How Vending Operators Can Harness The Power Of Digital Touchpoints

NEW YORK CITY -- Delivering valuable customer experiences is critical to capturing sales in today's ultracompetitive retail landscape. From digital posters and interactive kiosks to intelligent vending machines and point-of-sale devices, retailers have new tools to deliver more targeted, engaging brand experiences, and pursue sales opportunities when and where they can make the biggest impression.

Ravi Sirigineedi, Intel's visual retail segment marketing manager, discussed the topic at this year's Customer Engagement World conference in New York City. He emphasized that in a retail world in which digital devices have evolved into powerful consumer touchpoints having a strategy and a system to effectively manage digital marketing content is increasingly important. Intel regards a vending machine as a digital sign.

He explained that effective digital signage is not just about providing information, but about creating an experience that begins on the consumer's mobile device, and continues to a sign, kiosk, vending machine or store shelf, and all the way through the point of sale purchase.

"Touchpoints, experiences and content drive engagement, and it's all dependent on how interactive you make it," he said.

A key challenge that brick-and-mortar retailers and vending operators both face is keeping pace with innovation. Their tech-savvy customers have smartphones, some of them already being used for mobile payments like Apple Pay. The way for retailers to harness the marketing power of the ubiquitous smartphone is to implement a digital content management system (CMS) -- from Intel or other providers -- that enables consumers to interact through personalized, tailored content.

Sirigineedi advised retailers to make sure the solution they choose is simple to implement and use, in order to reduce complexity while leveraging its ability to increase sales and optimize brand awareness. "You want it to enable dynamic content so you can adapt it as you go along," he explained. "You should have the ability to remotely manage, modify and maintain every element of the campaign quickly."

Operators should also have the ability to remotely diagnose and repair their digital signs. "Rolling a truck can be very expensive, time-consuming and disruptive to the location where the sign is being serviced," Sirigineedi noted.

Audience analytics allow digital signage networks to gauge the effectiveness of their content by measuring how much time people spend looking at displays, and to determine the success of advertisements at capturing the attention of an audience. This anonymous information allows brands and retailers to tailor advertising content based on audience behavior and characteristics, helping to show the right message to the right people at the right time.

A content management system allows retailers and brands to quantify such audience demographics as gender and age, and to analyze viewer interactions with digital signs, including dwell time, time of day and viewed content. This allows brands to optimize onscreen content in near real-time.

It's also essential that a CMS keep information and analytics secure. "If someone puts malicious content on your digital signage, your reputation and relationship with brands is on the line," Sirigineedi warned.

A CMS's toolset, therefore, is an essential feature for measuring, improving and optimizing an operator's sales campaign. "You want to know how it ties in measurable metrics that you can pass to the brand for proof of play, to show how effective the campaign is," he said. "How can you measure the impact? By demographic? By how much time they spent looking at it?"

Intel's solution is its Retail Client Manager software, which remotely supports digital touchpoints, including signs, vending machines and point-of-sale terminals. RCM aims to improve the effectiveness of ad campaigns through audience analytics.

Operators can schedule and launch strategic and ad hoc marketing campaigns for targeted audiences in real-time, from anywhere. Content and scheduling can be adjusted based on weather conditions, shopper preferences and audience demographics, among other considerations, Sirigineedi explained.

Intel's CMS interface for scheduling content for installed signs is simple and intuitive, according to Sirigineedi. Nontechnical employees can quickly learn how to use the software to broadcast video, images, sound and advertisements, so there's no need to dedicate staff to the task.

The software includes MacAfee security protection to safeguard content from the server to the sign by encrypting and then decrypting it. It also controls which users are authorized to make changes to protect the digital signage content.

"Once the signage is up, you want a program that lets you make it more and more dynamic," Sirigineedi said. "Digital signage with an integrated camera lets you know [whether] they're male or female, their age group, and where on the sign they are looking and for how long. You can then take all the metrics and tie it into the content to see who's viewing what and what is more impactful, and dynamically change it. If you see that at 3 p.m. and later, it's mostly males, you might want to show something related to sports versus recipes, for example."

Sirigineedi underscored the value of making the shopping experience consistent across all digital touchpoints. "A lot of consumers are tech-savvy," he said. "They comparison shop and take pictures with their phones. Why not find ways to tie into their phones to stick in their minds as they continue on their shopping journey?"

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