Industry leaders such as McDonalds have adopted marketing their brand and products digitally to keep up with the growing trend. Digitizing menus and eliminating time-consuming interactions allows for faster and effective transactions.  For example, McDonald’s has enabled customers to design their own burgers using kiosks. Restaurants incorporating digital signage offer engaging service while reaping the rewards of cutting down on hiring workers.

Bringing your menus to life is key for customers who are, by nature, stimulated visually, encouraging the use of their senses. This stimulation inspires a positive affiliation with the restaurant and it’s products. Getting a customer’s attention and exciting them about your products means bringing your items to life. People want to see their coffee steaming, burgers sizzling and their desserts melting. Digitizing your menu not only brings your menu to life but it is also convenient. Owners can program their menus in correlation to the time of day and promote their item of choice or deal. Additionally, whenever a new item is added or an old item needs to be removed, there is no need to replace the whole screen. This removes the physical labour of traditionally changing new screens or signs, saving time and energy. For instance, restaurants have the ability to change items, prices, calories and images on demand.

Outdoor Signage

Outdoor signage doubles as a cost-effective marketing tool. It offers the customer a variety of choices while marketing to the general public what the restaurant has to offer. It’s a cost effective way to reach out 24/7 without a campaign or online interaction. Interacting is the key element to outdoor signage, outdoor signage is a form of entertainment enticing customers with it’s digital art and immersive content. Generally, outdoor signage is one of the most cost-effective integrated marketing communication tools.

Incorporating outdoor signage or kiosks with high-definition showcases a more professional feel to your restaurant. It portrays a restaurant that is trendy, acquires business to afford digital displays or kiosks and proficient in their practices. If you’re looking forward to drawing more attention and focus towards your organization, outdoor digital signage can be considered as one of the best methods in digital signage services to promote your business.

Kiosks

Incorporating outdoor signage or kiosks with high-definition showcases a more professional feel to your restaurant. It portrays a restaurant that is trendy, acquires business to afford digital displays or kiosks and proficient in their practices. If you’re looking forward to drawing more attention and focus towards your organization, outdoor digital signage can be considered as one of the best methods in digital signage services to promote your business. Kiosks that offer self-order options provides customers shorter wait times, personalized orders and better access to restaurant menus. Enforcing kiosks does not mean employees are at a loss for their jobs.  Employees need to meet the high volume of orders created by kiosks, therefore a higher volume of employees are needed. Too many customers ordering and not enough employees receiving and processing these orders causes more harm to the digitized menu system than good. Kiosks hosting menus must be structured in a way that’s easy to navigate in order for it to be efficient in comparison to paper menus.

Digital Signage and Kiosks are crafted to improve the customer experience, it will help push your business into a more tech-savvy direction and allow for an easier service practice in the process. Saving money on paper, lines and ensuring your loyal employees maintain their jobs, digital signage and kiosks are an easy answer.

By Kristin Cappuccio

What is a digital screen?
Essentially, a digital screen plays any type of content for different reasons. Often, this content will consist of information, photos, videos, streaming media, animations, or any form of graphic design, usually for advertising purposes. They can also be used for informational purposes, such as in schools or hospitals, however our focus here today is for commercial and advertising principles. These digital screens are often found in public spaces, transportation systems, museums, stadiums, retail stores, hotels, restaurants, and corporate buildings etc, to provide wayfinding, exhibitions, marketing and outdoor advertising. It has become impossible to walk down a busy street, go into a restaurant, head to an airport, or even go to a school anymore without seeing digital screens. It is everywhere, with different technology being used in lots of different ways for different purposes.

How does it attract people? 

When retailers consider investing into digital signage, the first question is, “How will this attract customers?” In an age of technology, our eyes now naturally gravitate towards moving digital images as opposed to static traditional signs. Another important point to consider is that today’s consumer isn’t an easily impressed. In the 18th century, advertising was strictly static and text-based. In 2017, technology has become extremely advanced so advertisers must offer some sort of hook to attract hard-to-catch and uneasily impressed consumers. This is where digital signage comes in. Since our eyes are automatically drawn to moving objects, digital signs displaying full motion video are dynamic, not static and therefore demand consumer attention while holding it.

