Mandoe Media, a leader in the development of customised digital advertising and marketing solutions, has released its first self-serve product. A system that enables all kinds of company owners to create their own content quickly and easily for their digital display screens.
Initially, Mandoe Media took a very hands-on approach with their customers. They spent a lot of time helping their clients to learn how to transform their marketing ideas to work for the digital display screen format. Mandoe Media´s first digital advertising product was not intuitive enough for most independent business owners to be able to work everything out themselves. At least not immediately. It took many months of intensive effort to onboard clients and get things running seamlessly.
Unsurprisingly most of the companies they served were multinationals. Firms like Spec-Savers, Rip Curl, and Australia Post. The platform had not been built with small businesses in mind. The number of people they could help was limited. Given the fact that in the majority of countries over 90% of companies are small businesses, that is a lot of people that Mandoe Media were not able to help with their product. According to the US Small Business Association, 99.7% of companies are small businesses.
Using their extensive hands-on experience with digital signage software and the way companies actually deployed the marketing content Mandoe Media put together an extremely simple to deploy self-serve solution. Making it possible for a barbershop in Kansas to access high-end graphics and templates that enable them to create eye-catching ads that are every bit as stunning as those multi-nationals deploy in their stores and outlets.
Developing such a platform proved to be complex and costly. So, the Mandoe Media team sought capital investment. In 2019, Melbourne, Australia-based Advent Partners invested $30 million to help Mandoe Media to grow awareness of their brand and to help them to finish the development of their fledgling user-operated digital signage software.
It was a match that worked. The company quickly grew from having 5,000 customers running 20,000 screens to delivering ads to more than a million. Their screens were no longer only deployed in branches of Australia´s biggest stores. Instead, the majority of them are used by enterprising small business owners who know that having a digital display screen in the window really catches the eye of passers-by. Now, they are deployed across the world.
They are extremely effective at catching customers´ attention in-store. Tens of thousands of retailers, gym owners, cafes, restaurants, workshops, and all kinds of other retail outlets are using them, across the world.
Reaching that point has enabled Mandoe Media to develop its self-serve digital marketing system even further. Small business owners have found some new and innovative ways to deploy them.
To the point where Mandoe Media has learned a few new tricks from the huge customer base they now have. For example, the fact that digital media screens can be deployed in reception areas to act as replacement greeters. To welcome people in and tell them about something new or interesting that is on offer. Something a lot of smaller gyms now do. They also use them as motivational tools for their clients. When they are motivated, they get more out of their workouts, which encourages them to keep coming back.
To use Mandoe Media´s self-serve system, business owners simply sign up, go through the training, and get started. They can use their own designs, but the vast majority use the thousands of templates that Mandoe Media provides. Some simply change the wording up a little and deploy the adverts, within minutes.
But most simply use the templates as a starting point. They use their own colours, fonts, and other branding elements. Increasingly, they are using their own images too.
Working in this way enables business owners to take ideas that their employees come up with and turn them into marketing material for their display signs. The fact that they are the people who are working face to face with customers means that, often, the ads that are created using employee ideas are the ones that grow sales the fastest.
Mandoe Media adds video to its self-serve digital signage software
According to OptinMonster, 80% of marketers see an uplift in sales when they start to use videos. Increasingly, physical businesses are waking up to the fact that it is also extremely effective in offline environments. Recognising this Mandoe Media has now added the option to easily create short videos to its platform. This is just one of several enhancements that Mandoe Media is planning.
Editor-in-Chief since 2011.