Digital Signage Universe – The Blog

Why Everything You Thought You Knew About Google and “Digital Signage” Keyword Marketing— Is Wrong.

In an effort to gain visibility, many companies are focusing their marketing efforts on boosting their page rank position for the keyword "digital signage." On some level this makes perfect sense; however, there are problems with this strategy that you need to take into consideration.


Perception Versus Reality

Odds are your company has many competitors offering the same types of products and services. New hardware, software, and service-based solutions are being launched into the digital signage marketplace on a regular basis. In fact, if you Google the search term "digital signage," more than 3 million results are returned. While it's true that Internet search volume for the keyword “digital signage” has increased, it's important to recognize that your customers may not be finding your products and services through this search term. 
Here’s why:

Don’t assume that customers know what to call a new technology that is just beginning to gain momentum. Search terminology needs to be relevant to end-users. A keyword’s real value is completely dependent on how common it has become in regular English usage. “Digital signage” is not currently in the mainstream of English usage. While many people have seen digital signage, few people know specifically what to call it. If you don't believe it, ask around. If you ask people outside of this industry what "digital signage” is, most people will not know the answer.

This fact becomes even clearer if you examine the broad range of terms people use to describe this technology when searching on the Internet. For example, some of the search queries we see on Digital Signage Universe based on our traffic analytics include the following phrases: electronic signs, electronic displays, flat panel displays, video signage, video advertising networks, retail networks, networked displays, menu boards, media signage, media displays, plasma screens, LCD screens, LED signage, audio visual signage, and AV displays. Less than 20% of traffic is being generated by the keyword “digital signage.”

Many people search the Web using trusted brand names as part of their search string. Some of the current search trends we see include top brands such as Samsung, Sanyo, 3M, and Cisco. Digital signage news portals are able to capture additional Web traffic as product and corporate news stories are picked up by search engine spiders.

Reports of increased search volume are not accurate. There's a direct parallel that can be drawn between the rise in search volume for the keyword “digital signage” and the increase in the number of registered domains for providers and services within the space. As one might expect, a percentage of this increased search volume has been generated by the industry itself, creating an artificial rise in search queries for digital signage; therefore, some of this increase should be discounted.

The digital signage market is a global growth industry. If you’re marketing your products and services to other regions of the world, you need to factor in online search variables for other languages and cultures. Mandarin Chinese is the most widely used language on the Internet, followed by Spanish and then English. Within the United States, more than 22 million people (322 million people worldwide) use Spanish as their primary language, and they’re not using “digital signage” for their keyword search. It’s more likely that they’re searching using: “señalización digital.” Try Googling señalización digital and see for yourself. There’s a whole world of customers out there that your company is missing out on.

Read the full story on Digital Signage Universe

 

2009 KioskCom Self Service Expo and The Digital Signage Show at New York’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center

It’s rarely a straight path from concept to final deployment. Innovation requires a fair amount of flexibility. “More often than not, the business plan that you start out with is not the plan that you will end up with,” said Gregg Kaplan, COO and President of Coinstar, and this year’s keynote speaker at the 2009 KioskCom Self Service Expo and The Digital Signage Show.

Coinstar is one of the great success stories in the self-service space. Coinstar broadened its product line last February with the acquisition of Redbox, a DVD movie kiosk network. The acquisition added more than 12,000 automated retail locations to their coin-counting kiosk footprint.

Coinstar has developed strong consumer and retail relationships that have propelled its growth. By the end of this year Coinstar’s network of automated retail systems will grow to 20,000 Redbox locations, and more than 19,000 coin-counting machines across the US.

Mr. Kaplan shared some of the lessons he learned about successful self-service deployment. You need to simplify the value proposition otherwise you run the risk that consumers won’t get it. . “Keep it simple. Can you explain the concept in one sentence?” asked Mr. Kaplan.

Your offer needs to be compelling enough to convince consumers to change their normal pattern of behavior. You need to offer consumers real value and differentiate your concept from everything in the market.

You should be wary of developing concepts that rely to heavily on buzzwords to sell the idea. “For example, ‘It’s cool’ can often mean that there’s not a real compelling offer—cool concepts are often just a distraction,” said Mr. Kaplan. Other marketing buzzwords to watch out for are “we’re brand building.” If your kiosk concept is a brand-building exercise, then there may not be a solid business model to start with.

It’s also important to consider how consumers will interact with your system. The user interface needs to be simple. You don’t want it to feel like the cockpit of an airplane. For example, the Redbox interface basically consists of 3 buttons.

Read the full story on Digital Signage Universe 

2009 OVAB Digital Media Summit

NEW YORK, NY— “You are doomed,” said Bob Garfield, Editor-at-Large for Advertising Age and author of the new book “The Chaos Scenario.” Mr. Garfield delivered the keynote address for OVAB’s 2nd Annual Digital Media Summit: Focus on Out-of-Home, to a packed room of thought leaders from the advertising and marketing industry.

Who could have predicted that the monolithic status of television, radio, magazines, and newspapers would crumble right before our eyes? Mainstream media used to control the message—not so anymore. Consumers watch, read, and listen to what they want, when they want it. The digitization of media has altered consumer behavior forever. “Ad spending can’t support media anymore, this is a structural change,” said Mr. Garfield.

For marketers who are still rooted in traditional media, the landscape looks rather bleak. Like it or not, you’re going to need a new game plan to engage with consumers. Mr. Garfield has a name for the seismic shift that traditional media is facing. He calls it “The death of everything.” But don’t worry—there’s hope.

Social media has changed the equation. “The Internet is a word-of-mouth engine,” says Mr. Garfield. Consumers are listening to each other—and they’re talking about your brand. “In a connected world, the consumer knows far more than you. You’re not in control of your brand anymore…and you better not piss them off,” he added.

In the new world order of digitization and social media, marketers need to learn to listen to consumers. “You need to make sure that an irritated consumer doesn’t become an irate consumer,” said Mr. Garfield. If you’re listening, you have the opportunity to perform a sort of “marketing jujitsu” and flip the consumer back around to your point of view. Brands have the ability to forge new relationships with consumers and aggregate an audience a little at a time. Mr. Garfield calls this the art and science of Listenomics.

As it turns out, there is a ray of hope for marketers. Mr. Garfield believes that online media and out-of-home media will survive and prosper. “Out-of–home is the last great play in the advertising world. You can avoid traditional media, but out-of-home media is the one exception to that,” he said.

Read the whole story on Digital Signage Universe