Marketers often struggle to keep pace with their digital signage network’s daily demand for up-to-date and relevant content. Data-driven content is one way to “feed the beast.”

What is data-driven messaging?
By “data-driven” we mean content that is automatically assembled or updated based on external business rules or data sources.

Data-driven spots
Spots that are data-driven are automatically refreshed based on incoming data feeds. Most often, the spot is a template with specific elements that are affected by the incoming data are text and visuals, like the temperature and weather graphics in the example above.

Examples of data-driven content include:

• News, weather or stock market updates fed by RSS or XML feeds
• Directional messaging (such as arrows or aisle numbers) fed by store plan-o-grams
• Calls to action that are updated based on time of day (a countdown clock, for example)
• Message backdrops fed by postal codes (for example, skylines or local monuments)

Data-driven playlists
Playlists can also be data-driven. Examples include:

• Using individual store performance results to choose the right spot among a pool of product spots designed for this purpose.
• Matching loop length to traffic-flow data based on predefined business rules

User-generated data-driven playlists
Data-driven playlists can also be updated based on local user interactions versus centrally established business rules. For instance, if an interactive kiosk is registering widespread interest in a particular topic, screens elsewhere in the store may be updated with content loops more strongly weighted toward that theme.

The benefits of data-driven content

• Enables a very high-frequency of message refresh
• Integrates “outside-world” information for a more entertaining and engaging content loop
• Improves message relevance and timeliness — fully leveraging the power of multimedia messaging over static paper-based P.O.S. communications
• Reduces daily management attention while ensuring messaging is closely aligned to business priorities
• Reduces production costs by creating spots “on the fly” with a library of visual assets, versus commissioning agency production of each individual spot

Important considerations
Not all content management systems (CMS) manage data-driven content with ease. As you evaluate your CMS, here are some questions to ask:

• Is the CMS restricted to video playback? If so, each iteration of content will need to be specifically rendered up-front, minimizing flexibility and cost savings that might normally be associated with data-driven content.
• Does the CMS play common multimedia types in native format? If not, the spots may act more like video spots in the file-conversion process, losing some or all of their original ability to ingest (and update) based on external data feeds.
• Does the CMS player have the necessary processing capability to manage “on-the-fly” store-level assembly of content?
• Does the CMS permit rules-based scheduling?
• Does the CMS manage interactive content? If so, does it have the ability to instantly monitor interactive results and use those findings to update playlists?