Why Your Venue Needs to Implement Digital Wayfinding Signs

• Introduction
• Enhancing the Visitor Experience
• Streamlining Operations
• Data Insights and Analytics
• Cost Effectiveness and Sustainability
• Implementation Considerations
• Conclusion

Introduction

When guests visit your theme park, stadium, mall, or movie theater, is it easy for them to find their way around? Although many businesses do not realize it, poor wayfinding and a lack of direction can greatly diminish the quality of your visitor’s experience. So, how can your venue step up its wayfinding and continue to delight your guests? Utilizing digital wayfinding signs. In this comprehensive guide, we share why digital wayfinding signs are such a valuable component of creating an unforgettable guest experience. Let’s dive in!

Enhancing the Visitor Experience

Let’s start with perhaps the most important benefit of digital wayfinding: it improves visitor experience. Interactivity is a key component of wayfinding signage that excites and delights visitors. Using a kiosk to find your destination can be troublesome if that kiosk lacks interactivity. You may find yourself running your fingers over the kiosk and trying to remember how many lefts and rights you need to make to get where you want to go. This is especially relevant for large, harder-to-navigate venues, like malls and theme parks. Digital wayfinding kiosks can enable visitors to simply tap on their destination and receive directions immediately.

There is also potential to expand interactivity beyond touchscreens. More and more venues are starting to further utilize tools that enable their signage to communicate directly with mobile devices, allowing for directions and other information to be seamlessly passed over. Whether it is Bluetooth-enabled or using a scannable QR code, this provides lasting impact from your signage and makes the customer experience even smoother.

Digital signs also stand out considerably more than their static counterparts. Your visitors are more likely to notice and engage with vibrant imagery than a plain old static map. A whopping 76% of American consumers report having entered stores they have never visited simply due to their signage. If your visuals are strong, people will interact with your wayfinding signage, which leads to more guests finding their way more efficiently. Your customers will appreciate the reduced frustration and develop an improved perception of your brand if you make it simple and intuitive for them to find their way around.

Beyond making life easier for your customers, wayfinding signage also provides an excellent opportunity to modernize your brand and venue and improve your positioning in the marketplace. 90% of information processed by the brain is visual, making how your brand looks and feels incredibly important. When used correctly, digital signage immediately creates an association between your brand, innovation, and a great experience in the minds of your customers. This results in a more positive view of your brand that encourages repeat visits, word-of-mouth referrals, and increased revenue generation.

Lastly, digital wayfinding signage provides the opportunity to share promotions and other relevant information with your customers. For instance, if your theme park is having a sale on season passes or wants to promote an upcoming event, your wayfinding signage can share that information to further reinforce that message and give your guests the information they need to have the best possible experience. Cruise ships in particular do an excellent job of including daily events on their wayfinding signage to generate additional awareness. Be sure to consider how your business can use its wayfinding signage to share promotional information with customers, they are sure to appreciate the heads-up. Just be sure that any “add-ons” don’t limit the effectiveness of your signs to actually help get folks where they need to go.

Streamlining Operations

Beyond the benefits that digital wayfinding signage offers your customers, it makes life considerably easier for your business as well. Digital wayfinding promotes more efficient crowd management by making it easier for your visitors to get where they need to go. This mitigates logjams and excessive crowding of certain areas. It also saves your staff time on having to stop and provide directions to visitors, which can distract them from doing what they need to do (depending on the role, of course).

Digital wayfinding signage can also be a tremendous tool for driving additional revenue. Your venue can make a point to direct traffic to revenue generators such as merchandise shops and concession stands to ensure these revenue drivers are receiving as much attention as possible.

Many organizations have also experimented with selling ad space on their wayfinding signage to create an additional stream of revenue, which can be extraordinarily financially productive. We recommend treading lightly here, as although it can be tempting to grab some quick and easy revenue, selling excessive amounts of ad space can detract from the intended purpose of your wayfinding signage: helping your customers get where they need to go. If your business does choose to go down this path, make sure that any ad space you are selling is for a product or service that is specifically relevant to your business and the people in your venue.

Of course, digital wayfinding signs are also far easier to update and manage than traditional signage, removing a considerable administrative burden from your business. Your business can manage all of its signage from one centralized location, and easily change out imagery or creatives with the click of a button (this is the core benefit of a great digital signage CMS). This makes it extraordinarily easy to adapt on the fly and seamlessly incorporate time-sensitive information like upcoming events onto your signage without having to physically swap signage out. Going digital also provides the ability to effectively day-part and automatically adjust your creatives based on factors such as the weather. For example, if your theme park is dealing with a heat wave, your wayfinding signage can automatically populate with a banner reminding visitors to drink plenty of water and find shade from time to time.

Furthermore, you can seamlessly integrate your signage with your social media platforms to provide another layer of personalization to the visitor experience and showcase the great experiences of your customers, with no manual intervention necessary.

Cost Effectiveness and Sustainability

We alluded to this a bit earlier on, but digital signage is far more cost-effective and sustainable than traditional signage. Forget the “print-ship-hang” model of old that requires redistributing signage and physically hanging it up every two months (as well as throwing away all the old displays). Going digital enables your business to eliminate excessive paper waste while saving time on installation in the long run. Many signage manufacturers like LG and Samsung are also beginning to create more “green” versions of their hardware that are considerably more energy efficient than hardware of old. Going digital enables your business to promote sustainability while simultaneously providing its customers with a better experience.

Implementation Considerations

If your business is interested in leveraging digital wayfinding signs, it must take the necessary steps to ensure a proper implementation. Although you may be excited to get started, taking the time to step back and consider the details of your needs is critical.

Start by taking the time to assess your venue layout, down to the most particular details. How many wayfinding signs will you need? Where are they best placed? What size and shape should they be? What are the electricity/networking requirements to effectively power this signage?

If you have a hard time answering questions like this, you’ll want to be sure to work with a signage partner with your best interests in mind to ensure an optimal configuration. Hardware providers will sell you as many screens as you want, even if you don’t need them or cannot utilize them effectively. If you are not a seasoned veteran in the digital signage world, we recommend working with an end-to-end provider who can work with you every step of the way to help you nail your implementation.

Take the time to consider your staff and customers as well, and whether they’ll need to be educated on how to use your signs. Before you overhaul your wayfinding, you’ll want to ensure there is a plan in place to train your team members on how to use the technology so they can get up to speed quickly. You do not want to find yourself in a situation where your staff is unable to show customers how to use your technology. In the early stages of your rollout, it is wise to have messaging on your screens explaining to customers how to interact with your signage to ensure they understand how everything works.

Conclusion

Implementing digital wayfinding signs in your venue can work wonders toward enhancing the visitor experience and streamlining operations. Brands everywhere are using their wayfinding technology to improve navigation for guests, reduce frustration, and create a modern and innovative brand image. However, successful implementation requires careful planning. To make sure you nail your digital wayfinding implementation, it’s key that you work with the best.

DEEL Media is a leading end-to-end digital signage partner with a proven track record of delivering best-in-class signage solutions to some of the world’s premier brands. We’re a team of artists, technologists, and realists who are no strangers to wayfinding. We’ve worked with high-level brands like Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman to design and construct a touch-screen interactive fashion-retail store directory system. We’d be happy to partner with your business to help you knock your digital wayfinding implementation out of the park. If you are interested in learning more about DEEL Media and the work that we do, schedule a free consultation here!