We talked about digital signage engagement in a previous post, and we’d like to continue that theme here. Although digital signage solutions are part of your business technology mix, the real value of the medium is in making human connections.
Digital, integration, deployment, firewalls, servers… We get so caught up in technology that we forget the goal – connecting with our audience.
Very rarely does anyone say “Hey. We should put up some screens and then figure out what we want to put on them.” Instead, you have a need – communicating with your employees, students, visitors, etc. – and you then research the best mediums for those communications.
In most cases, your IT or network manager will be involved in the purchase, set up and maintenance of your system. Sometimes, they’re the people who actually spec and find the software and equipment you’ll be using. But they aren’t the people crafting the communications strategy or creating the content.
Your content creators can come from a variety of sources, depending on your communications culture. You may have your messages controlled by trained communications or marketing professionals, or you may open up the forum to contributors throughout your organization. Either way, they have something to say and you need to make sure your audience is engaged and paying attention.
Connecting with your audience demands effort across a broad spectrum of activities:
- Having a communications strategy with detailed goals and methods
- Defining your goals and policies so they’re understandable by content contributors
- Creating your visuals using proven design techniques
- Understanding your audience and using intrinsic social and learning factors to attract them
- Motivating your audience with clear calls to action
- Constantly publishing good content to keep your audience’s attention
- Measuring success and constantly working to improve the two-way conversation
It’s easy to get bogged down with daily tasks and feel the need to just push messages in one direction. You may have some limited success with that model, but you’ll gain much more by striving to make your digital signage a two-way medium. Get the audience involved – connect with them – and you’ll see more engagement, which means more understanding, participation and retention. That means you’re messages will get through more often, to more people, for more success.