A common issue that retailers come across in self-promotion is cutting through all of the marketing noise and competition generated by other businesses, whether on radio, TV, newspapers and, magazines and other media forms. Digital signage can cut through those distractions by providing its own platform which strictly focuses on that specific retailer or business. Also, it allows you to target several target audiences. When content is looping and changing at regular intervals, you are able to convey multiple messages, appeal to various demographics, and promote multiple products, offers, or services.

Familiar Faces

Often, a familiar face can invoke a positive response and this method is often used within advertising and digital signage. When we see images of celebrities, many of us fantasize meeting or aspiring to be them. Digital signage in the 21st century has managed to transcend the average advertisement to incorporate even celebrities and athletes. Celebrity endorsements through digital signage immerses the consumer’s senses. Seeing a celebrity that we already idolize in motion with a product encourages purchasing products or services that bring us closer to them. This inspiration brings the sentiment “If they have it, I want it.”  For example, Kiera Knightly and Chanel Perfume. Kiera Knightly embodies a strong, sophisticated and edgy woman an exaggeration or her already well known persona. Her endorsement with Chanel Perfume indicates that she trusts this brand to upkeep her image. Digital signage and celebrity endorsements is an excellent way to market to an audience without boring them and engaging their interests.

Interactive Digital Signage

Interactivity allows the consumer to engage with the content they are given. An attractive advertisement or promotion should offer the visitor the ability to engage the messages they are exposed to. Interactive digital signage allows the consumer to feel empowered by participating. Why? Offering the choice to participate makes the consumer feel as though are not being force-fed information. Interactivity also adds dimension to the advertising or promotion experience through touch, sound, and motion. Drawing on our senses and impacting us on a greater scale, a greater interaction drives effectiveness.

Digital Signage

• Can increase your company’s visibility and brand name
• Can help strengthen your customer and vendor relationships
• Can deliver critical information more efficiently
• Saves time
• Attracts attention better than traditional static signs

By Kristin Cappuccio

So the question boils down to what management style works for your business? Sometimes, to seem trendy and attractive, a business might take the modern, easy-going approach only to find its productivity suffers. Other times, a business’ need for creative and collaborative problem-solving is held back by strict protocols and tight managerial oversight. So it’s not always the case that one style is better than the other, but simply what works better in certain settings. We’ll compare the two to see what works and when.

First, let’s begin with the main points of each structure.

Traditional Management

• Hierarchical
• Individual
• Command and control
• Inflexible
• Work is coordinated by roles & rules
• Team reports to manager
• Importance on top management
• 9 to 5
• Failure results in harsh consequences

The Traditional Way

Traditional organizational structures emphasize hierarchy and chain of command. Although this may not sound so appealing, this approach to management can actually be more effective for certain lines of work such as retail, and factory/production line work. Additionally, some benefits of traditional structures include clear knowledge of everyone’s roles and responsibilities, a clear promotional pathway and departmental loyalty. On the other hand, a major disadvantage of the traditional organization is slowness. In today’s rapidly changing and tech-driven economy, functions in a company must be able to adapt and progress quickly with the changing needs and wants of customers. If employees don’t have the autonomy to make these changes on their own, but wait on permission from top management, the process of change is slow and competitors who are quick to adapt and respond have the advantage.

Modern Management

• Flexible
• Team-oriented
• No clear chain of command
• Work is coordinated by self-organizing teams
• Team reports to customer
• Importance on customers
• Hours Vary
• Failure is understood – trial and error is seen as necessary for success

A Look at Alphabet – The Progressive IT Conglomerate

Today the traditional approach to management presents a less efficient option for many businesses. Corporations, small and large, are beginning to incorporate aspects of the modern management style where employees have more freedom and autonomy. Alphabet, one of the world’s largest companies and parent company of Google and all its divisions, has a very progressive approach to management. Google still continues its main activities of Search Engine, Maps, YouTube, Chrome and many more, while other subsidiaries of Alphabet, such as Fibre, Nest, and Calico operate as separate businesses.

