Out of home advertising is often mistakenly associated only with roadside billboards, while there’s a lot more to it than that. Similarly, advertisers often stumble upon their lack of knowledge of the medium and end up disappointed with the results of their campaigns, which can be quite pricey.
Want to know the most typical OOH advertising campaign mistakes to avoid them in yours? We’ve got them covered for you.
Typical OOH advertising pitfalls
1. Setting off without clear (and measurable) goals
If you are unsure about the purpose of your OOH advertising efforts, how will you define whether they have been successful? It is clear that the single objective of advertising is growing the company’s sales and revenue. The question that needs to be answered is, how do you know that an increase in the number of sales was caused by your OOH campaign and not other marketing activities?
Contrary to the popular opinion that OOH cannot be measured, it’s true. With proper skills and knowledge, the right technologies and techniques, setting incremental goals can shed light on what works and what doesn’t, measure the effectiveness of your campaign in numbers and help avoid guesswork.
2. Attempting to appeal to everyone
Due to the nature of OOH advertising, which is directed at mass audience, many advertisers are tempted to create one-size-fits-all ads to speak to everyone. This may result in zero effectiveness and lots of wasted time and money.
The key is to address the very people who can be interested in your product. Therefore, you’ve got to deeply know your target audience, and merely age and sex isn’t enough. The more specifics you are aware of, the better your ads will be able to resonate with the audience, which helps win their trust. And of course, this will let you maximize each invested dollar.
3. Finishing too early
Many advertisers repeat the same mistake – run a short-time “test” campaign, receive little to no result and leave. Typically, it takes 8 to 12 weeks to communicate the message to the audience so that it is noticed and recognized. This is why expecting a boom in sales after placing one billboard ad for a few days is naive, to say the least.
Even world famous brands advertise almost incessantly, because they realize the importance of staying top of mind of their consumers, which helps build trust and entice the customers to act.
So, be ready to spend some time waiting for the results of your OOH advertising efforts, and if that’s not an option for you – better look at other media.
4. Doing insufficient research
Many companies lose a lot of potential consumers by simply not knowing OOH goes far beyond billboards. They also fail to take the time to study their competitors’ campaigns to learn on their mistakes and assess what brings best results.
Well, at least now you will know that OOH includes transit ads – in and on public transport and bus shelters, digital screens in public venues, POS ads, etc. Having a detailed target customer profile lets you think of the best locations and formats to catch their attention on their way, and do so repeatedly, but without being too intrusive.
5. Putting all eggs (ads) in OOH basket
Companies that invest solely into OOH ads miss out on multiple opportunities to meet their audience at multiple touchpoints throughout the day. No matter how well OOH campaign may work for your product, the best results can be achieved by integrating different media and formats.
The thing is, combining several ad formats boosts their effect. For instance, 48% of consumers are more likely to click on a mobile ad after seeing an OOH advertisement of the same brand, study shows.
6. Going DIY
One more ineffective approach is handling the campaign by yourself rather than use professional services. On the one hand, some companies simply cannot afford to hire an agency, but on the other hand – they spend time doing what they aren’t good at instead of concentrating on important business projects.
The dilemma can be easily solved with TRACKLAM – it’s an automated online ad network that works with all ad types and media, both online and offline. Thanks to a big database of media space owners, advertisers get to pick and book the best locations and ad formats in one place, in a few clicks, without having to deal with each of them separately. Your campaign is quickly launched, edited and tracked within a convenient interface, freeing much time and energy for what matters most.
Haven’t tried TRACKLAM yet? It’s high time you did, so sign up and get going now!
