Outdoor advertising is one of the oldest forms of marketing, dating back to the oldest civilizations. Peddlers in the Middle Ages go through villages, and signs are plotted by merchants near their place of business to attract attention. These traditional methods are still effective today in the form of outdoor advertising signage and mobile outdoor advertising.
Effective Outdoor Advertising
Outdoor advertising is a vital part in any marketing campaign. Some startups and small businesses fail to realize the potential of outdoor advertising, opting instead to directly market online. Although online marketing is highly effective, outdoor marketing offers many “real world” advantages that online marketing won’t be able to replace.
Outdoor advertising is easier to deploy than online advertising. One can send out flyers and create posters near the area of business to capture an immediate audience. On the other hand, online advertising reaches a wider “online” audience that may not be near the business’ area code. Direct outdoor advertising is also targeted to a mostly mobile audience – people driving in cars, walking on street sidewalks, or jogging through the park. A well-designed advertisement can capture this audience and immediately direct them to your business.
Outdoor advertising serves as part of the urban landscape that people get used to every day. As a result, the audience can see the advertisement as a constant reminder to carry out an action. Outdoor advertisements that blend in the streets become a part of the city’s lifestyle rather than an annoyance to people, while reinforcing the awareness of a product so when the product is needed in the future, consumers will know where to go to meet their needs.
Outdoor advertising is effective when it speaks to an audience of geographic proximity rather than a specific demographic group. Billboards, signages, and fliers are exposed to a wide variety of audience within the same area. Knowing this, we can design our advertisements to suggest a product that will be useful to all in a local setting. For example, a burger restaurant can get a lot of customers by sending out flyers directly outside the restaurant during lunch, something that is not possible with online or TV ads.
Most importantly, outdoor advertising, along with TV ads, is the best way to create brand name recognition. With brand recognition, people are more receptive to your products, and they will want to know what you have in store for them.
Tips For Effective Outdoor Advertising
While there are no rules in designing outdoor ads, there are basic guidelines that will enhance the effectiveness of your advertisements. The basic design principles, location of your ad, and intention of your content, can go a long way in building a successful campaign. Here are five tips that will help you make an effective outdoor advertisement.
Stick To Basic Design Principles
Your outdoor advertisement should capture a mobile audience. People travel quickly, limiting the potential viewing time of outdoor advertisements. Design your ads to attract people by using vivid colors, easy to read typestyle, and attractive pictures. Selected fonts must have consistent size and spacing to be better read while on the move. Pictures should also be very pleasing to the eye, so people will be interested to read the text in it.
The layout of your advertisement should be crisp and simple. Consumers have to understand what you are selling the moment they look at it, since they will easily pass by it if they have to read and understand what your ads mean. Have a clear product and brand identification. Try your best to simplify the ad even if you are selling a complicated product or a service.
Strategic Location
Strategic location is putting your ad on the best place that will cater to your target market. Understanding where your target market is in the city will streamline your campaign and make your outdoor advertisements cost effective. Outdoor advertising consultants rely on statistical data to know how many people in the target area get to view the ads, how much traffic these ads get on a certain time of the day, and where the audience is likely headed after passing by your advertisement.
Placing a few ads on a quality location can be more effective than placing many ads on every corner or block. A couple of well-placed billboards is what a small business needs to talk to its market.
Tactical Location
While strategic location describes the point of maximum exposure for the ad, tactical location describes the best place for the ad on street level. For example, an ad placed so people can see it as they are turning a street corner has a good tactical location. Tactical location considers the small things to optimize ad exposure.
Once you have the strategic location established, you can now decide which place within the area will help improve your advertisement. Tactical location also considers the environment and finds relevant relationships between the message of the ad and the eventual location to make a sensible advertisement.
Timely Outdoor Advertising
Outdoor advertising is useful only if it is timely and recent. Like all smart advertisement, a well placed ad can only provide optimum exposure and recognition for the short term. If you are pushing the same product, it is important to keep your ads fresh to enhance product recall.
Complement Outdoor Advertising With Other Forms Of Advertising
Your outdoor advertisements will be more effective if you include them in a larger marketing campaign that includes online ads and TV ads. You can devise a plan depending on your budget to promote interaction between the market and the product. Online advertisement coupled with outdoor advertising can go a long way to develop brand recognition and reach a wide market.
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