Make Out of Home Advertising Part of your Marketing Strategy  

Successful marketing is about focused, consistent and direct communication to the right audiences. And, out of home advertising allows marketers the opportunity to be seen in an entirely unique way, potentially by an even larger number of future customers. It’s one of the rare touchpoints that digital marketing can’t replicate, and it’s something that can help businesses of all sizes.

What is Out of Home Advertising?

The concept is as simple as the name — out of home advertising, also known as OOH advertising comprises any sort of marketing message that is received outside of one’s home. That’s the easy part.

What’s a bit more complicated is how out of home marketing actually works. Unlike popular methods of marketing such as inbound marketing and data-driven marketing, out of home advertising isn’t designed to make you buy something right now. Its objective, instead, is to build brand awareness and generate buzz around a business.

Common types of out of home marketing include billboards, advertisements on automobiles (buses, taxis, company-driven trucks, and cars), fliers, in-store displays, and public benches. These are just a few examples that show how out of home advertising can expose a brand to a larger audience.

A Different Approach

Wait a second. Isn’t out of home marketing the exact old-school marketing tactic that doesn’t work anymore? Doesn’t this idea of brand awareness and not tying into sales completely contradict what’s commonly accepted about digital marketing in today’s world? Haven’t we all been trained to believe that display ads hold no value, and that anything that can’t be tied directly to someone’s online activity is useless? The answer to these questions is, “Not exactly.”

It’s the very fact that out of home advertising has been de-emphasized that makes it such a valuable commodity. Marketing is all about reaching people where they are and getting noticed along the way. These are two things that can be accomplished more easily through out of home advertising than you might think.

Yes, email marketing and social media marketing will get you a more immediate interaction with an individual consumer. And there’s definitely a place for those techniques in modern marketing. But there’s also tons of clutter in the digital marketing landscape, and consumers are increasingly skilled in tuning out those forms of advertising. It’s time to take a different approach and utilize a medium that’s not so heavily coveted, but will still help you to attract new customers and satisfy existing ones.

Have an Idea

The goal of out of home advertising is to garner attention. You can’t do that with a generic message.

Instead, you want to use out of home advertising to catch the eye of prospective customers. How do you do that? Give them something unique. Something that will make them take a photo of your ad. Something that will make them search up your business online — according to Nielsen’s research, 46 percent of adults have searched for a brand that they initially saw in an out of home ad. Something that will stand out from all of the thousands upon thousands of ads people are bombarded with each day.

And how do you come up with something unique? Look at your business — your customers and your employees. What makes your company different from the competition? What can you create that will make people take notice and will entice them to learn more about your brand? How can you translate your core values and competitive advantages into an ad that moves people?

There’s no right answer to these questions. But if you don’t have a good reason why people should notice your business, it’s a sign that you need to dig deeper into what makes your company stand out from the rest. Once you have that answer, though, you can move into making out of home advertising a prominent part of your marketing strategy.

Pick Your Spots

Some of the more famous types of street advertising appear on large metropolitan billboards, subway stations, and other high-traffic areas. With that ad space, of course, comes significant advertising expenses. Not every business has the means to afford that level of exposure.

It’s important to choose an out of home advertising medium that not only captures the attention of consumers but makes sense from a practical and financial perspective. This doesn’t mean cutting corners — it simply means being smart about where you’re putting your marketing message.

One easy display area for your out of home advertising is a delivery car, service van, or anything your business owns and can easily manipulate. This allows you to make changes as you see fit, and it lets you do, quite literally, anything you want to get attention.

If you don’t have a vehicle that travels around promoting your business, you’re not out of luck. In-store displays showcase the best features of your products and show people why they should buy. Fliers, posters, and signs can prompt people to search and investigate the company behind the message.

There are countless ways to advertise outside the home. If it’s visible to many, and if it’ll get people to take action, and if it doesn’t break the bank, it’s an effective ad.

Bring it Home

While out of home advertising is centered around creating awareness and generating interest, its ultimate goal — as is the case with all forms of advertising — is to persuade people to make a purchase. In theory, an out of home ad eventually results in someone bringing your products back to their home.

Perhaps the quickest and most convenient thing you can do with your out of home ad is to make it easy for people to find you online. Nowadays, this is most efficiently done with a QR code people can scan which will take them to your website. You can also utilize a URL that’s easy to remember or a catchy hashtag. Either will take the viewer right into the conversation surrounding your brand.

From there, your marketing activity will more or less be what’s customary for your business. The only difference here is that, instead of being driven to your company via social media or some other means of entry, they’ll arrive at your brand through your out of home advertising — an oft-overlooked advertising method that’s come around to being useful once again.

Out of home advertising takes a bit of out-of-box thinking, but the benefits can be tremendous for businesses that execute the strategy to its fullest potential. To get your creative juices flowing, contact us at Commit Agency today.