While we live in the digital era, traditional outdoor advertising has never been so important. With a cluttered online world, it is becoming more and more challenging to capture people’s attention and get them to remember your brand.
How to Utilize Outdoor Advertising in Big Cities
But with outdoor billboards, like the outdoor advertising in Chicago, you will be able to instill both brand awareness and marketing strategies with extremely large and diverse foot traffic.
Recent studies are showing that utilizing outdoor advertising in big cities is one of the most important marketing tactics that both small and big brands alike should consider.
But how do you utilize these opportunities and know when and where to put up your outdoor advertising so it gets the best results for you?
We have put together our top tips on how you can utilize outdoor advertising in big cities and get the biggest bang for your buck in terms of investment and ROI.
1. Keep It Simple
Big cities are overwhelming. There is a lot going on and you are only going to get a few seconds with your audience to make your billboard message stick with them.
So the design process for your billboard is very important, as you want to make sure your message is clear and will make sense to the average person quickly.
Everything from font, size, image, and keywords should be analyzed in making a simple and effective billboard advertisement.
2. Consider Your Placement
The effectiveness and success of an advertisement are often dependent on its location. The location of an advertisement can also determine its content, design, and level of creativity.
The best brands consider the placement of their advertisement when it comes to their message and design.
Is it a travel-related product that is being placed in an airport? How can you make the message even more personal then?
Or is your billboard placement going right next to a major competitor’s office space? Is there a tasteful way to make the rivalry work in your favor?
Analyzing the location of your billboard will help you really utilize the space you have purchased.
You need to understand the impact your ad will have when it gets combined with the visual elements of its surrounding area.
You should inspect the location from all sides and imagine the impact of your advertisement before you decide to place it there.
You should also imagine how the branding, colors, content, design, and context will affect those who view your ad in that location.
Here are some questions you need to ask yourself before placing an ad:
- Will your ad be visible from the ideal side, such as the road, sidewalk, or train/bus station?
- Are there any obstructions that may hinder visibility?
- Would your advertisement be large enough to be visible and eye-catching?
- Do your branding and color choices contrast well with the surroundings? If not, what can you do to make it stand out?
- Would you need to add some local context to make it successful?
Remember that you need to maximize your ad’s exposure to your target audience. So consider what you are trying to advertise and where your target audience will be.
3. Understand Your Target Audience
Identifying your target audience is not just necessary to understand the ideal location for your advertisement.
It is also the deciding factor for several other aspects, including the content, design, creativity, and context.
For example, if you sell clothes for working women, you would choose colors like gray or navy and place your advertisements in areas where a lot of offices are located.
You can also consider getting a market survey done to understand the pain points of your target audience.
If you can address those pain points through your advertisement, it is bound to have a positive impact on the success of your ad.
On the other hand, if you do not find a relative effect of your advertisements on your sales, chances are that you haven’t been able to connect with your target audience.
If that happens, your best bet would be to re-evaluate your strategy and make efforts to appease your target audience through those ads.
4. Choose Between Static or Digital
Another way to utilize your billboard in a major city is to decide if you will be going with a static option where only your brand dominates, or if you will be sharing the space with other brands on a digital billboard that rotates through.
There are pros and cons to both, so you need to understand who your key target audience is and their behaviors, if you will have to share any space with competitors or conflicting brands on a digital billboard and your budget.
5. Strategize Based on Your Budget
There are so many different ways to utilize a billboard for effectiveness.
And with various brands having different consumer behaviors and locations in the city they are based in, not every brand needs to take out the most expensive billboard placement in Times Square to have an effective and successful billboard campaign.
Instead, choosing a placement that meets both your budget and areas that will reach your target audience are key ways to ensure the success of your billboard campaign.
When in doubt, you should always talk to an expert about how to strategize based on your budget.
6. Consider an Integrated Campaign
While there is always a time and place for a one-off billboard campaign, there is often more power in having an integrated campaign.
This means selecting numerous out-of-home display options that include billboards, outdoor furniture, busses, retail signs, window spaces, and more.
The reason that an integrated campaign could be of real value is that it increases the number of touchpoints your target audience will have with your brand, thus increasing the likelihood they will remember your message from the campaign.
7. Make it Memorable
A United States Sign Council (USSC) study states that an individual driving at 45 MPH in slightly busy traffic conditions can see and react to a roadside advertisement in approximately 1.5 – 3 seconds.
That means outdoor advertisements need to be considerably visible and should be able to create an impression fast in the minds of the reader.
When you are advertising in a big city, you will have a lot of different billboards to compete with. So you will want to make your billboard as memorable as possible so that it really stands out in the big city.
This means really targeting your message to be relevant, creating ways to extend your advertisement of the billboard itself, or making it interactive to encourage people to spend more time engaging with it.
When it comes to advertising on a billboard in a big city, the sky’s the limit with possibilities to stand out.
Conclusion
In general, if you follow these six tips, you will increase your chance of maximizing the value of your investment and ensuring people remember your brand long-term.
So keep it simple, make it memorable and tailor it to suit your budget.
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