One thing people often ask when deciding whether to purchase our digital signage software is, “How can I test or measure the return on investment?”
Great question. There are a few ways, which we’ve laid out below. Before you commit to purchasing any service or tool to enhance your business, it’s important to do your homework and look at whether the long-term rewards are worth the up-front costs. It’s especially key that you measure the results after you’ve been using the tool for a while to see if it’s as effective as advertised or if there’s room for improvement.
Here’s how our customers have measured Enplug’s ROI and seen positive results.
1.) Saved costs over time
Updating and printing paper material like signs, directories and posters takes weeks and can cost hundreds—even thousands—of dollars. Going digital saves time and money within months, and it’s much more versatile than traditional signage. Updating your content is as easy as opening up your dashboard and uploading a new file that appears instantly on-screen.
Compare the costs of running a digital signage network to your future printing costs. You’ll be able to analyze just how much time and money going digital will save you in the long-run. Digital signage software can run you as little as a hundred bucks a month, with no limits as to how frequently you change your signage.
2.) Increased social impressions and word-of-mouth marketing
User-generated content is a huge boon for businesses and a major driver of the digital signage industry. This more social and interactive form of curated content not only captures the social posts your customers are already creating, but it also inspires people to talk about your brand when they see other people’s content on the screen.
A simple way to test your ROI is to do before-and-after measurements of your social engagement and mentions.
For a global campaign, popular fitness club Equinox measured the number of social media interactions and impressions with their hashtag from each of the 73 locations. Just four of those locations were powered by Enplug, yet they generated more than 65% of all the campaign’s impressions. That’s 118,593 impressions at four locations versus 40,335 impressions at the other 69 venues without digital signage, to be precise.
These figures were easy for Equinox to track using their dashboard analytics. (You can check out Equinox’s case study here.)
3.) Increased sales and productivity
User-generated content combined with promotional in-house content can be a boon to your company’s sales, especially when your screens are strategically placed. After two months with Enplug, Culver City Toyota had a record-breaking month in sales. Popular San Francisco restaurant La Taqueria increased their sales by 28% after installing Enplug.
If you’re using digital signage as a way to better connect your employees, you may notice it creates a more social, tech-savvy and informed work environment. Because you can easily share social posts, company news and exciting achievements, everyone can take ownership in creating content and sharing updates with their coworkers—even across multiple locations. Highly engaged employees are more likely to have above-average productivity, and strong internal communications are key to that success.
4.) Positive feedback from your guests and visitors
Effective digital signage should capture people’s attention, keep them engaged and provide value. If it’s doing its job, you’ll hear it from your intended audience themselves.
You can get a lot of information simply by watching people look at or interact with the screen: How long do they linger in front of it? Did they comment about it to a friend? Did they attempt to interact with it at all, or did they immediately follow up on some call-to-action, like an on-screen promotion?
If certain people look like they might be open to talking, ask them questions, like, “What do you think about that?” “Isn’t that cool?” “Do you have any questions?” A little informal data collection can tell you a lot about people’s reactions to your digital signage and may even inform your content strategy. The bonus in this method is that you’re interacting face-to-face with your customers or visitors, too.
When shopping for digital signage software, look for features that will give you the most bang for your buck, like regular (and free) software updates, new additions and features like apps, a low month-to-month payment plan and even the ability to create your own app.
You’ll save even more time and money if you opt for modern-day software that’s easy to use straight out of the box, as many legacy digital signage software providers require hours of training to learn your way around the software. After all, you’ll be eager to start measuring your ROI immediately.