By Alex Mardikian

Businesses that seek to implement DOOH ad solutions need to be wary of the pitfalls that will lead to the failure of the project. Digital signage providers and integrators are in the know about issues that must be considered for the successful implementation of DOOH.

If you are unable meet your business objectives with DOOH, then, in a manner of speaking you have failed. If you wish to drive footfalls to your offline store or you want to generate leads for an e-commerce site and you do not quite achieve the objective with digital signage, then you haven’t really succeeded. Here, it is important to understand that success needs to be measurable. By the same token, a DOOH project can be adjudged a failure only when you have data with you and you have the implementation attributes that you haven’t quite managed to achieve.

One of the reasons why businesses fail with DOOH implementations is that they dive into a digital signage project because of the success that others achieve with it. Without first understanding the cost involved and assessing it with respect to the benefits you wish to accrue, you may be inviting failure.

The first step to initiate in a DOOH project is to outline objectives. Understand how DOOH will be able to help you fulfill those objectives. Identify potential bottlenecks in the process. Address those bottlenecks. Is content going to be an issue or will cash flow to meet operational costs be a problem?

The metrics you select for measuring success or failure will depend on your objectives, such as customer engagement, more sales, brand recall, or a rise in upsells and cross sells.

When contemplating digital signage projects, it is worthwhile to remember that more or quantity does not necessarily mean a better project. Quality is paramount. A quality location, quality content, and a project developed on the basis of quality data has a far greater chance of succeeding than one which banks purely on the number of screens put up across different locations.

When planning a digital signage project, plan for the future. This is particularly significant because the future is not static, it is changing fast. New technologies are being enmeshed and integrated with DOOH. You also need to consider where your business will be 3 to 5 years from now. The digital signage project needs to have an allowance for your business’s growth. It must be scalable.

The reason why digital signage projects fail to achieve objectives is that these projects do not have all the stakeholders on board. You need to first identify who the stakeholders are and then communicate properly and in a timely manner with the stakeholders.

Advertisers, network operators, mobile technology providers, wireless providers, hardware providers, maintenance persons, content creators, other staff, etcetera are the stakeholders. They have a vested interest in ensuring that the signage project works. They must be aware of all the milestones that mark the importance stages of a digital signage projects. They must be made aware of contributions expected from them. The stakeholders must be trained accordingly. It is highly desirable that the stakeholders be incentivized so that they may work energetically for the success of this project.

Digital signage projects must be implemented in a planned, phased manner. The rate at which you choose to grow incrementally will depend on your budget and the success you may achieve initially. For example, you simply must have a VODXS faucet-ad system implementation on the agenda because it lets you access an audience in a private space where you can have its attention.