Virtually every type of physical retailer relies heavily on promotions. Using the right promo at the right time is an effective way to attract people into your store, café, restaurant, gym, clinic, or salon. Once you have them in-store, using further promotions enables you to tempt them to buy.
But not all promotions are created equal. Some quickly generate lots of sales for items or services that turn you a good profit. Others fail miserably. They result in very few extra purchases, which can, in the worst-case scenario, leave you with a loss. Tapping into the power of modern advertising tools, such as digital display screens, is the key to setting up and running profitable in-store promotions.
Create flexible promotional campaigns
Using digital signage software any retail business can create numerous promotions and change which ones they display to better fit in with what the customer wants. Take for example a café. First thing in the morning they will likely serve breakfast to manual workers and commuters. Just after 9 am it will be mainly the parents catching up after the school run. A bit later, older shoppers will pop in for tea along with a few remote workers. At lunchtime, it is likely to be mainly office workers wanting sandwiches and hot food that is convenient to eat on the go.
Change your promotions throughout the day
The needs and tastes of each of these demographics is widely different. A promotion that will tempt people at 9 am is highly likely to fall flat at lunchtime.
When you use digital screens for your in-store promotions you have the flexibility to tailor your offer and the way you present it. You can display an ad for tea and a bun to tempt older shoppers in for a drink. Then at the click of a button switch it to telling the lunchtime sandwich crowd about your eat-on-the-go Buddha bowl offer. Potentially, turning them into someone who buys a more substantial meal from you. Creating a bigger profit per customer.
Measure the success of each campaign
Provided you are using the right digital signage software, you will also be able to track the success of every in-store promotion that you run. Each time the content of the screen is changed that is automatically logged, with a timestamp. Retailers only need to look at their sales data to see whether sales of the item that is being promoted rose, around that time. If it did, they know that type of advertising works well for that demographic. Meaning that more of that style of advertising can be created and deployed.
If you want to learn more about tailoring your promotional campaigns to appeal more to specific demographics, click here. It will open your eyes to the power of changing up your in-store advertising throughout the day. As well as provide you with some inspiration.
Potentially more environmentally friendly in-store advertising
As you can see, using digital in-store advertising has several benefits. One of which is that over time it can work out to be better for the environment, than using more traditional advertising mediums such as leaflets, posters, and banners. Of course, most paper and card advertising materials are recyclable. But the recycling process still burns energy and uses a lot of water. Plus, the chemicals from the ink used to print posters, leaflets and banners also must be safely disposed of. In addition, the production of the card or paper, the printing process and having your printed advertising delivered to your store all have an environmental cost.
Things get worse if you use posters, shelf-edge advertising and banners that are printed on plastic. In most cases, these cannot be recycled at all, which means that they usually end up in landfill.
Provided you buy a good quality display screen you will be able to use it in your store, clinic, bar, or gym for many years. So, when looked at in terms of environmental impact spread across years of use, the figure is quite low. Potentially, lower than the impact of using thousands of leaflets, posters, and other printed advertising mediums, during the same number of years. The screen will burn power when on. But, by choosing one that has a good energy rating and turning it off when not in use you can keep the amount of power consumed down by a lot. If you are in any doubt that this is the case, this article will provide you with a better understanding of how good power-sipping display screens have become.
Digital advertising can do everything that posters, banners, leaflets, and other traditional forms of in-store promotional materials do and more besides. It is one of the most effective ways to advertise. If you are not yet using it in your business, why not try it? Provided you start with just one screen it will not cost you much to do so.