Do you remember what life was like before marketing automation became  a thing? Before ads aimed at ‘cohorts’ and specific groups of people  were made personalized? We certainly do.

For one, your secret shopping habit remained secret when remarketing didn’t force products onto your Facebook sidebar. 

But that aside, let’s backtrack slightly.

When you look at the billboard ads of the 90s and 00s, they were  namely big brands, showing their latest big-budget ad campaigns in  high-profile locations. 

Next, there were internet banner ads, the infamous copy that asked  you to click your mouse RIGHT HERE and which were such a rarity that you  probably did just for the novelty factor. 

Later, we saw the rise of automation and programmed ads. This is  where data was used to create specific creatives and adverts based on  specific behaviors, set up in advance and occurring across the web. On a  basic level you can see two examples that we still use today; Google’s  dynamic headlines in search engine results pages and Facebook’s  advertising platform which provides a huge amount of options on what ad  to serve and when. 

Now take digital signage, our medium of choice. How far has  advertising come since the original conception? Certainly not as far as  some of the other practices happening across the web, mobile and social  media.

Most of the digital signage we see every day feels, well a little  stale. If it doesn’t feel stale it’s often because of a great creative  or visual, rather than the thought and automation behind it.

But here’s the thing, we can hack the automation of digital signage  content right now. We just need to get clever about how we use the  software systems gifted to us and the data we already have (or know)  about our audience. 

Even without amassing a huge amount of data you could probably  already name 10 things about your audience. Who they are, where they  live, what time they visit, their top-level interests or career choices  and how they connect with your business. Top tip: if you need a little  help, check out these 10 questions. 

From this, you can quite easily automate your first personalized  digital signage content campaign. If you know what time of day your  audience visits (say early morning for argument’s sake) you can  personalize your menus to breakfast. They might be in a hurry, so you’ll  take the content showing at that time of the day and make it short and  snappy.

You’ll know not to ask too much of them (it’s still early) but you  might advertize your fresh, steaming hot coffee that takes less than 30  seconds to brew. Or perhaps you mention your extended opening hours, so  they can visit after work when they have more time. 

As well as figuring out what type of content your audience will want  to see when, you can also take advantage of apps that build content for  you. These engines just need a few details plugged in and they churn out  content that’s designed, optimized for a digital screen and that has  already been tested on a live audience. 

A lot of the hard work done for you, some might say. 

But don’t feel bad about it, this type of content, unlike most advertising spiel, is genuinely useful to your audience.

From timezones around the world, currency, stocks information, live news feeds and one of our new favorites - the travel information  of bus, train and tram services directly surrounding the individual.  This type of content is genuinely useful which in turn, reflects great  on your organization and your marketing. 

This content can also be joined with adverts, so your screen holds an  ad on one side then travel information on another. A special incentive,  followed by a quick introduction to your new product. 

As the famous Howard Gossage quote goes: “The real fact of the matter  is that nobody reads ads. People read what interests them, and  sometimes it’s an ad.”

Want to know another huge benefit of automating your content in digital signage displays? 

It’s really, really hard to scale personalized content. That doesn’t  mean it’s not worthwhile of course, but if you’ve already personalized  all of the settings you can using playlists and schedules to nail what  content plays and when, it’s much easier to automate the rest.

Live news feeds, travel information and other forms of automated  digital signage content allow you to add more content streams and roll  out larger scale systems.

Back when digital signage was clunky and difficult to implement, the  idea of rolling out multiple feeds was sweat-inducing. When the apps do  the work for you and screens can be added from any location, then  managed from one central system, how hard can it be? 

At some point in the future we may see digital signage algorithms,  led by AI, that track and adapt the most effective content for us. Until  there’s a reliable way of tracking this (outside of ROO) a pared back version can be achieved in the here and the now. 

To begin harnessing the power of automated content in your digital signage displays head to https://screen.cloud - all apps are included in the price of your package so there’s really nothing to lose.

How apps, schedules and playlists can provide huge benefit in digital signage marketing, allowing the display of targeted content and ads based on audience.

Think automating content is for social media only? Think again.

The Power of Automated Content in Digital Signage

The Power of Automated Content in Digital Signage

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