Measuring Digital Signage Engagement, Closing the Relationship/Purchase Loop

Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage

Is the Holy Grail of marketing a web search? I think not…or maybe partially. Could it be used as a minor measurement litmus test on Digital Signage?

Searching to me is just the start of a purchasing relationship. It’s the first real area that we can track en-masse that shows a valid indication that some other form of advertising motivated someone to go find out more about it….remember that online purchases are still a paltry number in the grand scheme of our economies but we don’t have too many other ways of seeing (anonymously) that a consumer reacted to something that’s as simple as “Search, Click, Buy”.

From a study done over Christmas, 2006, Apparently 25% of all searches yield a purchase.
Buyer Conversion
Now I may be simple but I’m no dummy – I look at that and go “hmm…what’s the biggest buying period online? Christmas!” It’s a bit of a pump up game to me but let’s even cut it to 15% of all searches for the average time of year to be safe.

The references for the information here are cited at the end.

Following up on my post from the other day (In Search of Compelling, Ad-Driven Digital Signage Content), providing product and services information used to be “part” of (and still is) advertising’s job. As my post, derived from Bob Garfield’s article, stated; we’ve moved away from information driven advertising, forcing today’s more intelligent and cynical consumers to go find things out on their own (they don’t trust the message and want to know more for themselves).

You have an ever narrowing funnel of opportunities to speak to a consumer as they travel through their buying decision making cycles. In really basic terms:

You need to speak to them regularly (because you do not know when they’ll be ready to purchase), also called frequency
You need to speak to them contextually (in the right place, right frame of mind, right situation)
You need to move their attitudes towards your brand and away from those of your competitors
You need to move them closer to the point-of-purchase (retail, web, phone)

So, is the new purchasing cycle or decision tree for consumers:

See Ad in Magazines, TV, Newspapers and articles, Digital Signage, Online etc …(Ultimately Brand oriented ad placements)
…1a. Go online and search. 1b. I’m Sold! Go to store and purchase (end cycle)
…2a. Evaluate Product Online 2b. Evaluate competition online 2c. Purchase Online (end cycle)
…3a. Establish product (for brand and competition) preference and buy (25%) (end cycle) 3b. Establish offline localization (where to buy)
…4a. Visit store and buy the brand (25%) (end cycle) 4b. Visit store and unknowingly buy a competitive brand (75% of all purchasing decisions are made at the point of sale)

All told I don’t know if that’s the start of the uber-effective funnel. I have experience in web marketing & advertising, point-of-purchase (in store merchandising and promotions) and digital signage (merchandising and advertising models in hardware, software, networking, installation, etc). There’s so much complicity in each step, but it would be an interesting research paper.

A series of info caught my eye that I found quite fascinating:

MediaPost.com has an interesting stat article on influencers of searches. From their site:

In a recent analysis of BIGresearch’s Simultaneous Media Survey conducted for the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association, consumers said that they were most motivated to begin an online search after viewing:

Advertisements in magazines (47.2%)
Newspapers (42.3%)
Ads on TV (42.8%)
From reading articles (43.7%)

The follow up commentary:

Mike Gatti, Executive Director of RAMA, said “…While search engine marketing continues to be a popular strategy, retailers should not lose sight of traditional advertising channels to promote products and services.”

There’s also some very interesting info from DoubleClick:
Web Search Stats
Their paper speaks to search vs. buying habits, when people buy what, etc. What they found was, depending on the category you’re talking about, people have different behaviours.

Some highlights:

If you’re advertising computer hardware, your “ads”/terms should be Brand centric (e.g. pump the Dell Brand)
If you’re advertising apparel, your ads/terms should focus on the generic nature of your product (leather boots)

What does ANY of this have to do with Digital Signage?

An interesting piece to note was that most of the major categories researched online are bought offline (80%+). If that’s the case, Digital Signage may be that push that most categories need in terms of recency and location/proximity to the buying point.

How do we most effectively fit Digital Signage into this mix/cycle? Is the most effective way of using the medium to simply be driving buyers to a store? Or maybe simply providing Brand advertising?

Or is the most effective way of fitting into this being a part of the larger campaign mix?

The answer is obviously the latter. While we can use Digital Signage in our efforts on behavioural grooming of our customers, Digital Signage is just a cog. Any marketing campaign must have multiple touch points that “funnel” the consumer to a point-of-interest or a point-of-purchase but at the very least, sheppard the customer into a marketing loop of some kind. Drive2Web, Drive2Mobile, Drive2Store or all of the above. If we need to push them into the loop by sending them to web to do a search, so be it.

The most interesting thing to me is, Digital Signage is a strange bedfellow mix of above the line advertising, and old fashioned below the line point-of-purchase and promotion. While it’s a great outbound messaging medium, it’s also a full engagement platform that we haven’t fully learned to use yet.

At the very least, if we did try to use searching as a localized measurement tool in evaluating messaging and impact performance of Digital Signage, I think it would probably end up pretty well…but that’s just opinion.

Cited:
MediaPost.com – http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=57271
MediaBuyerPlanner – Commentary on article above – http://www.mediabuyerplanner.com/2007/03/22/print-and-tv-ads-lead-to-online-searches/
Doubleclick paper on search behaviour (PDF) – http://www.performics.com/docs/search_purchase.pdf