Emphasis on Collaboration

With its dependency on intelligent creatives coming up with innovative solutions and concepts, Alphabet facilitates creativity and collaboration in the workplace. And with a strong focus on meeting and improving consumer satisfaction, speedy employee responsiveness is preferred to micromanagement. In this kind of environment, managers work side by side with employees to guide and shape their collective efforts rather than delegate and push. Supervision and oversight by management is replaced with open, lateral communication. By effectively communicating the tasks and targets of the team or company as a whole, management ensures employees always understand the work required and how their work relates to larger goals. Individual employees see the importance and value of their work to fellow colleagues as well as the corporation. Employees also understand the intrinsic benefit to themselves in completing their objectives, too.

A Social Work Environment

There is also an emphasis on maintaining a highly social environment for Alphabet. Putting a certain focus on the social aspect of the organization while maintaining financial goals is an important part of successful business and management. For example, Alphabet holds TGIF meetings every Friday. These weekly meetings enable employees and managers to connect with one another and socialize, collaborate and bond. This bright and positive culture in the workplace motivates everyone to put forth better work efforts and place the company first.

Alphabet’s structure encourages fast and flexible decision making, and relies on unconventional approaches to productivity. Creative freedom accelerates the process of innovation leading to new products and services, resulting in higher revenues. Open communication fosters the sharing of ideas which results in more opportunities to create synergies and proficiencies for existing and newer products. Lastly, the trust between smart engineers and product managers enables risk-taking and idea sharing that expands the creative process. These elements of success resulting from a modern organizational structure ultimately enable future breakthroughs in products, capabilities, and services.

Depending on your needs as a business, big or small, what do you think your management style should be?

By Kristin Cappuccio

Every organization, big or small, has to consistently market itself in order to survive. Of course, not everyone has the same budget. A local burger joint’s not going to have the same marketing dollars as a nearby McDonalds, Moxie’s, Baton-Rouge or Joey’s. That doesn’t mean the burger joint can’t compete with these larger, more established corporations for new customers. Today, creative and unique content that’s well-placed can drive more business to your door, build your brand and let you stand apart from competitors, all without breaking the bank. Deciding on a direction to take your content can be tricky, though. So we’ve got a few tips to help you get started, along with examples of business owners who put them into practice.

1. Create content that’s conversational and informative, without turning it into a sales pitch.

Marcus Sheridan, who’s one of the owners of “River Pools and Spas” in Warsaw, Virginia provides a great example of how the educational approach to content can be effective.

• In the early 2000s, Marcus turned his website into an encyclopedia of everything you would need to know about buying a pool, including how not to get ripped off.
• Soon after, the business experienced a substantial boom in sales as well as traffic to their website. A noteworthy achievement considering this growth occurred during the aftermath of the economic collapse of 2008.
• Being helpful without pushing for a purchase establishes your company’s credibility as an industry-expert and builds invaluable trust.
• To learn more about Marcus Sheridan’s content marketing approach, check out a link to the New York Times article covering his story: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/business/smallbusiness/increasing-sales-by-answering-customers-questions.html

2. Effective content can use the element of surprise and humour as a fun way to engage and connect with your target market.

Jess Hatzis is the co-founder and creative director of Frank Body, a skin-care line based out of Australia. They’ve received global attention for how they launched the business, sticking to very specific messaging and social media.

• From their website to their product packaging, Frank Body’s content is heavily branded, features funny and cheeky descriptions of their products and distinguishes them from most skin-care companies.
• Their content is designed to speak to people in a “frank” tone, which is refreshing and engaging, and plays well off their name.
• Through their content, the team at Frank Body demonstrates an intrinsic, emotional connection to the folks who buy their products.
• Clients readily identify with the company’s values and attitudes, not only loving their products but becoming loyal to the brand.
• The company started off with a 10 thousand dollar investment in early 2014 and is now valued at 20 million dollars. And the company relied heavily on its quality product, but also social media and refreshing content.
• Visit their website and see for yourself: https://www.frankbody.com/ca/

3. The best content plays to your business’ strengths, it’s part of your brand because it’s part of you.

Content can be designed for a number of platforms, online videos, in-store displays, blog posts, and more. You should focus on what works well for you and your business.

