Content marketing is about attracting and retaining an audience. That’s also the goal for digital signs. Learn how to create engaging digital sign designs…
Content Marketing For A Travel Website On The Examples Of: Booking.com; TripA...
Visix content marketing strategies for digital signage
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Content Marketing Strategies for
Digital Signage
2. Agenda
In Content Marketing Strategies for Digital Signage, we cover how you can use content
marketing:
as part of your overall communications strategy
to attract and retain an audience
to change or influence behavior
5. Building a Strategy
Promotes,
protects, &
strengthens
brand
Align with &
support
marketing
Categorize
content
Research
your
audience
Provide
accurate,
timely
information
Motivate
people to
act
Deliver
consistent
messages
Engage
effectively
6. How do we build a strategy?
Ask
Conduct surveys
to learn why and how the
audience engages digital
signage
Observe
Watch the signs;
See what people engage
with; use measurement
tools
Craft
Craft compelling stories;
use marketing techniques
to sell events and
activities
Contact
Encourage direct contact;
use targeted messaging to
engage
Create
Create or facilitate
communities to engage
audiences long-term
12. Measure Results
Get a Baseline
Incorporate QR Codes and SMS Polling
Use Bit.ly links
Use Touch Screen with Hot Spots
13. Wrap-Up
Use content marketing as a part of communications strategy
Build the communications strategy
Encourage audience contact
Measure Results
14. QR TAG GENERATORS
Kaywa
QRStuff
QR Code Generator
SMS VOTING
SMS Poll
Poll Everywhere
TallySpace
Resources
APP DEVELOPMENT
AppsBar
AppsGeyser
AppMakr
AppyPie
BuzzTouch
Yapp
Sean
Good afternoon! I’d like to welcome you to Content Marketing Strategies for Digital Signage which is part of the Visix free webinar series.
This webinar is scheduled for 30 minutes. We’ll be sharing with you some information we think is useful for the first 20 minutes or so. And, we’ve allotted about 10 minutes for Q&A and comments at the end. If you have any questions, please feel free to type them into the chat box. I will keep up with those and we’ll answer them at the end of the session.
We’d like very much to hear what you have to say during the webinar so I encourage you to send us a message if you have information and/or resources to share with the group.
NOTES:
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In Content Marketing Strategies for Digital Signage, we’ll talk about how you can use content marketing:
as part of your overall communications strategy
to attract and retain an audience
to change or influence behavior
Let’s start by talking about our challenges and how integrating content marketing strategies into our digital signage can help us communicate more effectively.
There are three primary challenges in digital signage communications:
The first is getting the audience involved in the conversation. It’s never fun when it feels like you’re talking to yourself. If you can get your audience engaged they’ll respond to you and to each other.
The second is, getting the audience to act on your messaging. It’s great if we can get people to look at the displays, but can we get them to act on what they see on screen? That’s the true test of a well-designed and properly utilized digital signage system.
Lastly, and possibly most importantly, can we see who is responding, how and to what? We need to be able to measure audience engagement. That’s how we learn what is working and what isn’t so we can adjust our messaging and delivery of those messages for maximum effectiveness.
Content Marketing strategies can help with all three of these challenges.
Why use Content Marketing techniques in digital signage? Because it gets people engaged. You want to know that your audience is responding, that your messaging is having and impact. Content Marketing helps with that because…
Content marketing is about attracting and retaining an audience. That’s a goal for digital signage users, too. If no one is reading your screens, you’ve wasted time and money.
Content marketing is about consistently creating and delivering relevant and valuable content. If you aren’t giving your audience what they need, want and can use on a regular basis, they’ll tune out. The same is true for digital signage messaging.
Content marketing is about changing or influencing behavior. It’s the same with digital signage. You will rarely put information on digital signs without wanting your audience to take some action, whether it’s attending to the meeting, signing up for the 401K, buying season tickets for the sports team, or conserving electricity in dorms.
Content marketing focuses on communicating. It is about relationship-building and being a trusted source for useful information for your target audience. Digital signage can be used for advertising events and programs, but the most effective communications educate and inform your audience.
Content marketing is part of an overall communications strategy. Your digital signage messaging also should be part of your overall communication plan. They should be designed to work alongside print, web, email, social media, and other marketing/communications mediums to present consistent, relevant messaging to your audience across platforms.
The key step that many organizations overlook when designing their digital signage messaging is strategizing how it will fit into the organization’s communication plan.
From Jennifer Arani -
A member of the DSE Advisory Board End User Council, Arani provided this content tip in response to DSE's Ask the Board Question for Sept. 8, 2014: "How closely should a digital content strategy match or mirror a company’s marketing strategy?"
