Every modern business should have a digital marketing strategy. But many marketers are not realizing the results they hope for in a market that over-values tracking and under-values results. With overpriced online advertising costs, click bots, and the further saturation of these platforms, many wonder how they can effectively utilize the power of these digital platforms.
Many of world’s top brands are turning to out-of-home advertising, with its feet planted firmly in the physical world, as a way to anchor their broader digital and social marketing strategy. OOH is now widely recognized as the best partner for digital marketing strategies. Research has found that 70% of a consumer’s day is spent outside the home, and 68% of mobile usage is on-the-go and, so it makes sense that the two formats compliment each other in marketing mix.
But what are the proven strategies, techniques, and case studies for companies to utilize OOH in order to improve their digital marketing strategies? Read on to find out.
How OOH effects Social
There’s an effect that occurs with this winning combination that people are calling a “virtuous circle” where companies who use OOH and digital intelligently can create this beneficial feedback loop of positive brand exposure.
How this phenomenon works is you create an OOH advertisement that is clever and prone to be shared on social media. Once the OOH ad is shared on social media it creates engagement and even more awareness than the two platforms could do on their own!
We see this successfully done by a few companies, but notably, Spotify has done this well. Their campaign “New Music Friday” highlighted select artists with new albums that recently came out. This is then paired with the massive reach that the artists have on their social media where the featured artist shares the photo of themselves on these billboards to their tons of followers, all with the spotify logo on the bottom center.
Of course, you don’t need star power to utilize this effect. Create the right type of messaging that people want to share and you automatically will get free promotions from anyone interested and carrying their phone.
Social media is meant for sharing, that’s it’s natural state. That’s why we see trends towards companies with big budgets shooting commercials on smartphones. In order to do well on social you need to feel real and authentic. Simply pushing polished ads on social is not the best way to do this. Rather, creating something real in the world and sharing that across social media has been proven to work. Because of this we are seeing these companies using OOH to create brand awareness, but most importantly, using OOH as their anchor for their comprehensive marketing strategy, utilizing social media to promote and amplify photos from their OOH campaign.
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Case Studies
All these numbers are great, but how are companies actually using these strategies to drive results? We’ve collected this series of case studies for effective use of this combination across a variety of industries.
127% increase of visits
This client was looking to up their sales of video game consoles so they used digital out-of-home advertising within five miles of retailers. Plus, on top of that they utilized mobile retargeting to those passing by the advertisements or those who visited a retailer who sold the system. What they found was a 46% increase in visits from mobile and 69% increase from DOOH alone. But, what was amazing was a 127% increase of visits from those who had both DOOH and mobile retargeting.
40% increased visitation rate
A bank who wanted more customers used out-of-home advertising near select branches, but then to make their effort even stronger they advertised complementary messaging to targeted devices at their branches or at their competitors! After this campaign ran, their results were amazing with ⅓ of exposed visitors spending 17 minutes or more at a location. And those who saw an ad 9 or more times had an increased visitation rate of 40%+.
260% lift in visits
This major fitness brand combined efforts of OOH and mobile advertising strategy. Utilizing billboards with high impact and mobile targeting to proximity and behavioral audience filters they gained a 260% lift in visits.
266 million earned social media and press impressions
In a great example of creating shareable OOH ads this museum launched a campaign that advertised featured lyrics, photos, and museum-like plaques in a major transit hub in NYC. They also utilized the interactivity that OOH can provide by having a code viewers can scan to access a curated playlist. This had a great effect by contributing to it’s record attendance of over 2 million visitors. It also felt the effects of the virtuous circle by gaining 266 million earned social media and press impressions.
1.1 million earned social impressions
This online delivery service utilized the after work hours in New York’s streets and subways to advertise their service when they believed consumers were thinking most about dinner. After 1 week of running the campaign they gained 1.1 million social impressions on just twitter, a brand awareness increase of 9%, and app usage increase of 10%.
Triple website traffic
An organization searching to get signatures to ban animal testing in cosmetic products needed to increase visitors to their site and gain awareness. So, they turned to digital billboards and transit signage. In just 3 days their website traffic tripled, and in 2 days they received 81 million impressions. They also utilized a hashtag in their messaging which reached over 1.6 million people on social media.
53% increase in store traffic
This packed goods brand was wanting to drive traffic to a partner grocer that sold their product. So they utilized a targeted campaign via proximity and behavioral audiences and tracked an increase of 53% in store traffic, yielding 2x more visits than any competitor in the area.
600% increase in post-click response over industry average
This big box retailer utilized the interaction made available through DOOH ads by offering a coupon via SMS, URL or QR code. They advertised this over 88 digital displays within 1.25 miles of their retail locations. What they ended up with was a 6x increase in the industry average of post-click response rates.
If you’re looking to drive results for your business, reach out to our advertising experts who can help you strategize on how to use billboards to amplify the effect of your digital marketing efforts.
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