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If you are in business, dwell time is all you should be thinking about. It is a vital metric to pay close attention to when it comes to your digital signage content. Well, you might be inclined to believe that your screens are displaying excellent content; if no one is stopping to check it out, then it is useless. However, what exactly is dwell time? It is the duration someone consciously looks at your displays. In a way, it keeps your audience engaged and how long they do it for the higher the possibility for them to take action.
While dwell time might appear like a relatively elementary metric, it is one of the most challenging things to achieve for digital signage content creation. The thing with digital signage is that it is more of a glance medium. Your target audience will look at your screens then move on. This is where dwell time comes in handy. What happens in between looking at a display and moving on can make the real difference. It is the reason why dwell time is crucial for digital signage.
It has been shown in numerous researches that it requires between 1.5 and 4.6 seconds to pay extra attention to the information displayed on a screen. Sometimes it is as low as 0.7-0.9. It is a good thing, though, that the conscious mind can process up to 40 bits of information per second! If you want to increase dwell time, you need to understand who your message is targeted to, what the content is about, when it will be played and where your displays are located. However, if you want your digital signage solution to have a positive impact on your business, you must look for a way to turn the dwell time into engagement:
Focus on screen location
Where you put your displays has a massive impact on the overall dwell time. Your screen placement is a vital element in enhancing the content you show to your target audience. If you promote a sale item, you should place your items close to the screen to create an immediate impact.
Create engaging and interactive content
People are naturally attracted to infographics, polls, quizzes and illustrative images and videos. People spend more time on video displays more than any other format. Remember, if you are using creative video content, the same writing rules apply. You have to make whatever you are playing look excellent, sound fabulous and make sense. Playing generic videos won’t do anything like increase the dwell time or boost the overall engagement.
Interactions such as polls or short quizzes give your target audience a reason to pause for a while, click and learn more information. While at it, include a feature that allows your clients to view and share quiz results to add excitement and overall visibility. Even though visually appealing, viewable information is essential, it must also contain helpful information. Have your site's keywords and your competitors' ranking keywords analyzed every six months to see which ones are losing popularity and bringing your target audience to your respective domains.
Think about the design
Design thinking is among the most effective ways to take your digital signage to the next level. Not only will this method help you define, refine and turbocharge your content strategy, but it will also provide opportunities to User Generated Content (UGC) on your social media channels in a systematic, if not organic, way. You will enjoy higher engagement rates while taking advantage of a more comprehensive and attention-grabbing display.
Provide dynamic and targeted content
Using the "who, what, when, and where" principles, it becomes more comfortable to create targeted content. For instance, if you have an office set up, the chances of your audience glancing at your screen will be more. It can't be compared to the attention it would create in a shop. Ensure your content can reflect who it is designed for. On the other hand, if you want the dwell time to drive increased engagement, ensure your content is as dynamic as possible. Playing the same content over and over can hurt your marketing efforts.
Remember the difference between strategic repetition and one that is frustrating and irritating is minimal. If you can’t figure out when playing the same content has become too much, you might not get the engagement you set out to achieve in the first place. If your target audience sees the same content on your displays, they get fed up and will be less likely to view it anymore. When you find the balance so that you don’t overplay the same thing, chances of turning dwell time into audience engagement will be significantly increased. If you are having a challenging time developing fresh content, it should not be that hard. For instance, using modern digital signage software you can show news using the RSS app or have a social media wall for displaying real-time posts.
Encourage your target audience to take action
Inspiring action on the content you display is the selling point of your digital signage. It makes a massive difference in how your audience reacts to your displays. Encouraging action is primarily the answer to everything you wish to achieve with your screens. Before you create your content, ask yourself what reaction you expect from your audience. The best way for turning dwell time into engagement is by using the platform to persuade people to take action but in a conservative manner.
While you ideate, develop, or optimize your content, think of why someone would want to associate with your brand and cater to that need. Increasing the dwell time on your display can be a massive boost for raising brand awareness, but if you don't optimize it well enough, it might be useless to some extent. This is why turning it into engagement is a necessity for the growth of your business. When you increase the amount of time that people spend on your materials, avoid making them feel like they only wasted their precious time in the end. Providing irrelevant information can upset all your marketing efforts. As such, if you happen to be in doubt, don't hesitate to run user tests or seek feedback often.
