Why is it so important to use different forms of marketing together? Imagine you’re having a dinner party. You carefully choose the guests, plan the menu, design a beautiful table setting. But then, when the guests sit down for dinner, you serve them water instead of wine. And although water is perfectly adequate, it doesn’t enhance the dining experience for your guests. If you get the ingredients right, everything works to complement each other. This is why outdoor and digital media are great companions.
What’s on your Marketing Menu?
Brand awareness is the main course at your dinner party- without it, the other courses simply don’t fuse as effectively. Consumers are looking for familiarity and seeing a brand advertise across social media and outdoor platforms is a great way to gain repeat customers and drive sales results. An effective holistic marketing campaign also supports existing marketing activity, adding a legitimacy to brands. By combining your outdoor campaign with your digital campaign, you’ll be able to increase brand awareness and drive sales exponentially. Outdoor media triggers consumers to engage with brands on their mobile devices, linking back to social media campaigns and leading audiences to further brand marketing content.
Let’s Talk About Born-Again Outdoor Media
Like all other forms of traditional media, outdoor media (also known as ‘out-of-home’) has needed to adapt to the rapid technology growth and reinvent the way people interact with the medium. It no longer consists solely of the good old static billboard and ads on the side of buses. Technology has enhanced the simple concept of a super-large advert pasted onto a board above a road or at a bus stop. Recently, a digital billboard that’s capable of generating real-time analytics was created in Surfers Paradise. The billboard includes data collection technology that gathers engagement data–including pedestrian and vehicle traffic–enabling advertisers to get the biggest impact from their marketing budget. In fact, the evolving capability to collect data is an attractive element of outdoor media. You can also track engagement by including unique web addresses or discount codes in a campaign and then measure engagement through page visits or sales.
Get Creative
Good old technology. As fast as it changes, advertisers are finding ways to use it to increase their exposure. One of the most exciting things about outdoor and digital is the potential for interaction-based engagement. Take this example of clever outdoor marketing used by Guinness during a sporting event. Dynamic billboards advertised the times games were televised and directed people to the nearest pub that was screening the match. Footfall data recorded by participating pubs was sent to the billboard, redirecting the fans to other less crowded venues. There are several options for blending your outdoor and digital. It can be as simple as placing a hashtag on both your billboard and social media, or creating interactive experiences like geofilters or NFC tagging. Recently, Netflix launched its service in France with a clever combination of digital display and gifs of its programs, changing them quickly to connect to the weather, sports results or daily events, prompting a sharp rise in subscriptions.
Outdoor and digital media can be used independently of each other, but when used in conjunction, they are the perfect dinner party companions. And with clever use of technology, outdoor is becoming more digital by the day. MediaSmiths has an expert team working together across all forms of media. If you would like to see your organisation harness the combined power of outdoor and digital media, get in touch with us today.
