Deliver the right message, to the right audience, at the right time, using the right media.

Our mantra is “keep it relevant.” In order to build strong relationships with your customers, channel partners and even your employees, it’s about generating communications that speak directly to the individual about topics that they care about.

We have always been fairly media agnostic. Whether a company chooses to market its wares via TV or print advertising, direct marketing, events, or whatever doesn’t much matter to our way of thinking. However, we are decidedly unambiguous in our support of one element of marketing: maximizing customer value. We think marketing should be aimed primarily at creating customer value; instead, far too many marketing strategies actually destroy it. The problem is, of course, that most marketers don’t even pay attention to customer value, much less make any overt attempt to measure how it changes as a result of their marketing efforts.

Interactive marketing should be all about a two-way conversation. A real dialog. One where a value exchange between a marketer and a consumer is met with equal admiration. Most marketers get this and execute well in the new media world of Web 2.0.

There’s one area in which the old world media of television and the large investments that marketers make in that medium meets the new world of measurable, metric driven, interactive marketing normally found on the web. That place? It’s called Narrowcast Television or Digital Signage. TV screens mounted in shops, in doctor’s waiting rooms on petrol pumps and shopping malls playing relevant, purpose built messages.

Screens that deliver, relevant targeted messages to defined audiences. More importantly – messages that prospective customers can respond to through txting, calling a call centre or interacting with the screen.

It’s real and it’s big and in fact it’s been around for a while. Walmart in the USA has over 120,000 digital screen displays in its stores and is now the 5th largest television network (measured by views) in the USA. Only the major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox) have a larger reach.

Our research has also demonstrated that 75% of retail buying decisions are made at the point of sale. Following on the success of store wide digital signage we are now seeing smaller and smaller digital display units offering very specific messages right in amongst the products it is promoting.

Our solution

Carlson utilise single form factor integrated media and display units. These comprise an LCD screen equipped with flash memory devices and integrated computer and network connections. Screens are recommended to be wall mounted incrementally above customer eye level. Each screen in each part of a retail store or retail network carries content relevant to that geography, season, time of day and stock being promoted.

Each screen is a individually identified entity on the network that can invite customer or customer prospect responses to txt numbers or call centre numbers linked to that unique screen.

The media player technology has been designed specifically for use as a remotely updateable network device for the challenging in-store environment.

The figure below details the process of generating, scheduling, managing and delivering content to the media player network in each of the various audiences. An important feature to note is that all tasks are controlled centrally from Carlson and store staff are not required to perform any functions. This extends down to maintenance and the daily switch off and start up on the unit.

Screens can be fitted with barcode readers and access the already installed software in the media player to trigger a play-list based on the product type scanned.

Customers can txt or phone in response to a specific promotion on a specific play-list at a specific sites.

To find out more about this solution call Simon Rowles on (09) 524 1122 or email simon.rowles@carlson.co.nz