Your digital signage success hinges on creating a unique user experience for customers. The more customers you attract, the quicker you achieve a return on investment and start to profit from digital signage.

The question is, how do you create a digital signage network that can keep up with the ever changing habits of consumers?

Yes, the right hardware, software, content etc. are all important, but they are a means to an end, the tools needed to reach your ultimate goal: increased brand awareness; more customers; and more revenue.

However, there is a way you can take all the components of digital signage and use them to attract audiences. Five key pieces of advice I can offer you based on experience include:

Keep your digital signage network cohesive

Due to the volume of digital signage solutions available, it's very easy to think that buying every type of technology available to you will cover all your bases and lead to instant digital signage success.

In reality, this approach is just a quick way to bankrupt your business. It may seem a little trivial, but cohesion is massively important to enhancing the user experience.

Plus, cohesion makes things easier for you. If you have a digital network that's made up of several different components, it becomes too much to manage and monitor.

In terms of customers, from an aesthetic point of view, your digital signage network should tell a digital story that’s visually consistent.

Therefore, the first key question is, when you step back and look at your digital signage solution does it look attractive?

Expand a customer's digital experience beyond a bricks-and-mortar location

Don't confine digital signage to your physical location, after all, customers prefer choice. Expand your network beyond the storefront because once your store closes for the day, access to your digital signage is cut off too.

If you install a unit where it is accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days per week you're improving the user experience, your chances of raising brand awareness and increasing revenue.

To increase dwelling times and interactivity, add a touchscreen element. Touchscreen solutions open up a whole new sphere of audience communication and they can be used outdoors and inside to achieve maximum audience reach.

Utilize social media as part of your digital advertising

Data published by digitalinformationworld.com shows that 71 percent of consumers refer to social media for purchasing decisions. Therefore, the use of digital signage and social media go hand-in-hand, without linking the two you stand to miss a huge audience.

Linking digital signage advertising with social media creates trust, generates web traffic and can even increase customer volume.

Social media recommendations between consumers carry weight when it comes to building trust and rapport. Embracing social media also shows that you’re committed to engaging with your audience.

Look beyond advertising

Look beyond digital as a means of advertising! Presently, there's a trend across many industry sectors to deploy digital signage units as self-serving kiosks. Banks, hotels, fast-food restaurants, retail outlets and many more have found digital signage success by quickening customer service.

Customers are able to shop on their own terms, taking their time to select products from an inventory on a digital screen and they can even pay for items. Removing the need to stand in line when shopping, and reducing waiting times, not only improves customer service, but reduces the strain on your staff.

Keep up with your audience

Digital signage success is achievable, hence the reason that the market is growing. However, maintaining digital signage success requires you to stay in tune with your customers. If you fall out of sync, you will lose your appeal. Right from the outset, your digital signage project must remain customer centric.

If you lose sight of your customers by overcomplicating your efforts with flamboyant, hard to manage digital signage that presents off-topic content, you’re doomed to fail.

If your answer to the question – why do I need digital signage? – doesn’t even consider your customers then digital signage is not for you. However, build it around your customers and digital signage success is pretty much assured!