The first step in figuring out how to effectively use the digital signage system is to discuss branding. Every organization is a brand. They question is are you sending a clear, consistent message about that brand? Our digital signage strategies should promote, protect, and strengthen the organization’s brand. We can do this in a number of ways.
Align the digital signage strategy with and support the organization’s marketing and branding strategy, while understanding the medium, its intended audience, and best practices for use.
Strike a balance between the organization's marketing strategy and effective audience engagement. Digital signage messaging can easily become background noise. To prevent that problem, we have to make sure we are providing the kind of information our audience’s need and are interested in learning more about.
Divide content strategy into categories, for example, organization-wide messaging, marketing, employee recognition, and client appreciation. Do some research and find out what will make the audience look at the displays. It does take time and effort to learn what the audience wants, but it is worth the investment when you see the positive results down the line.
Create visually dynamic messages based on your findings. Here are some key questions to ask as you go forward:
What can I do as a content creator to build rapport with the audience?
How can I ensure the content is relevant to their everyday existence?
How can I ensure the content is accurate and timely?
Let’s look at the key steps to building a content marketing strategy for digital signage.
11 Unusual Visual Content Marketing Tips to Drive a Ton of Traffic
Written by Vinay Koshy
http://www.jeffbullas.com/2015/02/10/11-unusual-visual-content-marketing-tips-to-drive-a-ton-of-traffic
Building a content marketing strategy for digital signage consists of five main steps.
Ask your audience. Conduct some basic market research to find out WHY they use your system, HOW they use your system, and WHAT they would like to see on the system. You will probably learn things that help you segment your audience by demographics and interests. That information will help you develop better, more targeted messaging,
Observe how your audience uses your system. Actually study usage of the signs, traffic patterns, who responds to what and how. Walk around campus and see what people like and what they don’t. The messaging may be good, but maybe people are looking for information in different parts of the screen than you initially imagined they would.
Craft a story around your audience. Make the story relevant to them. How does the information you want to share impact your audience directly? How does the information impact their lives, their educations, their finances, etc.?
Share the story directly with your audience. Tie the messaging on the digital signage to other platforms to get them to interact.
Create or facilitate communities. These can be physical or virtual communities. Use the digital signage messaging to encourage your audience to engage with the organization and with each other.
The first thing we want to do is get in touch with our audience to find out WHY and HOW they use the digital signage messaging
What do they like?
What do they not like?
How do they want to interact with the system?
What kinds of messaging would interest them?
You can do this with surveys and questionnaires, either in-person, via e-mail, or on your web site or social media site.
But, market researchers know that you also have to go out to see your audience in order to learn about them.
You can get people to tell you about their interests but it’s always good to see with your own eyes. Position yourself at the different displays on different days and at different times of day and take notes.
Who is the primary audience for each day/time slot?
What do they seem to pay the most attention to on screen? When?
What kinds of graphics were used?
What kinds of information was shared?
What did people do? If you’re using touch screens, did they touch the screen to perform and action? Did they text someone or tell someone about the information? Did they stop and look or just walk by?
All of this information will inform your decisions for creating more relevant timely content that engages your audience.
After you’ve learned about and from your audience, you can tell your story in a way your audience can relate to. Make sure you use highly visual content that tells your story well.
Make sure the content blends into their experience. You don’t want people to feel like they’re being marketed to. If the content and the messaging seems like a natural outgrowth of the relationship you’ve already built with them, they’ll engage more.
Your messaging should be native to digital signage. Digital signage is better for short, highly-visual content as opposed to email, which is best for lengthier communications. And some social media sites are best for photos. The differences in each matter and can make a huge difference to your communications efforts.
Offer the audience useful information in the form of a story. Make sure the story is timely and relevant and keep the messaging short. Think about what you can say succinctly with vibrant visuals.
Show your audience that you understand them. Create messaging that shows you understand the issues and news that matter to them.
Be consistent and self-aware. Every piece of content forms part of your brand identity, and you want your identity to be consistent. No matter how the story is told or on what communications platform, your organization’s brand identity must feel the same to your audience.
Once you get your messaging in place, you need to encourage your audience to respond to you, and to one another. You can link up your digital signage with your social media platforms to conversations going and to lengthen the time of engagement.
Be informative. Your audience is always searching for new information and better ways to perform tasks. Share news and information they can use in a way that engages.
Be inspiring. Look for inspiring stories to share with your audience. Inspiration will vary depending on your audience. Make sure you’re tapping into the kinds of things that inspire each of your audience segments and communicate that information in ways they can relate to.
