How to Eliminate Wasted Display Advertising Spend

Saving money while building strong brand awareness and increasing revenue sounds too good to be true, but with the right strategy it’s not as impossible as it first seems.

By carefully creating display advertising campaigns that are tailored to your customers, you can cut costs on your current marketing spend while exceeding your targets.

So, how do you go about achieving this? Here are three key areas to focus on when creating your marketing strategy.

Know Your Audience

When it comes to traditional forms of advertising there seems to be the impression that it isn’t as effective on younger generations, but recent studies have shown otherwise. According to Air Outdoor, 56% of millennials consider traditional advertising channels more trustworthy than digital advertising due to digital being much more intrusive.

Incorrect assumptions like this lead to wasted spend, a physical advertising display such as a billboard or banner stand are still effective and much cheaper than large scale digital campaigns.

That’s not to say digital advertising isn’t important, just that the hype of new trends in marketing can sometimes obfuscate the data.

What is important is to create adverts that are tailored to the personal interests of your target market. Spending time to analyse who your customers are by carrying out surveys and creating buying personas can help you deliver targeted messages that appeal to the people you most want to impact.

A real world example of this is a company that sells running shoes. You may start off with the initial assumption that price and style are the most important points to highlight in your advertising campaigns. After carrying our customer interest research you may actually discover your customer base is made up of hardcore running enthusiasts who look at the technology used in the shoe rather than the aesthetic appeal. You can now make sure your advertising focuses on this with the use of in store demonstration displays.

The more research you carry out initially into the makeup of your customer base, the less you have to spend long term finding out what works and what doesn’t.

Create Intrigue

How long do you think your advertising captures the attention of potential customers? Maybe a few seconds if you’re lucky. Don’t waste this time (and your budget) on advertising that is overloaded with information. Try to tell a story and create intrigue rather than inform.

An example of this is creating graphics for a window display. Keep it clean and simple, have one key message as the focus point and create an angle that appeals to the interests of your demographics.

A great example of this is the ‘shot on iPhone 6’ advertising campaign that focuses on real world pictures taken with the camera rather than listing the tech spec of the hardware. This is much more visceral and only takes a couple of seconds to take in the message.

Utilise Omnichannel Marketing

Omnichannel marketing is an integrated approach to the shopping journey that combines a seamless experience between various channels such as in store, phone, email and website.

An easy way to start utilising omnichannel is to include your social media details on your physical display advertising. Recent studies suggest that people who see ‘real world’ advertising are 17% more likely to engage with a brand on their phone. You can then track your social metrics to see what impact this addition has had.

Integrating your social media advertising with offline methods can be a great way to promote upcoming events or promotions. An example of this is promoting your attendance to an exhibition on your social media channels, and offering an incentive such as a discount for quoting a code included on your social media post. This also helps you to track the effectiveness of a campaign and is a cheap way to promote your event.

Implement these three strategies into your marketing approach and you can be sure to reduce your long term advertising spend by optimising your campaign and tailoring it for the most suitable audience.