Imagine two wig stores. Shop A displays new designs and their prices on the screens. 

Shop B, however, shows the wig, videos previewing different ways customers can style the wig, and numerous customer reviews of the same product. Customers can even preview the wig in multiple colours. 

Who do you think a customer is likely to buy from? Shop A or B? If you guessed Shop B, then you’ll be right. 

According to a Content Marketing Institute (CMI) report, interactive content can increase conversions from 36% to 70%. Interactive content turns customers into active participants, leading to more engagement and a longer attention span. 

Whether you’re a small business owner, a school or college administrator, or just testing any digital signage software solution, smart TVs are a more affordable digital signage option than commercial displays. 

In this article, we explore seven key features of digital signage on Smart TVs that facilitate increased customer engagement and lead to more conversions. 

1. Content scheduling and automation

Timing is an essential factor in customer engagement. Customers will better receive helpful content when provided at the right time. For example, a digital menu board showing the dinner menu at 8 a.m. or 2 p.m. is less valuable than showing the same at 6 p.m. 

With powerful content scheduling, you can provide relevant content to your audience when they need it. The content will air at the specified date and time, and hopefully, you will achieve your desired results. 

Scheduling and automation are also powerful tools of personalisation. For example, knowing stay-at-home moms make the bulk of your visitors between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. every weekday can help you create promotions and content tailored to this demography.

Automation takes this further. Rather than depending on the clock per se, it depends on moments and triggers. A trigger can be someone standing in front of the smart TV, a particular product being out of stock, the weather, or the temperature. 

For example, Walmart integrates its digital signage system with its inventory so customers get prompts for alternative products when an item is not in stock.  

Automation may require more technical skills, but it is accessible via digital signage software APIs and third-party tools like Zapier. Both scheduling and automation reduce the need to micromanage digital signs.

With Luna Screens, leverage advanced rules to create targeted, robust scheduling and automated messaging and watch dwell time and customer engagement soar.  

2. Interactive sensory features

For regular TV screens and some limited smart TVs, customers have to wait in front of a screen till their desired content plays. 

Although that static scheduled screen is helpful, the customer may have to wait a long time to view the information relevant to them. And sometimes, because of the setup and content schedule, that may not happen till they leave. 

Sensory features like voice control and touch screens remove this barrier by providing the necessary interactivity for customers to request content and information from the digital screen. 

For example, in an airport lounge, a traveller to Thailand can prompt the system for the local time and weather forecast by interacting with the digital sign or pushing a few menu buttons. They don’t have to wait for the screen to display their desired information. 

Voice-activated digital signs also provide the added advantage of limiting germ transmission, especially in hospitals and healthcare clinics. 

The best practice is to ensure you share the trigger words and how to make requests on the static screen.

What if my smart TV doesn’t have these fancy features?

You may not have the wherewithal to incorporate voice-activated or touch-screen-based digital signs due to a limited budget or having to deal with low-end smart TVs, but you can leverage QR codes creatively for interactive digital signage.

Scanning a QR code can reveal a map providing directions around your store or building. 

Another use case of this interactive technology is a QR code scan of a wig, leading to pictures and videos of the wig styled in multiple ways. 

Restaurant visitors may also receive previews of other meals that go well with a particular dish after scanning the QR code attached to a dish. 

Integrating QR codes in this scale requires some strategic and creative planning, but the upsides are totally worth the investment. 

3. Remote accessibility

While content scheduling and automation reduce the need for micromanagement, there are days when you simply need to adapt quickly. Perhaps you want to share time-sensitive information, or there’s an emergency. 

That’s where remote accessibility helps, thanks to cloud-based intelligent digital signage solutions with a feature-rich content management system. 

You don’t need to be in the store to make the necessary changes, and you can control all the screens in the digital signage network from a central location. 

You can simply cast the new information into one or a few targeted digital signage displays – or all – and overrule what’s currently playing. 

Urgent announcements can range from critical weather notices to security alerts. You can then resume regular programming once the need for the announcement has passed. 

Sometimes, as a small business, you can manually update what’s playing due to the kind of customers in your establishment. These customers may not fit the regular mould of customers you expect in your store. You can think of an on-the-spur digital signage content to engage such groups. 

Preview and manage upcoming content on any screen within your display network from anywhere in the world using Luna Screens. 

4. Integrations with third-party apps

You can set up your digital signage display system to communicate and integrate with other applications and devices for additional capabilities. There’s no limit to what you can integrate with digital signage. 

