The Great Outdoors
Episode #8 of the course Startup marketing for everyone by Jonah Bliss
Now that we’ve covered a whole range of online marketing options, let’s switch it up for a moment and take it old-school—outdoor advertising, events, and non-traditional “stunts.” Whether it’s handing out flyers, advertising on a billboard, or doing something attention-grabbing, these can all be great tactics that will amplify your other marketing efforts.
Out-of-Home Advertising
Out-of-home advertising, or OOH, broadly refers to any sort of physical advertisement a consumer may see outside the safety of his or her house. Sometimes, the advantages can be obvious. If you just opened a bakery down the street, putting up flyers around the neighborhood (or leaving them in friendly establishments, or having a “street team” hand them out to passersby) is an obvious way to get the attention of people that live within travelling distance of your new business.
These need not be just for local businesses. You can set up a tent and hand out freebies and promos for your new app; it may not get nationwide attention, but it will help generate buzz in your local area and can be parlayed into a story you might get into the press.
Other advertising media may not be as costly as you expect. Depending on your market, something like a bus bench advertisement may only be $100-200 per month. Local newspapers (remember those?) are equally inexpensive. While not high-tech, these methods definitely let you make a localized splash without wasting your money on people in other areas.
Tracking the effectiveness of offline advertising can be tricky, so a good technique is to add some sort of promotion code that gets people a discount or perk and is uniquely associated with each separate type of ad you run.
Your ad here
Get Creative
Outdoor ads give you a chance to get visually creative and play around with the space your advertising occupies. But if you’re feeling really creative, there are even bigger stunts you can do to drum up interest.
Let’s say your business is a bakery. Well, how about cooking up a stunt like baking the world’s largest cupcake and then giving out slices of it for free? If played well, you end up with an event you can promote across your other marketing channels, you’re getting people in the door to know where you are (people love free stuff!), and you can ideally grab some local press and social media attention about the stunt.
Obviously, your mileage may vary depending on the nature of your business and the cleverness of your stunt, but there’s no downside to getting creative.
Recommended book
“Contagious: Why Things Catch On” by Jonah Berger
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