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It’s a very sunny day at the beach, the sun feels great, and the waves are crashing; people are playing volleyball and clicking pictures. It’s a clear afternoon. You are peacefully sitting in one corner, staring at the sky, and you see a plane passing by, which captures your attention. Behind it is a huge banner advertising a local restaurant, which sounds appetizing.
As you are already hungry after having fun at the beach, you remember that you saw the name of that restaurant somewhere while driving here, deciding to have lunch with your family at that nearby restaurant. You proceed to the restaurant hoping the food will be as good as the advertisement, and you find it worth it. The job of the advertisement is well-done!
Offline advertising is quite simple; advertising done outdoors is the usage of offline media strategies to create awareness of a company’s product and services. Offline or local advertising can include radio and print advertising, banners and hoardings, posters and pamphlets, telemarketing, television, and newspaper ads.
The influence. The advantage
Daily online search users are more influenced to perform searches due to exposure to offline channels, such as TV and radio than less frequent searchers. For example, companies such as Scorpion – a pest control marketing service provider, offer essential tools such as social media, website content, and digital advertising so that you can take your marketing from pest to perfection. They ensure that your industry is seen as the first choice in your service or local area with the right marketing strategy.
General findings of the study showed television ads drive most online searches, with 37% per cent of the 69% online search, 36% being driven through word of mouth, and 30% being driven by magazine ads. The rest of the driving factors were the company’s store/physical location, radio ad, billboards, and ad company name on various public vehicles.
Example- You see a smartphone ad on TV, and you are impressed by its affordable price and looks of the phone; the next day, you switch to the internet to search for its features and price; you may even buy the smartphone and recommend it to your friends as well.
Offline advertising also includes stickers on buses, and auto-rickshaws, which can have a better reach anywhere and anytime.
TV advertising spending in India will grow up to approximately 2.54 billion U.S. dollars by 2016. (source)
Offline advertising is always effective in a short span of time.
For example: visiting a car park and slipping 300 flyers under the windscreen wipers of vehicles can result in inquiries. Even if you consider a 1% response rate, you get three customers within 1 hour, and that too at just one car park.
Canva Flyer Maker Tool
You can adopt it as an only advertising medium, do it throughout the day at various places, and observe the results. Newspaper ads reach masses of people at a much low cost and short time, advertising a single day in a famous newspaper can bring in a lot of inquiries.
If your product or service is even useful, people tend to preserve that ad layout by keeping it in a file or a drawer, they may not call you immediately, but by advertising in this way, you provide a tangible way in which potential customers can get business details.
The more creative you are, the more customers you attract.
Creativity and imagination are essential when it comes to advertisements. Since the whole purpose of media advertising tools is capturing the perception and the mind of the viewers, the adverts’ design and content must be very attractive and capturing. If you simply pick up today’s newspaper, you will see that most brands try their best to provide their customers with top-notch content, context, and design. Although common with every advertising medium, creativity, especially in newspapers, brochures, banners, and posters, is very recurrent as it helps to inspire and pursue people and viewers to purchase or buy a brand.
For example, look at how PayTM teaches its audience with a neat newspaper advert that tells you what exactly you need to know about the entity.
Using the right media mix, local businesses can emerge as a brand
The newspaper adverts set the perfect example of how you can put an advert that is creative and informative at the same time, thus, encouraging and exciting your customers in one go. Advertising creatively and innovatively can turn a local business or a venture into a brand.
Offline advertisement > online advertisement.
In one of the surveys, it was shown that 33% of consumers don’t trust those brands that don’t offer printed communications, and 69% would never choose a company with no printed bill option for transactions.
- Online advertisements take a long time to produce an effect, Search Engine optimization itself can take weeks before any real results are noticeable, and it’s never guaranteed.
- Building links and blogs to spread the word generally takes a longer time, whereas non-web advertising, like newspapers, and radio tend to have a good impact.
- Advertising on the internet keeps on rotating, searches fluctuate, and people may like a Facebook page of a cafe and forget it, but if they have a poster or a menu card of it, they can use it to contact the café during their needs.
- Even adopting marketing strategies like organising exhibitions, tradeshows, fairs, or conferences and telling them about the quality of your product or service, your vision, and mission, caring about the interests of the customers can also be valuable rather than advertising on random pages or websites and hoping that people will type right keywords and happen to click on your site’s link.
Final word
With the right planning and execution and adopting the right media and marketing mix when required, offline advertising offers many ways to support your business service. It is vital for the success of any advertisement that it should never rule out the importance of the traditional medium of the media mix.
You may also like: Using Social Media to Boost In-Store Sales (Infographic)
About the Author
Sam Makad is an experienced writer and marketing consultant. His expertise lies in marketing and advertising. He helps small & medium enterprises to grow their business and overall ROI.
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