I am humbled to work with the great editorial team at American Business Journals to share some insights on digital signage marketing.
In today’s hyper-competitive world, it’s not enough to offer up the right products and services in the hope that people will seek them out.
As the business consultant and blogger Peter Evans-Greenwood has pointed out, you must make your business a community hub or a religion. Otherwise, you resign yourself to being a commodity.
Companies like Apple and Harley Davidson get this, and they’ve worked hard to create a cult following for their brands. How? They don’t just sell a product, but a lifestyle. And it’s a lifestyle that their customers deeply identify with and are eager to adopt.
Today’s digital signage can help your company move beyond product features by turning your brand into a lifestyle that has broad appeal. Digital signage is fresh, it’s immersive, and it’s a way to clearly distinguish yourself from your competitors. From eye-catching digital window displays to interactive brand activations, digital experiences in the built environment can extend your brand messaging.
Here are four ways digital signage can help create a cult following for your brand:
It enables you to stand out from the crowd. A key way to move your brand from commodity to religion is to set yourself apart from the competition. Digital signage, with its ability to scale to enormous dimensions, has a huge “wow” factor that helps you do just that. It captures people’s attention from a distance and draws them in, giving your brand a powerful way to create lasting impact.
It can help you tell your story. Successful brands don’t just sell products and services. They tell stories that capture the imagination of their customers. Digital signage provides an influential medium for telling stories that resonate. With its ability to engage, digital signage enables marketers not just educate their customers, but to inspire them. In fact, it’s the ideal medium for offering up stimulating content that captivates the customers you want to reach.
It engages your customers. Brands that develop a cult following are extremely adept at engaging their customers, which is the opportunity that digital signage offers. With advanced touchscreen technology, for example, digital signage allows multiple users to interact with your brand, obtaining the information that interests them without affecting other users. In addition, facial recognition software can be built into digital signage to detect the presence of a person, collect demographic data, and then serve up highly targeted content that captures their interest.
It has the ability to go viral. People want to belong, and they love to share the experiences that excite them. Digital signage offers the opportunity to develop highly unique content that draws customers in, and motivates them to share with others. By creating stimulating visual content, you’ll soon have people telling their friends, and your installation will become a “must see” experience that turns prospective customers into loyal brand enthusiasts.
Digital signage can be a powerful ally as you work to transform your brand from a commodity into a cult following.