Improve Your Digital Signage with These Walkthrough Audits

You need to find out how effective your digital signage really is. And you can figure that out by directing a digital signage audit and by gaging your audience, so you know what works and what doesn’t, and where to make improvements. Digital signage that’s ignored or not effective actually damages your communications efforts and can even hurt your brand (internally and externally).

You’ve spent all this time, dough, and resources on an all-inclusive digital signage solution for your business, but that doesn’t mean all that’s left to do is generate and schedule marketing messages. Digital signage is active, and what you offer can always be attuned and improved. A project is something that needs a lot of organization and work at the front end and then gets completed, while a product is something that you offer your target audience and then continually improve to get a greater and greater market share. Think of your digital signage as a product.

When was the last time you walked around your competence with the sole aim of assessing your digital signage? Probably not since you first got your digital signage system in place. There’s a thing in retail known as store blindness – workers working in a particular location become comfortable in their environment and no longer really notice what’s around them. Is this happening with your audience? You can only know this if you look at your digital screens from your audience’s viewpoints. Get out there and find out.

Travel the Natural Habitat

Almost like one of the various television programs about animals in the wild, you now should go out and see your audience as they move through your building and interact with your digital signs. Use a few folks in different locations, some still in high traffic areas, others wandering around seeing what individuals look at and do. Take good notes and different times of the day so you can see what happens in certain spaces when it’s busy and when it’s silent.

Do folks look at the screens as they pass by? Do they stop? Do they use digital touchscreens? If they are with somebody else, do they start to talk about what’s on the screen? Don’t interact with them – you are only witnessing at this stage. Just see what they do and don’t do.

From the People Now it’s time to get reactions from your audience by producing a short questionnaire or longer survey. The questions you ask will be at partly determined by the unknowns lingering after the walkthrough and surveillance stages.

Promote your questionnaire on your digital signs (particularly on screens you noticed get lots of attention). You can have an online version, available directly from the message using a short URL or QR code.

Digital signage is vibrant, and that means it needs to continually change and adjust. It’s a very powerful marketing and communications tool that is also very flexible. By conducting a walkthrough inspection and surveys, you’ll be better prepared to make sure the changes you make are on a trajectory with your audience’s needs.