Using Digital Signage for Flow Control

Last week we talked about using In-Store Music for flow control. This week we are looking at how you can add Digital signage to your customer flow control solution.

When you appeal to your customers, you can’t just appeal to one of the five senses and leave others untouched. Incorporating digital signage into your arsenal of tools used to appeal to your customers can have a profound effect on customer and client behavior. By giving shoppers something to look at, you offer value for their time and can speed up their shopping process by giving them immediate, visible access to vital information.

How Digital Signage Influences Customer Movement

During peak shopping times when your store is packed full of customers, digital signage can ease customer movements through your business. For example, by offering up information on a promotion or sale, you can influence customers toward the purchase of eligible items. By using your signage to list exactly what’s included in the sale, your customers have less need to tie up your customer service associates with questions and inquiries.

During slower times of the day, you can use your signage for another purpose: to entertain or engage your customers and encourage them to spend more time (and money) in your store. By offering value for their time, you’ll create a connection with the customer that leads them to feel a sense of obligation to spend their hard earned cash in your establishment rather than looking elsewhere for a cheaper price on the same or similar item.

Why Digital Signage Is Ideal for Traffic Control

Traditional signage is fixed: in order to tailor your signage to suit your needs throughout the day (peak shopping times versus off peak hours), your employees would have to take the signs down and replace them based on the purpose and time.

With digital signage, you can program it to display the necessary information at the ideal time. You can tailor your signage to the day or hour, adding or subtracting information as necessary. For example, if Tuesdays are your busiest day because you offer a significant deal that day, you can program your signage to display a specific message on Tuesdays, while cycling through a basic data set every other day of the week. If you find a piece of information is leading to more customer inquiries instead of streamlining the shopping process, you can tweak the wording or remove it from the sign entirely without incurring significant costs as you would with traditional signs.

Getting the Most Flow Control from Digital Signage

Digital signage should, first and foremost, engage your customers. As such, it should serve one of two purposes: to entertain or inform. Which method you choose to engage your customers with depends on the purpose of the sign. As mentioned, during peak traffic times in your store, signs should offer up the most information so that customers can help themselves get in and out as quickly as possible. During lulls in the day, you can make customers take their time and consider higher priced items to increase revenue.

It’s important to avoid the common pitfall of overstimulation and information crowding when tailoring your digital signage for traffic flow control. A sign with too much information, text that’s too small, or is otherwise unreadable, can short circuit even the most well-tailored flow control. A sign that’s hard to read can make customers idle in front of the sign in an attempt to read it or take in all the information, or they may decide it’s not worth it and ignore it all together.

Professional Design Can Help Improve Flow

When you’re designing your digital signage for flow control, it can help to enlist the help of a professional. Not only can a professional help you word your message for the most impact (while avoiding spelling, grammatical and clarity errors), but they can help you choose the best graphic elements for the message you’re trying to send.

Digital signage services, like those offered by Retail Radio, help you improve customer behavior so that you can focus on the more difficult aspects of running a business. Enlisting the help of a professional doesn’t have to be costly, and there’s no limit on the benefits of having a meaningful digital signage display to improve revenue and customer opinions of your shop. A professional signage service can also help you figure out the best placement for your digital displays so that they’re easily readable by customers and of the most use during a customer’s visit.