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Did you know that marketers spent almost $110 billion on traditional marketing endeavors last year? That, of course, is no small sum of money!
It just goes to show how powerful offline ads can be. After all, no business owner would ever allocate such exorbitant budgets to marketing efforts that didn’t deliver the goods. The ROI has to be there in order to justify such expenditure.
Just because something can work doesn’t mean it will, though.
Offline advertisements have obvious potential to provide high-end returns, but you have to know what you’re doing if you’re ever going to enjoy them. Alas, all too many marketers try to blag their way to success. They shut their eyes and hope for the best without understanding the nuances of creating effective offline campaigns.
Unless you get very lucky, this approach never ends well. Want to avoid that fate and get some expert advice to improve your offline marketing? Keep reading.
Never Forget the CTA
Whether it’s online or offline, every advert you create needs a goal. You might want to generate sales, drive traffic to your website, create brand awareness, or get new subscribers for the website. Whatever the case may be for your business, establishing a goal at the outset is the foundation of any successful campaign!
But that’s only the first step. The next all-important one is to incorporate a call-to-action (CTA) that relates to it. You need to tell people to ‘call this number’, ‘check out the website’, or ‘visit the store’, and so on. Don’t, and the campaign’s far less likely to get an adequate ROI.
Why? Because people may see the ad but fail to realize when they’re meant to do. It’s your job to give them that information.
Track Your Endeavours
A CTA will be a driving force behind the success of your offline advertisement. However, it’s imperative that you have a way to track the results as well.
After all, you may have numerous offline ads (all with the same goal) running at any given time. With no way to monitor the outcomes, how will you know which ones work and which don’t? You won’t be able to, which means you miss out on invaluable data that could have informed and perfected future campaigns.
The good news is that tracking offline ads doesn’t have to be difficult. For example, you could create a unique phone number for each ad you run. All that’s left to do is then track how many calls come in from that number to determine how successful it’s been.
Don’t Forget Digital
Some of the best offline ads work in conjunction with digital methods.
For instance, think back to our previous point about tracking. Using a unique phone number for each ad would work, but it would be more time-consuming and prone to error versus creating a unique landing page on your website instead. Thanks to the nature of website analytics, you’d be able to track conversions without having to keep manual records of any phone calls that came in.
Better still, you could collect additional information of value at the same time. Someone who followed the URL and arrives on your landing page might not buy something straight away. But they could submit their email address, which you’d use to develop a relationship over time.
Know Your Audience
Understanding your target consumer is a core component of running any successful advertisement. Online or offline, it’s crucial that you know their age, interests, likes/dislikes, dress-sense, social media preferences, political convictions…the list keeps going.
Having high levels of insight/data allows you to target your audience with greater accuracy; you can create an ad you know will convert and then place it where you know people will see it.
That last bit’s of particular importance for offline ads. After all, if you’re paying for a billboard or poster, for instance, you have to put it somewhere your audience will walk past it! Don’t, and there’s no chance you’ll get the ROI you need.
Conduct Constant A/B Tests
The best advertising services test their campaigns at every turn. You should do the same!
Never assume that your current ad is delivering the best possible results. You have to test your assertions, play around with new ideas, and try ongoing iterations to discover what works.
Using a process called A/B testing, you make minor alterations to the current ad, then release both versions to the same audience, and then monitor the results. By manipulating specific variables (e.g. the copy, title, CTA, typeface, color, and layout) and controlling others (e.g. ad spend and audience), you can figure out what your audience wants to see. If one ad performs better than the other, then you can stick with that configuration (or do further testing).
This can be harder with offline vs digital advertising. However, the same ‘unique phone number’ trick that we mentioned above can prove useful here too.
Ask the Audience
Last but not least, it’s worth striking up a conversation with new customers who walk through the proverbial (or actual) door. By asking them where they came across your business, you’ll start to understand which offline ads are driving results (and which aren’t). You can then hone in on the channels that warrant further investment of time and money.
Try checking your online reviews while you’re at it. People often mention how they first heard of a business in their comments, which leads to all the same benefits to you. Failing that, you could even leave a comment and ask them the question.
Time to Create Successful Offline Advertisements
Businesses all over the globe spend mind-blowing amounts of money on offline marketing every year. Don’t be fooled, though. They only do it because they know they’ll get results!
Keep that fact in mind as you begin creating your own offline advertisements. To get the best bang for your buck, it’s crucial to go about this task in the right way. With any luck, the tips in this post will help you do exactly that!
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