digital experience, the importance of effective content is VITAL as a catalyst for overall network and marketing success. It is imperative that content becomes better and more performance-focused. New and improved approaches to content development, closely tied to measurement of objectives, are necessary in order to ensure success. Ultimately, efficient content production techniques must be adopted to ensure maximum value and acceptable operational costs.

As part of a digital experience strategy phase, that my teams put together with almost every engagement, we outline for each medium (e.g., digital signage, interactive kiosk, mobile, tablets, AR/VR etc.) and, for every screen or canvas within those mediums, what the role of each will be, what potential messaging and visuals could be used, the frequency at which the content should be refreshed, an optimal playlist and messaging strategy, and also identify the hardware and software frameworks to best deliver this content.

The first step when developing this digital experience strategy is to establish clear and certain measurable or quantifiable objectives. “Measurable or quantifiable,” in this case, refers to being able to see the achievement of the objectives in more than one manner. Digital signage is sometimes trickier at identifying and measuring its capacity for efficacy in multiple environments. As such, some objectives might not be easily measured in the traditional sense, but certain tactics can be utilized to still gather useful supporting measurement.

Through the study of supplied materials, discussions, and learnings, we determine certain objectives with our clients, for example:

• Enhancing digital experiences by captivating the audience
• Informing customers to a greater degree in order to deliver content of immediate value
• Delivering relevant and diverse types of content to keep customers from “tuning out” Promoting new products or featured items
• Supporting marketing programs
• Delivering brand reinforcement
• Improving awareness to unique offerings
• Helping to drive traffic to key areas within the store and support wayfinding
• Helping to match customers with the best products tailored to their needs
• Creating two-way engagement through interactive experiences
• Building brand loyalty, shifting and improving brand perception
• Helping to increase basket size via up-sell and cross-sell
• Helping extend the experience beyond the store visit through mobile or future online engagement

From established objectives like these examples above, we can then begin to create a plan that can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the content and help improve the effectiveness of future content needs. This truly helps our clients plan budgets for creative services and results in our clients setting aside sufficient funds for ongoing content creation.

Marcos Terenzio