Proving it: Tips to Help You Show the Value of Digital Signage

Capturing and maintaining audience attention has become more challenging than ever, so it’s no surprise that digital signage can be found in all major industries. From retail stores to manufacturing floors, from corporate offices to healthcare facilities, digital signage—in all of its permutations—is proving its worth as a versatile and impactful communication medium.

As more companies increase their investment in digital signage, with the aim of creating better customer experiences, maximizing revenue, driving performance, boosting employee engagement, and a myriad of other benefits, the question becomes “How can we quantify those benefits?”

In this blog, I'll uncover a few ways forward-thinking businesses are proving the value of their digital signs. So, whether you're considering implementing digital signage or looking to optimize your existing setup, this blog will provide you with insights to harness its full potential and stay ahead in the digital age. When you start with value in mind, you get value in return.

Defining Clear Objectives

Before implementing digital signage, it's essential to establish clear goals aligned with your organization's overall strategy. These may include enhancing customer experience, improving internal communication, increasing sales or revenue, streamlining operations, strengthening brand awareness, fostering company culture, improving employee engagement, reducing perceived wait times, and enhancing wayfinding and navigation.

By setting these objectives from the outset, you create a framework for measuring success and proving the technology's worth. This framework acts as a way to establish benchmarks and success criteria, as well as a way to define measurement so you can show progress. There are times where content or engagement doesn't land quite as planned. Not accomplishing a specific goal is not always a failure, so it's handy to have a baseline to understand growth, however that growth looks, to learn from and improve over time.

To quantify the impact of your digital signage implementation, focus on tracking relevant KPIs. These may include customer engagement metrics, sales uplift for promoted products, employee productivity and satisfaction scores, reduced perceived wait times, foot traffic patterns, brand recognition rates, and time saved on manual updates. By monitoring these metrics, you can provide tangible evidence of the positive effects digital signage has on your business.

Ways to Determine the Value of Digital Signage

Digital signage offers innovative solutions to common challenges, which is why it is so common today. But, how can you quantify its value? It's not merely about the visual appeal; it's about understanding the true effectiveness of the messaging and its influence on operational efficiencies and revenue growth.

Whether it's measuring increased sales in retail, gauging guest satisfaction in hospitality, or assessing student engagement in education, there are always ways to effectively showcase the value of digital signage.

Retail:

By analyzing sales data before and after implementing digital signage, retailers can measure increased revenue attributed to promotional content displayed on the screens. One way to approach this is to run targeted promotions solely on your digital signs over a defined period of time, then, look at sales data to see the impact made. In a case study with one of our clients, Mary Jensen, Digital Marketing Manager from Ferguson stated, “When we’ve previously done tests to see if we could move the needle with digital signage from a point-of-purchase perspective, we’ve seen a lift where we were showing that product on our digital screens.” Additionally, retailers can show measurable ROI by selling advertising space on signage to their vendor partners, capitalizing on CooP funds, and giving vendors the ability to highlight specific products.

Hospitality:

In the hospitality sector, the value of digital signage can be measured through improved guest experiences and operational efficiency. For example, tracking guest satisfaction surveys and online reviews before and after the deployment of digital signage can highlight enhancements in guest services.

Monitoring check-in and check-out times can also reveal improvements in operational efficiency due to streamlined processes facilitated by digital signs. Additionally, by looking at the usage rates of interactive wayfinding and real-time information displays, you can further drive value by replacing less active content with something more engaging. And in larger properties, the same types of promotions can be used to ensure guests are aware of and take advantage of on-property food and beverage (F&B) outlets, as well as other services and amenities.

The key is to specifically track digital signage promotions so the impacts can be isolated from other promotion methods, enabling you to better track the results back to your digital signs. Another way to prove the value of your digital signs is to upsell custom branding packages to events, something the Hilton San Francisco Union Square does to great effect, driving a 40% year over year improvement in sales of branded screen takeovers.

Transportation:

Airports and other transportation hubs benefit from digital signage by providing real-time updates and wayfinding assistance, which enhances traveler satisfaction and reduces congestion. To assess the value, you can track metrics such as average wait times in check-in and security queues—as well as customer satisfaction after checking in and moving through security, and assistance requests before and after implementation.

Usage data from interactive maps and directional screens can also illustrate improvements in passenger navigation, as can an increase in traffic to F&B and retail outlets, which can signal that people aren’t lost and can better take advantage of the airport’s amenities. Conducting surveys to gather traveler feedback on the ease of navigation and access to information can further support the evaluation of digital signage effectiveness. To see the impact of digital signage at Delta Air Lines, check out this webinar.

Corporate:

In corporate environments, digital signage supports internal communication, employee engagement, and productivity. Monitoring these metrics provides a base for understanding and demonstrating value. For instance, surveys and feedback forms can reveal how engaged employees are, which correlates directly to employee satisfaction and productivity.

Additionally, tracking attendance and participation rates in events announced through digital signage can provide further evidence of its impact. Metrics such as the frequency of content requests and the understanding of critical messages can help determine the effectiveness of the signage in communicating with staff. In the same way that customer-facing organizations can test promotions by isolating promotional content on signs, teams in corporate environments can do the same thing—promoting a variety of information solely on signage, then sending out surveys or evaluating behavior changes to better understand employees’ information retention of that content.

Another direct way to test digital signage efficacy is to leverage KPI screens to drive action toward specific goals. By doing this, it’s easy to tie performance improvements directly back to the signs.

Education:

Schools and universities leverage digital signage to enhance communication and interactive learning environments. Having a digital forward campus provides the learning environment that is expected by the majority of students and families. Student feedback and engagement with content are useful measures, as are broader topics such as event engagement, student retention, and alumni involvement. Monitoring the use of digital wayfinding systems and the frequency of content updates for event announcements and emergency alerts can provide insights into the operational benefits. Additionally, tracking engagement of any interactive screens can further show the power of signage for colleges and universities.

Healthcare:

Healthcare facilities use digital signage to enhance patient experience and operational workflows. Measuring its value involves evaluating patient satisfaction scores, wait times, and the overall navigation experience before and after implementation. Usage data from patient information screens can provide metrics on use, as well as efficacy of non-navigational content. Additionally, feedback from healthcare professionals on the efficiency of staff communication and training content broadcasted through digital signage as well as metrics on training and compliance needs communicated via digital signage can support the assessment of its effectiveness.

Conclusion

With careful planning—and a keen understanding of the impact you are interested in making with digital signage—you can build a compelling case that shows the value of digital signage. Remember to continuously monitor, measure, and refine your digital signage strategy to ensure ongoing value and return on investment. The key is to align digital signage objectives with your organization's broader goals and consistently demonstrate how this technology contributes to achieving those objectives in our increasingly digital-first world. If you want to learn more about the value digital signage provides, schedule a consultation with me—I love talking about digital signage and value.