• For example if you’re a restaurant owner and also great with a camera then starting an Instagram account or photo blog to showcase your menu plays to your strengths and helps you engage with your potential customer, “the foody”.
• Burger Revolution in Belleville, Ontario is a great example of a restaurant using Instagram and photo-sharing effectively. They’ve been very successful in gaining a loyal following on Instagram with over 2600 followers (and counting) by uploading their own photos, snapping pictures of comments left by satisfied customers, and reposting user-generated content.
• To see what they’re doing, have a quick peek at their Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/burgerrev/?hl=en

By Kristin Cappuccio

As a business owner or marketer, it can be hard to keep up with all the latest information. Strategies are changing constantly, and if you aren’t up to date with them, you risk being overtaken by your competitors. Keeping up with the industry news and blogs can be helpful, but reading the top marketing books is the number one way to gain knowledge in the marketing industry. Whether you’re starting a new social media platform, or perfecting your mobile strategy, these books will provide you with helpful information that will guarantee a level up on your marketing skills.

This list of marketing books includes some of the best and most helpful strategies that will help you with entrepreneurship and/or leadership of your marketing team.

1.Social Media Marketing All-in-One for Dummies

Written by Jan Zimmerman and Deborah Ng

This book outlines the changes in social media, and provides you with tips and pointers on promoting your business on the latest social media platforms. It’ll help you create and implement social media strategy, integrate social media with your other marketing initiatives, reach and engage your customers on the social media platforms that are being used, and boost sales and revenue.

2.The Unofficial Book on Hootsuite: The #1 Tool for Social Media Management

Written by Mike Allton

Mike Allton is one of the top Hootsuite experts outside of Hootsuite itself. This book shows you how to use Hootsuite to manage your social media presence on multiple sites. This includes scheduling updates, managing your brand, using influencer marketing, measuring your social media performance, and much more. It is considered to be one of the best marketing books about social media platforms.

3.Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade

Written by Robert Cialdini

Robert Cialdini, the author of one of the best marketing books, Influence, reveals the secret of effective persuasion in marketing. Using case studies and stories, Cialdini summarizes techniques to divert the audience’s attention to create successful “pre-suasion” and make them want to say yes.

4.The Road to Recognition: The A-to-Z Guide to Personal Branding for Accelerating

your Professional Success in the Age of Digital Media

Written by Seth Price and Barry Feldman

This book provides and A-Z guide, using 26 lessons on developing your personal brand to higher your success. This book works best for marketers, entrepreneurs, business leaders, creatives or for people just launching their professional career. This guide provides a roadmap for personal branding success.

5.Performance Partnerships: The Checkered Past, Changing Present & Exciting Future of Affiliate Marketing

Written by Robert Glazer

Performance Partnership is a great book for people who have ever used affiliate marketing or plan to do so. Robert explains the history of affiliate marketing, and shows how its moving away from shady marketing practices. It has become a digital marketing technique that focuses on creating transparent partnerships and relationships, which will improve brand reach and revenue.

6. Digital Marketing for Dummies

Written By: Ryan Deiss and Russ Henneberry

Digital Marketing for Dummies provides “practical, proven strategies you can use to engage your audience, build your brand, get more customers and make more sales”. This book covers the best strategies to creating a digital marketing strategy that will boost your business.

7. Hacking Growth: How Today’s Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success

Written by Sean Ellis

Originals is a #1 New York Times bestseller, and is listed as a must-read by Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson. This book draws on research and anecdotes from multiple niches, and shows how to foster and nurture originality. Amongst all of this, it also highlights ways to build a culture of dissent and fights group thinking to be even more successful.

8. Future Marketing: Winning in the Prosumer Age

Written By: Jon Wuebben

In Future Marketing, Content Launch cofounder and CEO Jon Webben, shows how cultural and technological changes affect marketing. It draws on recent research, and highlights upcoming changes in brand messaging, and audience building, and looks at how marketing must change the age of the online influencer.

9.The Mobile Native’s Guide to Marketing

Written by Aurelie Guerrieri

Digital Marketing strategies need to include mobile marketing strategies, to make up for all the web traffic coming from mobile. This book looks at the mobile marketing revolution, using many examples and case studies. It includes a strategy for reaching mobile users, and delivering entertainment, engagement and instant gratification they crave. The book also examines ways to monetize mobile traffic so the strategy can be profitable.

