As more and more retailers, attractions, restaurants and takeaways look to blend the online and physical customer experience, screens (or digital signage) are becoming an increasingly familiar sight up and down the high street and beyond. The medium can transform ordinary spaces with content that is vibrant, colourful, informative and on-brand, but there’s a common misconception about how they operate.
Here’s the scenario. You’re a high street fashion retailer and you want to enhance your customer experience with in-store product information, promotions and brand partnerships. You purchase a few dozen digital screens and install them in strategic locations around several stores, and you’re ready to promote your first campaign. Why not just upload a video or carousel of images onto a USB stick and plug it in or beam some content to Chromecast?
Well, of course you can do this, but you’ve just invested a sizable amount in all this equipment. Surely you want to maximise the benefits they bring? Rather than being seen as stand-alone devices with largely static content, digital signage should be integrated into the space to create an expansive ‘digital canvas’, keeping customers informed and entertained, and ultimately encouraging them to spend more and return. A USB stick just isn’t going to cut it.
The key to making a success of your digital signage is using the right software – a platform that is specifically designed to manage hardware of this kind. This is where Evoke Cloud steps in, a cloud-based platform that allows you to manage your entire hardware estate from a single location. Forget USB sticks and TV streaming devices, Evoke Cloud enables you to monitor, update and control all your digital signage and the content displayed from any location, at any time.
But it doesn’t stop there. Here are just some of the ways Evoke Cloud helps you to get the most out of your digital signage:
You can upload as many images, videos and adverts as you like from wherever you may be. You can do this in-store, on the go (from a smartphone or tablet), or you can give your agency or head office-based marketing team complete access to centrally manage content and campaigns.
Marketing is dynamic and your in-store campaigns should be too. Evoke Cloud allows you to choose which device displays what content, at what time and for how long, so you can plan and schedule seasonal campaigns well in advance, easing some of the stress of campaign launches!
Not only can you update every single device in your hardware estate with the click of a button, but you can also choose to operate displays in isolation or group products together to act as a combined ‘digital canvas’. This gives you endless possibilities to run eye-catching, impactful in-store campaigns.
Evoke Cloud allows you to update the content on hundreds of devices – either instantly or based on a pre-defined schedule. Content can be changed based on the time of the day or to reflect events and promotions happening that day.
Evoke Cloud constantly monitors the health of your hardware, giving you an instant prod when a problem is found. This could be that something has broken, or more commonly that the power or network cable has been accidentally unplugged!
The beauty of Evoke Cloud is that it can work on third party hardware too, so if you’ve already invested in existing digital signage, you can still have complete control of every device across your business.
Sounds like a no-brainer, right? It’s time to ditch the USB sticks and streaming devices and maximise the potential of your digital signage.