By Rich Ventura, Vice President of Strategy for NEC Display SolutionsAccurately measuring ROI for digital signage is critical — both to justify the investment your business is making with a digital signage network and to make any adjustments to the deployment, content or other variables to maximize your network’s impact once it’s operational. Measuring ROI can also be complex, so as you start to plan and test your network, it’s vital to build in appropriate measurements from the very beginning.
Richard Ventura
Taking the right approach to measuring ROI involves thinking about some basic fundamentals as you start creating the strategic plan for your digital signage network and as you begin to execute against that strategic plan. Identifying your primary objectives and defining how to measure the achievement of your goals are the keys to confirming that you’re using the right solution to its fullest.
1. Lay out a basic strategic plan and objectives
Before you start thinking about how to calculate ROI, focus first on Return on Objective (ROO). ROO is widely considered to be a valuable measurement for digital marketing campaigns. To calculate ROO for your digital signage network, you must clearly define your key objectives and expected outcomes. These objectives should be specific and measurable.
A good approach for determining key objectives is to engage the teams that your digital signage network will impact directly. For example, if you’re installing a network in a school, discuss its deployment with IT, faculty, and students. They will provide indispensable insights into what the key objectives of your network should be.
Key objectives include a wide range of elements. For example, if your business aims to sell more sweaters by marketing through a digital signage network, you need to have the right display technology, the right computing, the right CMS platform, and the right content. All of these elements should be among your key objectives.
2. Determine how to approach measurement
Once you have identified your objectives, it’s time to focus on identifying which milestones will accurately provide the insights you need — either for deploying a new digital signage platform or making an extension to an existing platform. What are you going to measure?
A wide range of data — such as click-through rates on a touch screen, impressions and conversions — will tell you whether your objectives are being met. You can also deploy facial detection software, POS cross-references, beacons, RFID tags and readers, and other technologies to gather measurement data and gain insights into the types of customer engagements you’re having.
For enterprises, the use of analytics, big data machine learning, and cloud computing can provide both depth and breadth of information about your digital signage network. It will broaden the types of measurement you can use and provide a complete view of the network’s impact on your business.
For smaller, entry-level businesses, your measurements may be relatively simple. If you’re a pizzeria, for example, your goal may be to increase the sales of your high-margin House Veggie Special pie by 30 percent. Measuring the number of sales is as easy as, well, pie.
3. Analyze how you measured up to your objectives
The final step to measuring ROI accurately for digital signage networks is to take your measurements and analyze them to see how well you achieved against your key objectives. This analysis will show how well you’ve achieved your objectives and will give you the ROI data you need.
Bringing it all together
Accurately measuring the ROI of your digital display network will ensure that you’re setting yourself up for success. It will enable you to see what your network is accomplishing, and you can build from that, fine-tuning your network or experimenting with different approaches to maximize your ROI.
Author Rich Ventura will present Session 17 entitled, “How to Accurately Measure Digital Signage ROI,” at Digital Signage Expo 2018 on Thursday, March 29 at 9 a.m. at the Las Vegas Convention Center. For more information on this or any educational program offered at DSE 2017 or to learn more about digital signage go to www.dse2018.com.
Richard Ventura is Vice President of Strategy for NEC Display Solutions. He can be reached at rventura@necdisplay.com.
About the Author
Richard Ventura is the Vice President of Strategy for NEC Display Solutions of America’s, overseeing all strategy related activities for the organization. Focusing on leading the development and communications of strategies aimed at evolving the business and driving it forward, while working with the Executive Team to define the vision and direction for the company and establish strategic initiatives that disrupt current and future markets, explore alternative solutions, and result in short and long-term gains.
Richard has spent 16 years within the NEC sales and marketing organizations focusing on display solutions, display technologies, projectors and direct-view LED. During that time he has helped numerous client and partner relationships flourish and spearheaded campaigns, which have elevated NEC’s brand and products throughout the marketplace. Richard has been honored to receive over one dozen internal awards from NEC for his exceptional efforts and tireless work ethic.
Richard is a long-standing member of many organizations within the industry as well as currently sits on the Board of Directors for the Digital Signage Federation serving as Chairman and supports the International Committee, Membership Committee as well as the newly formed Global DOOH Council. During his tenure with NEC he has delivered many presentations at industry conferences as well as authored articles for key publications and industry trade periodicals.
