Industries That Benefit from Portable Digital Signage
Digital signage is transforming the urban language like never before. The first generation of digital natives, kids who were raised on smartphones and computers, is graduating into the workforce, taking increasing importance as consumers, employees, and audiences.
Not only will they be far more comfortable using interactive digital screens out of the home, but going digital may be the best way to compete for their attention and live up to their expectations.
Digital signage isn’t just eye-catching. It can also be used to improve on-site communications and wayfinding. It can digitize spaces and reduce labour costs in environments such as parking lots or retail stores, and it can transform brand activations and marketing with new, interactive features that attract their own audience.
There is a wide range of digital signs for different businesses, whether you’re using them for advertising, engagement, communication, or more. These are some of the industries that can gain the most benefit by introducing digital signage.
1. Healthcare & Hospitals
Hospitals pose unique communication challenges for employees, patients, and visitors. They’re also large, complex buildings catering to a wide variety of needs and demographics. The communication requirements of hospitals are complex. Patients need to know how to check in, visitors need to know when and where they should be to visit or pick up, employees need updates on patient care and schedules, and so on.
Digital signs can help with a wide range of problems hospitals face. They can be deployed to deliver health and safety messages. They can provide wayfinding information, as well as digitize parking spaces.
They can be used for self-check-in or donation kiosks, and digital displays can help with donor recognition.
2. Commercial Real Estate
Office towers, malls, parking lots, plazas, department stores, and other large-scale commercial properties make an integral part of the urban landscape and people’s daily experiences. Millions of urban commuters pass through several layers of public and commercial space as they connect from commuter trains, subways, parking lots, and off the street. But the signage needs of commercial buildings aren’t just a challenge; they can also be an opportunity.
Digital signage can help office property managers maintain Class A criteria by giving properties a much-needed technology boost. Indoor digital signage can be used for tenant promotion, scheduling communications, construction messaging, safety alerts, wayfinding, and digitizing parking lots. It can also be transformed into a revenue stream through advertising.
3. Retail
In a study of post-COVID consumer opinion on airport retail, ACI Insights found that 43% of consumers plan to avoid interaction with sales staff when in shops. Although airport retail presents unique challenges and safety concerns, consumers in all contexts are more cautious about where they shop and their behaviour indoors.
Retailers are in a position where they need to find new ways to engage customers, provide information about products, and upsell while minimizing contact with staff on the floor. Digital signage can go a long way toward engaging customers without needing staff.
Lift and Learn kiosks help retailers highlight new products and upsell. Upscale retailers have also been introducing Augmented Reality change rooms, allowing customers to see themselves wearing products not on-site or without having to use a dressing room. It’s a technological adaptation that’s helping retail environments follow social distancing restrictions.
Digital signage for retail store fronts can attract more attention to physical locations, and innovative digital solutions for designs are changing the way customers experience in-person shopping. It’s a competitive edge that can keep physical retail relevant in an increasingly online world.
Retailers are investing in their brick-and-mortar environments to reinvent the shopping experience. The in-person experience is their biggest strength against e-commerce and a key to their post-pandemic recovery.
4. Transportation
You’re waiting at the airport, staring at a screen with dozens upon dozens of flight destinations, waiting to find out what gate you need to go or when you’re allowed to board. You’re visiting a new city, heading down into a bustling metro station with your directions on your phone, but you don’t have the first clue which platform you should be standing on.
From airports to the local bus terminal, transportation networks have high demands for both wayfinding and communicating with their passengers. They can benefit from both outdoor and indoor digital signs that offer real-time updates, wayfinding, advertising opportunities, and flexible communications.
Airports can use programming to highlight in-house tenants, such as restaurants and airport retailers, which have been especially hard hit by the pandemic and collapse of the travel industry.
Digital kiosks can also be monetized, allowing transportation networks to reduce their labour costs while speeding up the passenger’s experience. From self-check-in kiosks at the airport to digitized ticket booking, interactive digital signage helps control costs and get passengers where they need to go with fewer stress factors.
5. Festivals and Stadiums
Big events are becoming part of normal life again as music festivals, outdoor concerts and events, and major league sports return to our calendars. Festivals, stadiums, theaters, and other venues need digital signage both indoors and out to communicate with guests, provide wayfinding, and enhance the guest experience.
A venue like a theater or a stadium has a constantly changing program. A digital outdoor sign gives them the flexibility to change their programming and update messaging, branding, sponsorship recognition, and traffic flow directions.
Sponsorship fulfillment is an important part of an organizer’s job. Permanent or pop-up digital billboards make it easy to create a playlist that will recognize all of your sponsors, highlight top sponsors, and even add interactive sensors or software that can elevate sponsors’ brands.
6. Convention Centers and Trade Shows
Convention centers have constantly rotating events, each with its own signage and advertising needs. Not only can digital signage be used for show programming and wayfinding, but it can also be used to upsell, advertise, and modernize the show experience.
Vendors at trade shows can also deploy digital signage for brand activations and experiential marketing campaigns that will draw audiences in and help them stand out in a crowded field. As trade shows return in the fall and winter of 2021, convention centers are getting ready to welcome back crowds.
BIG Digital offers turn-key digital signage solutions. Talk to us about hardware and software solutions that will get attention in your industry.