6 Benefits of an Interactive Brand Experience

Feeling curious about some of the ways an interactive touchscreen experience could benefit your business? Perhaps for an event, exhibition or customer sales centre?

Touchscreen experiences are a great way to get a message across simply and clearly, whilst building your brand’s image – not to mention a reliable sales pipeline.

But if you’re considering investing in an interactive brand experience, chances are you want:

• The WOW factor – to look like an innovative, high-tech, leading-edge brand
• To interact with your audience – not just dictate to them
• Your audience to explore your content in their own way, and time
• An immersive interactive experience to win over your audience by tapping into their deeper emotions

As interactive touchscreen specialists who regularly help clients achieve their goals with immersive, fun and engaging interactive brand experiences, we can say that all of the above is possible. But what are some of the ways you can use touchscreen interactives for maximum impact?

Well, from experience, we’re going to list six of the main ones, below.

1. Stand out at events

If you have an event, exhibition or conference that you really want to make an impression at, the aforementioned WOW factor of a touchscreen is ideal for capturing your audience’s attention. Give them something unique, memorable and fun, and you’re most likely onto a winner! And it’s great for building brand/product awareness, too.

ViewPoint Interactive Solutions released 2016 data showing that interactive touchscreens can drive almost 40% more foot traffic to a particular stand or booth at an event – and even better, keep prospects engaged for 50% longer than exhibits without a touchscreen (but more about that below).

You can also use your touchscreen for lead capture (for example, allowing users to send videos or images they’ve created to themselves, by entering in their email address) – or to record how people are interacting with your content. So, you can see what works best for future!

2. Increase customer engagement

By creating a more dynamic and immersive interactive sales experience for customers, you can keep them engaged – and get more people interacting with your content than ever before. It’s a great way to let people explore your brand in their own way, and allows you to show off your technology (or products/solutions) to the greatest effect.

For instance, you can bring complex messages to life through immersive visual storytelling – or have fun, interactive games that people can find it difficult to pull themselves away from! Features such as object and gesture recognition can also add an extra dimension to any touchscreen experience.

Interactive wayfinding is another great option for visitors exploring your office; they’ll be able to find their way around, and see which department is where. Or, if you have a factory, for example, they’ll be able to watch 3D videos of the various manufacturing areas.

There’s so many ways you can portray a more innovative and dynamic image to your customers. And the limit is your imagination!

3. Build company culture

Interactive touchscreens aren’t just for your customers – they can also be a great way to enhance corporate communications and build on company culture. For instance, you can keep your employees updated in a fun, visual way.

If you have offices in multiple different locations, you can keep each individual experience updated with local news, weather, and events – along with updates and announcements that your staff need to know about.

They’ll also be able to communicate more easily (without emails going amiss), keep up-to-date with the latest from HR, and feel more like they’re part of your company culture.

You can also have KPIs automatically updated and visible, so everyone’s kept in the loop.

4. Give sales a boost

Did you know that businesses who use digital touch tech (like interactive touchscreens) report a 20 – 30% increase in sales?

If you have an important pitch or tender coming up, an interactive brand experience can be a refreshing and innovative way to approach sales. Just like point 2, you can help prospective customers engaged with a more immersive way of illustrating how you can work together.

It also tends to be a more of a memorable experience, rather than just having everyone sitting round a table. Instead, they can stand up round the screen and explore your presentation to find the points they’re most interested in learning about.

Your sales team can also quickly jump to the parts of the experience that naturally come up in conversation (although you don’t necessarily need a salesperson there all the time – another great benefit of a touchscreen!).

A great example of this would be a marketing suite for a housing developer. Potential customers would be able to explore the development using 3D flythroughs and site plans to get a much better idea of what to expect.

5. Keep stakeholders engaged

Staying on-theme with the idea of introducing a new building development, you could keep the public informed by allowing locals to explore the development of the new area, and find out vital information about local schools, housing and transport.

They can also find out all about the developers and generally take their time exploring the area.

A real-life example of this would be the touchscreen experience and demo suite we created for our client, Ebbsfleet Development Corporation. Ebbsfleet Garden City is a new, multi-billion pound development, covering five square miles in north Kent.

Ebbsfleet now has an impressive interactive space that allows people to learn about the development, whilst keeping both stakeholders and the public in the loop – and so far it’s received a fantastic response!

6. Improve retail experience

For retailers, interactive touchscreens are becoming a popular way to help customers connect with your brand.

For instance, a screen might not be a replacement for physical items you can touch and buy right there and then, but it is still a way of letting them explore products that you maybe don’t have in-store (for example a new car configurator, where they can change the colour of the interior, paint, wheel type, and other features).

You can also use a touchscreen experience (or digital signage as it’s often referred to in retail) to make customers aware of offers, or sign up to receive newsletters – they can even enter into competitions!

Advice from the touchscreen specialists

If some of the points above sound attractive to you, and you’re thinking of investing in an interactive touchscreen for your business, you should really start by thinking about your objectives and how they line up with those of your audience.

You’ll also need to consider:

• The physical space your touchscreen is going into
• The type of hardware you want to use (a touchtable, wall-mounted screen, freestanding… maybe a combination!)
• Which types of content and interactivity you wish to include
• The main message or action you want people to take away from your experience
• How you’ll keep it updated – will there be internet access?

TIP: You can read more about where to get started with an interactive touchscreen experience by reading our recent blog!

In order to create an effective interactive sales experience, you’ll probably need outside help – for example, a developer or interactive agency who has plenty of experience creating interactive touchscreen solutions for businesses like yours.

They should be able to talk you through your options and help you out with some free, impartial advice – as well as showing you examples of their previous work, so you can get a better idea of what might be possible for you.

Let’s talk about your interactive brand experience

Hopefully by now you’ll have a better idea of some of the ways your business could benefit from an interactive sales experience. Not all of these will definitely apply to you, but touchscreens can have such a wide range of purposes that suit many different industries.

Many of our clients opt for a touchscreen experience if they have a big event looming, or a sales pitch to make – in other words, times where they need to make a big impression. A touchscreen experience is a fabulous way of showing that you’re a forward-thinking and innovative brand – and it’ll certainly attract the crowds!

Want to find out more about creating an interactive brand experience for any of the reasons above? Simply download our guide or, if you’d like to chat about an idea, get in touch with us on +44 (0)117 329 1712 or by emailing hello@popcomms.com.