By Gulaiym Agbal

Determining the size of a digital playlist can be tricky. The quality of the content displayed and its appeal for the targeted audience are attributes that depend, to a large extent, on the quality of data supplied. You don’t want to begin setting up a data playlist from scratch, without any data.

A digital playlist cannot be created in isolation, without considering the objectives, content plan, and delivery schedules. The four basic factors that influence digital playlists include the industry, location, objective, and audience type. For example, the industry could be retail, the location could be the entrance or an aisle, the audience could be weekend shoppers or discount seekers, and the objective could be to increase sales or create brand awareness.

The dwell time is another important factor. It influences the size of the playlist and the length of the message. The dwell time will vary with the content format and creativity that goes into the content.

A playlist should not appear to overwhelm an audience with sales pitches. Intersperse marketing messages with informational pieces and interesting nuggets of information. Consider a playlist that has at least four messages to ensure audience engagement. The content will have to be updated depending on the placement of DOOH screens, objectives, schemes announced, new products introduced, and updates to marketing objectives.

A VODXS faucet-ads system will need a playlist that ideally considers the viewer’s path to the screen. This can be assessed with NFC and data relayed internally.

Without a properly planned playlist, even the best hardware, software, and technology will not deliver the desired results. If you wish to achieve results based on content triggered when certain events happen, you need appropriate data from an analytics platform that connects to the CMS. If the playlists are to be played in sync or in sequence across different regions, you need to ensure proper remote management of screens.

Hyper-local settings demand finely tuned playlists that cater to the sensibilities and needs of a defined target audience. Proper file naming is an important constituent of the process that needs robust architecture to automatically send content to different locations where playlists are active.

Playlists, if one were to put it succinctly, work only when topical. You don’t want to waste content where it won’t work. You don’t want to divert content to locations and audiences where it is not relevant.