Bringing Your Brand to the Streets: How Outdoor Digital Billboards are Disrupting Advertising

Whether you are a big agency, an established advertiser, or you are just giving your first steps into the digital marketing world, DOOH (digital out-of-home advertising) is a powerful tool to reach new and bigger audiences. With easy-to-use programmatic platforms like Beeyond, your message can appear in outdoor digital billboards in just a few clicks.

With dazzling creatives, strategic worldwide placements and real-time analytics, digital out-of-home advertising is quickly becoming a key player in any digital strategy aiming to create, nurture and solidify a brand’s identity and voice. Let’s dive into what makes an exciting and succesful DOOH branding campaign.

Define your audience early on

This seems like the first step in any kind of digital strategy, but it’s usually the make-or-break of any advertising campaign. DOOH it’s not about going bigger just for the sake of it; it’s about understanding who you want to reach and what are their needs, paint points, preferences, and behaviors, allowing you to create messages that resonate with them. 

It is also essential to know where your target audience spends time, both online and offline, as you’ll need to choose outdoor digital billboards in strategic locations to reach them. To define it, you can use data from your existing customer base, conduct focus groups, or take advantage of online tools like social media analytics, Google Trends, or Audience Insights. 

Defining your audience will inform where you take your campaign, how much budget you’ll allocate to reach it and what kind of content you’ll need to produce. The more specific you define your audience, the tighter your strategy could be. 

For example, you could target high-end businessmen who are frequent fliers by choosing airports DOOH placements, reaching them whenever they are leaving or coming back home, adapting your creative to it. There are endless possibilities, and more than one way to design your out-of-home campaign. Speaking of which…

Reach beyond brand awareness

There’s an outdated belief out there: out-of-home advertising is just for brand awareness. Though it might have been true a few decades ago, when all you had were static billboards, the advent of outdoor digital billboards along with the rise of DOOH advertising have opened the path for new, exciting, and omnichannel campaign goals. 

Thanks to the widespread use of smartphones, advertisers can now measure exposure to offline media through Mobile Ad IDs (MAIDs). These location-based services can track actions taken after seeing an offline ad, such as website visits, app downloads, online sales conversion, and even physical foot traffic.

You could use your DOOH campaign as an initiator in the customer life cycle, encouraging audiences to take action through the synergy of outdoor digital billboards and mobile retargeting. And even if conversion doesn’t happen immediately after being exposed to out-of-home advertising, there’s no doubt outdoor digital billboards can play a key role in an omnichannel marketing strategy

With Beeyond’s digital strategists and account executives ready to guide you through the ins and outs of programmatic out-of-home advertising, there’s no reason not to venture into this brave new world of cross-channel interaction. Keep on reading to learn how to really make a splash with your brand!

On outdoor digital billboards, content is king

One of the key features of DOOH is dynamic creative optimization (DCO). With the ability to change creatives in real time, brands have more control over their messages and can easily adapt to new trends and changing circumstances. 

That’s right, outdoor digital billboard ads can be swiftly updated based on contextual factors such as time of day, weather, and current events. This opens up a world of possibilities for brands looking to engage their audience and drive action

During a rainy day, an advertiser can promote umbrellas, while on a hot and sunny day, they can advertise sunscreen. The time of day can also play a role in the creatives, with different meals being advertised depending on whether it's breakfast, lunch, or dinner. By tailoring the message to the context, brands can ensure their messages are relevant and impactful.

But creative DOOH potential doesn’t stop there, as outdoor digital billboards give a great chance to brands to make potential customers part of the campaign, by including engaging content such as QR codes, quizzes, games, animations, and other attention-grabbing features.

A good strategy behind the creative can be the make-or-break of a DOOH campaign. By creating interactive experiences, brands keep their audience engaged and build stronger bonds with them. But sometimes, even the best of them can use a little help from their friends…

Combine outdoor digital billboards with a big social media push

Social media is undoubtedly one of the key players in any cross-channel strategy. Combining it with DOOH will surely boost your chances to recruit loyal brand advocates within your audience. Influencer Marketing, as it is called, can help you leverage the power of social media to reach more digitally minded people and create buzz around your brand. 

By incorporating both online peer-to-peer recommendations and outdoor digital billboards into your advertising strategy, you can create a powerful tool for building brand loyalty. People tend to trust the opinions of their friends, idols, as well as online reviews and testimonials. At the same time, DOOH is widely considered to be one of the most credible and relevant forms of advertising available to marketers. 

This dual approach of combining the trustworthiness of outdoor digital billboards with the personal recommendations of influencers allows you to reach audiences at the most across different touchpoints, in contextually relevant moments, building both consumer trust and creating a unified brand experience.

Today is the best day to start on DOOH

There’s no better time than now. The sooner your brand starts getting the DOOH exposure, the sooner you’ll see the impact it can have on your brand. Talk to Beeyond’s sales reps today to learn how you can incorporate outdoor digital billboards into your digital strategy!