10. #Get Social Smart: How to Hone your Social Media Strategy

Written by Katie Lance

#GetSocialSmart helps you identify the key platforms to focus on when using social media sites effectively. It teaches you how to build your social media strategy and provides you with a variety of social technologies, including live streaming, to tell your story.

11. 2017 Non-Obvious: How to Think Different, Curate Ideas & Predict the Future

Written By: Rohit Bhargava

What are the marketing trends that affect businesses, that most people do not think about? In this 2017 edition of Non-Obvious, Rohit Bhargava explains 15 new trends, and updates many predictions that’ll help your business make a bigger impact in the marketing world. Addressing digital marketing strategy, and brand loyalty, this book, among previous editions, has been voted as a part of the best marketing books.

12.What Customers Crave: How to Create Relevant and Memorable Experiences at Every Touchpoint

Written by Nicholas Webb

This book looks at how companies can adapt to changing consumer expectations by figuring out what their audience likes and dislikes. It shows you how to truly understand your audience so you can create relevant and engaging experiences for them. This keeps them coming back and makes a great recommendation for you to others.

If you’re looking for a fresh insight into marketing, and how to apply your own marketing strategies, these books are worth the read. They will help you understand current trends and help create strategies for every type of marketing. 

By Sukhdeep Khalsi

When you’re getting started with digital signage, having a content strategy is key.  With the right content, digital signage is engaging, versatile and informative. So today we’ll talk about things to consider when coming up with content and some basic advantages to using digital signage.

Neo, a brand under Adidas, tests out a virtual storefront concept. Patrons can use the signage to browse the store, learn about products, add merchandise to their cart and complete the purchase on their phone – without installing an app or scanning a QR code.

Engagement

Engaging content on digital displays ultimately encourages people to make purchasing decisions. Once folks are in your store or place of business, they’re far more likely to make a purchase than anywhere else. The opportunities that effective digital signage offer are endless, and it’s up to you to take advantage of them. Engaging your audience may sound daunting or complicated, but it can be as simple as having a clear Call to Action.  A Call to Action is just a set of words or phrases that prompt consumers to act. Words and phrases like “get yours today”, “available for a limited time”, and “follow us on Facebook” all prompt individuals to interact with your brand and business.  Additionally, with digital signage you can optimize engagement using touch-screen features. With this kind of interactivity, you could even provide access to your online store and enable people to make purchases on the spot through your digital signage. This way, even if you’re out of stock of a particular product, for example, your customer can still purchase something they want.

Versatility

Versatile content is something you can only find on digital displays. Static posters and banners don’t let you update content regularly or in a cost-effective manner. With digital displays you have the convenience of updating your content as often as you like to reflect up-to-date information, daily deals and prices, weekly sales promotions, new services and more. Your content doesn’t even need to be brand specific – a simple time, date and weather infographic can draw people in and result in a sale. That brings us to one last feature that works well with digital signage.

Information

Informativecontent will give your audience the information they need to make a purchase. With digital displays, you have the opportunity to showcase your products, services, pricing and any information you believe people need to know.  With the information you offer, you’ll want to be clear and concise to ensure you’re not overwhelming anyone. Digital signage is convenient because it’s a form of non-invasive engagement. After all, we all know that aggressive salespeople can turn away business as much as they bring it in. Regardless, you want your customers to know certain things. Perhaps your products are made locally; your company sponsors community programs or is partnered with a charity; or you use rare and high-end materials to create your products. These are facts you need your market to know, which even the best salespeople might not be able to talk about when prospective customers feel bothered. Digital signage in your place of business can feed crucial information to people and may result in a sale. It’s a great way of building your brand as well, by constantly reiterating specific information about your company and its values. Over time, all that info sticks and it’s what’ll come to mind when people think of your business again.

With that said, here a few more easy-to-remember tips to really help your content stand out:

• Remember to KISS; keep it simple, straightforward – This has been a marketing guideline for decades
• Keep your brand’s name out of it – have you noticed that every major slogan in the marketing world does not include the brand’s name? For example, Nike’s “Just do it” or McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ it”
• Take extra care and even seek outside advice to ensure grammatical accuracy
• Mind the length of your slogan – five words is the marketing standard
• Use strong or persuasive language as your Call to Action

By Kristin Cappuccio