Learn how retailers can measure digital signage ROI to drive sales

In the retail industry, digital signage is fast gaining popularity, whether it is for small family businesses or for massive international chains. But one common and significant concern that most users often express is how the upfront cost of digital signage can be justified. By measuring the ROI, retailers will have a better understanding of how the cost of LED signs can be distributed and will indeed result in profits in the long run.

LED Craft Inc assists you in the explanation of how ROI can be measured with an LED display.

Measuring ROI in terms of sales

The first thing required to be able to measure the return on investment (ROI) for displays are some well defined objectives. These could be to increase sales, boost coupon redemptions, increase loyal customers, and so on. Once these objectives are in place, you can plan the complete campaign around these with your indoor LED signs and outdoor LED signs.

If for example one of your primary objectives is to increase sales of a particular product or service (it could be a perishable product, a high-margin one, or inventory that needs to be moved). What you can do is to have relevant advertisements running on your electronic signage for a certain period of time and then measure how the sales of that particular item has changed within that time frame. Even with coupon redemption, the ROI for sales can be measured in the same manner.

Instead of using traditional fliers to advertise your products and services, the effectiveness is better with LED signage – overall customer awareness increases in terms of certain products, offers, coupons, loyalty programs and other brand related information. A grocery chain in the United States made this switch and found that because of the flexibility in electronic signage, there was better promotion of specific products, they were able to convey how customers can redeem discounts through loyalty programs, and so on. They saw a double-digit increase in sales, which they believe was largely due to the transformation to best LED signs being used for their advertising campaigns.

Measuring ROI in terms of engagement

ROI is not just about measuring sales. Brands often have objectives such as boosting awareness, increasing social media engagement, or something completely unrelated to sales. Retailers may want to invest in electronic signs to encourage customers to start using their loyalty app or to measure how customers are interested in products and promotions by using QR codes. As we can see, there is much more to ROI than just measuring sales.

There are many ways to measure overall engagement when investing in digital signage. A very straightforward solution is to ask customers about their views via customer satisfaction surveys. You could also have a close look on whether customers are talking about your digital signage content on social media platforms.

The grocery chain we spoke about earlier also found that digital signage has resulted in a positive influence, with increased customer satisfaction being observed in customer surveys. Retailers can make use of advanced technologies to measure how well customers are engaging with LED signs. One way of doing this is by integrating facial recognition technology to capture demographics and moods of a customer approaching the screen. In addition to that, internet-of-things can be used to analyze where the customer is moving throughout the store, which will indicate what products they are interested in as well as how long they are looking at each of the indoor LED signs. In technical terms, this data is called customer demographics, traffic patterns, dwell times and attention spans. Additional information such as time of day and weather conditions can also be entered for more detailed analysis. With this information, the marketing and operations team can make informed decisions that will further maximize ROI in one location as well as multiple sites. This data can often be overwhelming. But retailers must keep in mind their objectives at all times so they know exactly what they are looking for.