With some of these integrations, you can extract valuable data from third-party applications and present the same to your target audience. For example, a sports bar may dedicate a screen for live score updates while showing live sports on another.

Similarly, an airport lounge can show its customers the weather forecast for their destination, which can help them prepare better for landing. 

Do I need to get an umbrella? Am I appropriately dressed for the weather there? These are some of the questions such digital signage content helps answer. 

A gym can gamify sessions by connecting fitness tracking to digital signage software. You can publish the leaderboard on the screen with a prize pool for added engagements. 

The potential opportunities that exist are unlimited. The trick is showing what matters and is really helpful to your audience for that truly industry-specific application.

You may also like: The Benefits of Using Smart TVs for Digital Signage.

5. High-quality display technology

Smart TVs come with sparkling colours and sharp resolutions that translate into high-quality, crisp visuals your customers cannot miss. 

When buying smart TVs, the options you’ll likely encounter include 4K Ultra HD, organic light-emitting diode (OLED), quantum-dot light-emitting diodes (QLED), and High Dynamic Range (HDR). 

Although you can use any of these options as digital displays, 4K Ultra HD offers the best display resolution, up to four times that of standard HD televisions. 

Interactive digital signage systems are highly dependent on very clear visuals. You can optimise the picture output of your TVs by:

• Setting the backlight to suit how bright your store or outlet is. 

• Adjusting the contrast and brightness to ensure the details of each visual shine through.

• Turning off motion smoothing to make videos look more natural.

6. Customised viewing with multi-screen functionality

Many smart TVs come with multi-screen functionality that aids multitasking. That means on one screen, you may be watching a movie and keeping tabs on your social media on the other. 

For digital signage purposes, say you split the screen into three. On one screen, you can show the product picture, a video of the product in use on another screen, and share product reviews in the last section. 

The three sections may also show the same output but for different entities. For example, each section may show time, weather forecast, and current temperature for different cities. 

Of course, the TV has to be big enough to accommodate this multi-screen functionality. But even if the screen is not that big, you can still split the screen into two to share extra information simultaneously. 

You may do this directly from within your digital signage solution without needing the TV to have multi-screen capabilities. 

7. Multiple media formats

Natively, many smart TVs support multiple media formats. You can play or publish diverse interactive content on these televisions without needing media players or worrying about converting the file to a different format. 

In cases where the TV cannot play the required file directly, many digital signage media players or solutions support a more comprehensive range of media formats. 

Most can play video in MOV, AVI, MP4, MPG, and WMV formats and accommodate different audio, image, and text formats. 

One of the upsides to supporting a wide variety of media formats is the increased flexibility, allowing you to reach a broad audience and cater to several situations and use cases. 

It’s, therefore, imperative to ensure the smart TV and digital signage software options you choose support a wide range of multimedia formats to enable you to create versatile, engaging displays for your customers. 

How to use a smart TV for digital signage

Converting your smart TV into an interactive display is relatively straightforward. Unlike traditional digital signage, smart TVs don’t require a digital signage player like Amazon Fire TV Stick. 

You’ll only need an internet connection, digital signage software, and pairing the software with the TV. 

With digital signage software like Luna Screens, you can connect any smart TV to the content management system via the Chrome browser. 

You can download and install the Luna Screens app from the Google Play Store for specific operating systems like Android. 

Every digital signage software will have its way of pairing with a new screen. In the Luna Screens app, it’s as simple as clicking the “Pair New Screen” button from the app home page and following the instructions. 

Once you complete the pairing, you can push content to your new digital display. Not sure how to begin? You can get started swiftly with expertly designed templates available on Luna Screens.  

To learn more, read: How to Turn Your Smart TV into a Dynamic Advertising Tool with Luna Screens. 

Takeaway: Discover more dynamic ways to connect with your audience using smart TVs

Improve customer engagement with interactive displays on smart TVs. From personalised content scheduling to voice-activated features, these systems offer a dynamic way to connect with your audience.

Incorporating interactive sensory features such as voice control and touch screens removes barriers, allowing customers to access desired content quickly. 

Additionally, remote accessibility enables swift updates and urgent announcements, ensuring your messaging remains timely and impactful.

With high-quality displays and support for multiple media formats, smart TVs offer a versatile and affordable solution for digital signage. 

Convert your smart TV into an interactive display with ease and start captivating your customers today.

Pair your smart TV with an intuitive, easy-to-use digital signage software with features that promote interactivity and speedy execution. Luna Screens is optimised for businesses of all types and sizes. Get started today!