Want to boost sales? How about double or even triple them? A new analysis of 600 case studies of marketing campaigns, including 43 in the United States, has a suggestion: add out-of-home advertising to the media mix.
The reason, it turns out, is pretty straightforward. People spend many of their waking hours away from home, and if influencing them when they are making their final purchasing decisions is an important goal, it only makes sense to move the point-of-presence of an ad or marketing message closer to point-of-presence of their wallets.
Sounds good in theory, but what about real dollars and cents? Turns out the research firm shed some light on the economic impact of out-of-home advertising as well. For each dollar spent on out-of-home advertising, an average of $2.80 is received in product sales, according to the research.
Keep in mind the research was sponsored by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. Still, the findings make sense -particularly to someone like me who has written copiously on the power of reaching people at the point of sale with digital signage messaging as they are making their final purchasing decisions.
Not only can out-of-home advertising reach shoppers at or very near the point of sale, but this form of advertising also can reinforce ad messages delivered via TV and other media, effectively extending the duration the ad campaign is remembered by the public. The research found that when a high proportion of out-of-home media is used as part of media mix, the effectiveness of an ad campaign increases.
According to the study, sales tripled when spending on out-of-home ads moved from a low amount to a medium amount. Additionally, the study found sales more than doubled when a high amount was spent on out-of-home ads.
The research also offered some advice about how to allocate ad budgets to maximize return on investment. The best ROI is achieved when overall ad spending is low and the proportion of out-of-home media used in the mix is high.
Rather than get caught up in the minutia of the research, it may be wiser to consider the bigger picture. That is even as evidence mounts that out-of-home advertising is an important part of an ad mix, critical pieces of the puzzle professional ad buyers need to evaluate digital signage advertising networks and a variety of audience metrics measuring technologies are falling into place.
Technology is helping to quantify digital signage audiences and even qualify them in terms that make sense to ad agencies that are accustomed to reading reliable circulation statements and examining Nielsen ratings to make logical decisions about ad placements for their clients.
These tools help to make clearer for the professional ad community just how important it is to add out-of-home media, like digital signage, to the media mix.