Engage with your audience. For example, drive audiences to social media or blogs to interact after the initial messaging has been seen.
Capture the moment. Use video and other media. Think about the end result you want before you start filming.
Be timely. Plan ahead to get content ready that is related to an event and share it sooner rather than later. Relate the event and additional information to your audience’s interests.
Keep it short and sweet. Remember that digital signage content is best with fewer words. Bullet points work well. Images work even better.
There are a number of ways we can encourage contact from and among the audience.
One thing we can do is, merge social media with digital signage. Advertising social media efforts creates excitement around posts and can attract more followers. It’s also another source of content we can display that updates automatically
Displaying social media in our digital signage can be accomplished in three ways:
One option is to create high-end, custom API integration. This option is good for organizations that have the internal staffing or financial resources to handle the highly technical work involved.
A second option is to use a basic RSS feed. RSS feeds pull social media posts into messages as simple text to display without graphic enhancement. This option is best for organizations that have few internal technical resources to dedicate to the project.
A middle-ground option would be to integrate the social media into graphic design elements. It’s a perfect mix of simplicity and cost-effectiveness that offers a distinct way to share social media on digital signage.
We can also use mobile as a vehicle to engage audiences. There are four main ways to get mobile.
Use RSS Feeds
To send messages to subscribers and to create messages on your digital signage screens.
Use Web Pages or HTML5 to publish digital signage messages
either full-screen or embedded into an existing webpage
You also can develop an App.
This doesn’t mean you have to have a huge development team or create expensive code. There are free app builders online that let you create an app icon and home screen with links to anything on the web which would tie in nicely with the HTML5
Check the resource list at the end of the presentation for a few options
Finally, there’s Text Messaging
We only recommend using SMS services to deliver alerts. If you barrage your audience with text messages about daily menu items, you’ll probably lose subscribers, but for crisis communications, this is a great option .
Lastly, you can get people involved by letting them interact with you and with each other. Touch screens are a wonderful tool for interaction. People like being able to walk up to a display and get information immediately. But, interactive doesn’t have to just mean touchscreens. You can leverage your audience’s love of smartphones – not just as receivers, but also as senders of information.
One thing you can do is use QR Tags
The tags can be put on anything that can be photographed – print materials, emails, webpages, even t-shirts – and, of course, digital signage
Audience members can use a free reader on their phones to capture QR codes. The app scans it for data which can open a web site or another app.
SMS Voting is another option.
We’ve all seen American Idol ask viewers to text their vote for the next American pop star. Well, you can use the same technology to poll your digital signage audience. It’s not just a great tool for voting. You also can use it to measure return on investment and to get audience feedback.
There are other tools you can use as ,bit.ly links or even simple rewards that people can claim. For example, offer a freebie at the book store to the first five people to bring in a photo of something you designated on you messaging.
After you’ve developed your content marketing strategy, you’ll need to think about return on investment (ROI). Measure Your Results to learn more about your audience and how they respond to your social media campaigns.
First, take a baseline measurement. Measure your current level of likes and followers, maybe per day, per week or per month, before you integrate social media and mobile into your digital signage messages; then, measure the number of likes and followers for the same time periods after you integrate social media and mobile.
Create only one campaign at a time to start off with. For example, create a single message encouraging your audience to follow or like you or to tweet a specific phrase with a hashtag. Measure that involvement and compare against your baseline.
Incorporate a QR tag, a bit.ly link, or SMS Polling to get good measurements on who participated in specific campaigns. Only place the QR tag, a bit.ly link, or SMS Polling on certain messages or on certain displays and rotate them around the campus or office building over a period of weeks to get even more granular data on audience interaction.
If you have touch screen displays, link the social media icons to your social media page to let people like or follow directly from the touch screen. See what kind of uptick you get based on the type of messaging used and the location of the displays. Run campaigns separately to get the best measurement of what’s working with what segment of your audience.
So to recap, we’ve discussed several areas of consideration for social media and mobile communication integration.
We talked about how we can use content marketing as a part of our overall communications strategy
To overcome the three primary communications challenges of audience involvement, getting the audience to act and measuring audience response;
We discussed how we can use content marketing to
Attract and retain an audience
Consistently create and deliver relevant, timely, and valuable content to our audiences,
Change and influence behavior
Communicate by building relationships with the audience
Support and build on the organization’s marketing and communications plan
We talked about how to build the strategy by conducting market research, crafting a story around our audiences, sharing the story with the audience, and creating communities
We also talked about various ways to encourage contact, including:
Social integration
Mobile communications
Audience response tools
Finally, we ended with Measuring Results to learn what to do more of and what needs to change
Measurement is the key to fine-tuning our communications efforts