Published on: 8 Jul 19  |  Reading : 2 minutes

Multi-media content and data streams with digital signage

Dynamic content, whose data retrieval is automatic, is a major advantage of digital signage.

Digital signage, due to its digital nature, enables marketing professionals to plan “dynamic” content, i.e. content which updates automatically. This content (which combines visuals and data) is then displayed on a screen as a video, an image or a visual animation. The data they contain are connected to remote sources (e.g. on the Internet). These data are regularly updated to reflect the latest version of the content.

These constant, automatic updates thus allow communicators to save time (the source of the content needs to be planned only once on the screen management platform) and they guarantee that the displays will not be out-of-date (of course, the source of the content needs to be up-to-date and accessible at all times). Moreover, by multiplying the sources of different content and the regularity of the updates, these dynamic contents guarantee a great diversity of displays and the interest of the target audiences will constantly be renewed.

Beyond multi-media content, data flows

A digital signage solution can be used to manage and send multimedia content to screens. Some solutions also allow data flows, i.e. content associated with external data sources (raw or otherwise) to be connected, which, when updated, will be reflected automatically on the screens. This content generated automatically from aggregated and formatted data (e.g. from a database, from a stock report, weather conditions, etc.), can be used to contextualise the content and improve the responsiveness of the displays (e.g. a special offer for a product will stop the second the last item is sold, the “like” counter of a brand will be incremented immediately it receives a like).

Therefore, planning dynamic content is simple and fast, because it is no longer necessary to manually send content to the management solution.

Data visualisation and digital signage

Data visualisation and digital signage

Data visualisation involves simplifying the reading (and understanding) of a data batch. These data come from one or more sources, and are mostly compiled, aggregated, and expressed in their most concise form through simplified graphs. Therefore, by condensing the analysis and the information in a single message, it has greater impact.

Digital signage is an excellent way to convey these visuals. They are easily understandable and allow you to communicate a clear and strong message, because supported by figures. Data visualisation combined with digital signage is proving to be a powerful tool for communication departments (displays of business objectives, a building’s energy consumption, the performance of the sales teams, user behaviour for a product, etc.). Therefore, it is for the audience itself to construct its meaning from (factual) data. The message conveyed has an even greater impact, as well as being more quickly absorbed (because there is no text).

 

Data flows in practice

Within a point of sale, the display of data flows on screens makes planning simpler while providing automatically updated information.

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For example, Henry manages a ready-made clothes business. He records his sales and his technical team aggregates the data of his products and identifies the best 5 sales of the month. He wishes to display these top 5 on the screens of his store to further stimulate sales. Every day, his technical team, on the company’s web server, creates an animated visual from the sales database.
It makes this visual available via a URL. By creating dynamic communication based on this link, Henry is able to boost his on-screen marketing. His customers are better informed thanks to constantly updated and recent information, and he saves time because he no longer needs to manually create his sales reports or create the related visuals and send them to the screens.

 

Cenareo can be used to boost his digital communications through rich and customisable dynamic campaigns.

 

You have a digital signage project, ask for a free demo.

 

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