How Small And Medium Scale Businesses Can Improve Their Sales Via Outdoor Advertising

Can you cast your mind back to the time you came up with that business idea? Your eyes all lit up. You were thrilled, enthusiastic, hopeful, filled with anticipation about your grand entry into the business world. You couldn’t wait to get the ball rolling, start making sales, walk the red carpet of the business industry with your heads up and shoulders high.

Then you started the business and out the window went your enthusiasm, your hope, the thrill. The challenges of running a business hit you in the face and suddenly you’re struggling with how to survive amidst the big brands, big names and big companies.

Most small and medium scale businesses are faced with the challenge of increasing their sales. Since they are startups and are running on a low budget, they look for the best possible means of getting customers while doing that at low cost. As a result, some of these businesses avoid the one thing that makes a difference between the big brands and the small ones and that is ADVERTISING.

As Stuart Britt rightly explained “Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing but no one else does.” You have products with good quality and yet no one seems to be buying because they do not know about it.

Advertising is a catalyst to boost sales of your products or services. If you don’t engage in it or if you do it insufficiently, your company suffers and remains in the dark, which means there will be little or no sales for your company.

However, if you do engage in advertising (in this case, the right type of advertising for your business bearing in mind your target audience and business scope), it will be the best thing that ever happened to your company because the formula of advertising goes like this:

ATTRACTION=INTEREST=DESIRE=ACTION

If you advertise rightly to your customers, first you’ll grab their attention. Secondly your ad messages stimulate an interest in your products or services. Thirdly that interest grows in desire and BOOM!!! They are taking action. At this stage they start buying your products or service and there’s an increase in the sales margin of your company.

Take a look at the big brands and names that rule the business world in different sectors globally, GLO, MTN, Coca-Cola, Heineken, one thing is common to all of them – ADVERTISING. They invest in all kinds of advertising, both conventional and outdoor, because they understand the secret of advertising.

The secret is before an individual decides to do business with you or purchase your product, your company name or brand must be in their threshold of consciousness. The first time a customer sees your ad, they might not recognize you. The second time, your ad will ring a bell; they might think that they have seen your product before.

Then the third time, they will begin to remember your name and what your brand stands for. Repeated advertisements build familiarity with your company’s name and establish your identity.

These big brands understand the secret and that is why they constantly put their products in the faces of their customers through advertisements.  This constant communication with consumers creates a feeling of identity with the company and then triggers the feeling of action – which is making them want to purchase their products.

Now how does outdoor advertising come into the picture? Small and medium scale businesses always struggle with advertisements due to their low budget. Many do not advertise because of the cost of placing ads on TV, Radio. However, engaging in outdoor advertising can boost the sales margin of your company without breaking the bank. Here are a few ways in which outdoor ads helps to boost your sales:

1. COST-EFFECTIVE: Outdoor advertisement is conceived by most people to be very expensive thereby preventing small and medium scale businesses from engaging in it. The truth is outdoor advertising is very cost effective, in terms of the number of people your message gets to simultaneously as compared to the cost. You get to speak to your target audience at a relatively low rate and get your sales margin move up.
2. FLEXIBILTY AND CREATIVITY:  Compared to traditional media like radio, TV etc., outdoor ads are more flexible, creative and innovative. It is not limited to just billboards. Its creativity offers a wide range of opportunities like Bus transits, taxi advertisements, text messaging, bike displays, grocery store adverts, mall displays, life style media etc. These opportunities are beneficial for small and medium scale businesses considering the fact that have a low budget for advertising. Many of these options are cheap and at the same time effective for reaching out to your audience. At VacantBoards, we offer an array of outdoor options for you to choose from and you get your products advertised seamlessly. All you need do is log on to our website www.vacantboards.com and choose your preferred outdoor advert space. We help you skip bureaucracy while offering you services in real time.
3. REACH: Outdoor advertising is more effective in reaching your target audience than the conventional media because it interacts with audiences in their day-to-day activities. Most people are in contact with outdoor adverts more often than other forms of advertisement. According to Arbitron National In-car study (2009), 71% of people often look at messages on road side billboards (traditional and digital combined) and 37% are reported looking at an outdoor ad each or most of the time they pass one. The study also revealed that billboard viewers make decisions while in the car; 72% of billboard viewers shop on their way home from work, 68% frequently or often time make their shopping decisions while in the car, 24% said they were motivated to visit a particular store that day because of an outdoor ad and 50% reported receiving directional information from a billboard.

Globally, companies and agencies are fast becoming acquainted with the effectiveness of outdoor advertising and with pace of technological advancements, outdoor advertising is increasingly becoming digitalized. For small and medium scale businesses that want to increase sales, outdoor advertisement is your best bet.

So start seeing your sales margin move up the scale, visit our website www.vacantboards.com to book for your outdoor advert spaces as low as 2k per day. We are growing your business one board at a time.

Image Credit: DigitalSignageUniverse