Organizations use different types of marketing strategies for their products and services. They install banners and billboards in crowded places and use social media platforms to attract the attention of people. The purpose is to send the message and increase the market share of a product/service.
The kiosk is a type of direct marketing techniques that businesses use. Today we’ll discuss what a kiosk is, how it works, its pros/cons, and examples.
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What is Kiosk?
A kiosk refers to a small and stand-alone booth-like structure that presents information or provides a service or other marketing purposes. Usually, few persons can move the kiosk and install it at a public and crowded spot to attract the attention of people.
Businesses install kiosk at the crowded areas like shop malls, busy streets, or outside of a retail shop. It may be digital and non-digital. Some businesses set up non-digital kiosks near aisles and stairs to boost up sales and promotion of their business. Digital kiosks provide the service of sale, banking, and theater information.
Unmanned kiosks are at the pharmacies, healthcare screening points, retail checkouts, and check-in points in hotels. They promote self-service capabilities among customers. Kiosks don’t always use the authoritative and supervising tone. They also complement the current and existing service that the seller is offering.
For instance, the provincial Canadian government wants the public to update their personal information like health cards and driving licenses by using the electronic kiosk. They would be able to self-serve them without anyone’s assistance and waiting at the lines in provincial ministry.
Kiosks are temporary and for the short term and it is a low-cost marketing strategy. Shopping malls charge a small rent for placing the kiosks. It’s a great marketing strategy for new businesses and entrepreneurs without spending a lot of money on it. Electronic kiosks are more convenient and they provide a better customer experience.
Interactive Kiosk Vs Non-Interactive Kiosk
Interactive kiosks are becoming more and more significant in the modern digital environment. They present information about the product/service, promote businesses, convince people to self-serve them by paying bills and sell products like tickets directly to the customers.
Non-interactive kiosks are a type of physical booth and a customer service person to execute the transaction. They’re at the airports, shopping malls, subways, and stairs. People still use non-interactive kiosks for a variety of purposes.
Types of Kiosk Machines with Examples
Some of the main types of kiosks are as follows;
Information Kiosks
As the name implies, information kiosks are to provide clear, concise, and accurate information about the product/service to the audience. It’s important to provide quality information so that the customers would have a better experience. The user-interface and layout should be attractive and intuitive.
Some of the places of information kiosks are government institutes, healthcare organizations, museums, shopping malls, and art and other exhibitions.
Self-Service Kiosks
Self-service kiosks are machines that allow users to perform certain tasks without anyone’s assistance. The company’s employees used to perform those tasks before.
Online queue system to answer your questions, car rental kiosks, automated check-in points, self-ordering machines, self-ticketing machines, vending machines, point-of-sale terminal, and self-service payment terminals are some of the common examples of self-service kiosks.
Digital Signage
Digital signage is an advertisement screen that promotes the product/service of the owners’ business. The purpose of the digital screen is to attract the attention of the audience. It displays simple and interactive ads to engage with the audience.
Organizations use it to deliver a personalized message to the audience, present statistical data by highlighting main figures and sharing the internet and information with others.
Wayfinding Kiosk
Wayfinding kiosk helps people to find the geographic location of the nearby projects and provides all probable routes from point A to B. It uses various technologies like IoT (internet of things), wireless networks, GPS, satellite, and other related tech devices. It allows personalized navigation services to its users both indoors of the big building and outdoors.
Internet Kiosks
Internet kiosks offer solutions to access the internet and they use internet access to provide a solution. Its services can either be free or paid. The free service would require you to provide them your personal information for marketing purposes.
Advantages of Kiosks
Following are the advantages of using kiosks for marketing your business and facilitate customers.
Improve Customer Buying Experience
Kiosks help customers to get clear information about the product/service of the company. If they need more information about the price, features, and other facilities of the product/service, they can ask them at the counter. It saves the time of customers and provides them the required information on time. When customers have a better experience, it increases their loyalty among them.
Increase Customer Base
Kiosk helps businesses, retailers, and sellers to reach a wide range of customers without investing a lot of capital in it. The expansion of the customer database helps to increase sales, and more sales would increase the company’s revenue. In other words, the kiosk is a cost effective marketing tool to reach more customers and increase sales.
Reduces Cost of the Business
The kiosk is an economic method of advertising and marketing your businesses, it reduces the cost of your business. It allows you to deliver the marketing message without spending a lot of resources so that you could focus on the sales team to increase the conversion rate. The cost you saved from marketing by using the kiosks, you could spend on customer service and retail section. Better customer service decreases the management cost.
Increase Efficiency
The interactive kiosks increase customers’ engagement and provide a better customer experience. It would comprise of various options like purchasing gifts, managing gift cars, sending job application, and submitting credit card application. Such kiosks allow performing different tasks at one time and increasing the customers’ satisfaction level.
Kiosk a Source of Marketing and Advertising
The electronic and digital kiosks allow you to run ads and attract the attention of ordinary walkers and passers. It would serve two important functions, first, it would promote your product/service whatever you’re selling. Along with selling, you’re marketing your brand and main business.
Disadvantages of Kiosks
Below are the disadvantages of using a kiosk machine for your business marketing.
Initial Cost
The initial cost of the kiosk comprises the purchase of kiosk machines and the rent cost of the place where you would install it. You’re going to need software to run the advertisement in the loop, and buying it would be costly. When you add them up together, it becomes a significant amount of money. In another world, an electronic kiosk machine is effective and engaging, but the initial cost is high.
Content Rigidness
The kiosk machines don’t allow you to update the content anytime whenever you want like a live feed. You have to follow a certain procedure of uploading the content, putting it in a loop, and then you’ll be able to run on the machine.
Customer Support
Problems are bound to happen when you’re running. If the kiosk machine stops running the ads or it starts showing different lights. The whole market campaign and the promotion of your business would be in jeopardy, you’ll be all alone. You can’t call the customer services to fix the problem immediately.
Monitoring
The software and the application you run on a kiosk machine don’t monitor the performance of the ad, location, and the health of its business. Kiosk solution only helps them to configure it with android and apple devices.
Industries Using Kiosks
You can find kiosk machines almost in every industry. Here is the list of industries using kiosk but not limited to;
Banking
Kiosks are becoming popular in the financial and banking industry. Banks install self-servicing kiosks at their branches across the country worldwide. It allows people to carry out the transaction without anyone’s assistance. Customers could also print out certain documents and ask for special assistance to the machine. ATM is a very good example of a kiosk in the banks and financial institutions.
Hospitality
Hotels and restaurants also install kiosks at different points in their establishment. It helps them to guide visitors from other countries. They would have a better customer experience. The focus of the hospitality industry is to provide the customer with a better experience. The self-serving kiosks are the best way to do it. It performs the following functions at the hotels and restaurants;
- Online booking/order of services like rental cars,
- Self-service of check-in and check-out,
- Providing information about the hotel’s building and about the city,
Fast Food Restaurants
Hotels and restaurants install kiosks digital screens to provide information about the menu. According to some studies, customers hate standing in lines and starving customers hate it even more. The self-serving digital menu board speeds up the process and improves the customers’ experience.
According to another study, people prefer a restaurant based on the self-serving kiosk machine board menu. It means installing such machines provides you a competitive edge in the market.
Retail
Some retailers have installed interactive terminals for sharing informing, buying, selling, and communicating with the employees. Some of their main functions at the retail store are;
- Collecting information,
- Providing information about the maps,
- Filtering the whole shopping mall based on the customers’ choice of food, clothing, etc.
- Providing information about special discount offers,
