Out of home media for virtual businesses is a largely untapped resource for online businesses. In today’s rapidly growing and increasingly mobile digital age, virtual and online-only companies are radically changing how we shop, work, and interact. According to Forbes, 91% of consumers make online purchases on their smartphone, and mobile commerce is expected to account for 62% of all retail sales by 2027.
However, virtual companies often face unique marketing challenges due to their lack of physical presence. With the changes to cookies and other tracking methods, it is becoming more and more challenging to stand out in an increasingly crowded online marketplace.
But there is a solution ready and waiting: a vast reservoir of media that can reach large audiences cost-effectively, efficiently, and at scale and that offers a host of benefits to any online business. The answer may surprise you (or not, since this is an Out of Home blog, after all): it’s time to step out of the digital realm and into the physical world with Out of Home (OOH) media.
What is Out of Home Media?
If you’re not already familiar with it, Out of Home media traditionally includes (surprise, surprise) anything the audience might see outside the home. Most people will think of the big obvious media—billboards, buses, transit shelters, etc. However, the fact is that OOH includes a wide array of other options, including media that reach audiences at multiple touchpoints throughout their day. This can include choices like:
- Commuter Rail & Subway
- Newstand and Bike Racks
- Gas Stations & Convenience Stores
- Fitness Clubs and Salons
- EV Charging Stations
- And more…
And that doesn’t even begin to cover the various mobile options, such as mobile billboards (static or video), wrapped rideshares, bikes, taxis, and more.
Out of Home media can also be a powerful tool to enhance conferences or trade shows—a technique we’ve pioneered for over 30 years. Strategically placed media around the convention center can help raise exhibitors’ awareness and drive traffic to their booths.
And don’t forget experiential activations. Experiential marketing can surprise and delight audiences with unique and creative experiences. It also allows brands to connect with their audience personally and one-on-one. When it comes to options, the sky (or the mountain) is the limit. Experiential marketing can be a creative playground to bring brands to life.
So, how does all this apply to virtual businesses? What are some of their challenges, and how can Out of Home media be an essential tool in their media plan?
Building Brand Awareness and Trust with Out of Home Media for Virtual Business
Building brand awareness and trust is a challenge for any business and even more difficult for online businesses. Without a physical storefront or face-to-face interactions, it’s harder to establish credibility and recognition among potential customers. The groundbreaking work of Binet and Field shows how important long-term branding is and how investing in long-term marketing efforts will pay off better in the long run than in the short term.
Yet many brands, particularly digitally native ones, overemphasize the importance of short-term efforts. It’s natural and understandable—it’s easy to see and measure and gives us the immediate hit of marketing dopamine success. However, long-term brand awareness is critical for long-term success.
Out of Home media’s physical presence in the consumer’s daily life can help solve both problems. The ability of OOH to drive brand awareness is reasonably well understood, even for those who are relatively unfamiliar with the media. Ask most marketers, “What is OOH good for?” and the first thing they will say is brand awareness. You can create an unavoidable presence in your target audience’s daily environment by leveraging large-format displays, transit ads, and strategic placements in high-traffic areas.
Out of Home can also help establish trust and credibility among an audience. When consumers are repeatedly exposed to your brand in familiar, real-world settings, it lends a sense of stability, legitimacy, and permanence to the brand. This physical presence can help bridge the gap between the digital and real worlds, making the brand feel more tangible and trustworthy.
OOH consistently rates as consumers’ most trusted media formats and does particularly well among the 18-54 age brackets.
For online-only brands, establishing brand awareness and trust is crucial for getting off the ground and essential for building long-term success. Out of Home media for virtual businesses can be a vital tool in helping establish both of those.
Out of Home Media for Virtual Businesses Helps Cut Through Digital Clutter:
The digital advertising ecosystem becomes more crowded and more complex every day. In other news… the sun came up.
The increasing competition, the advance of privacy laws, aligning tech stacks and implementing effective omnichannel campaigns, effectively measuring all those disparate channels, the seemingly interminable demise of third-party cookies (pushed back to 2025 now?). The list of challenges digital marketers face is almost endless and changes every day. Even if we look at the launch and rise of social media platforms, the rate of change is staggering. It’s almost impossible for marketers to keep pace.
Out of home media for virtual businesses offers several ways to help marketers overcome these challenges and cut through all the noise. OOH is big and bold—don’t underestimate the presence of a simple roadside bulletin and its impression on the viewer. OOH is usually viewed with little to no competition and often with longer dwell times. OOH is also unblockable and unskippable. In an age when many consumers are suffering from digital fatigue, they are more receptive to other ad channels.
One of the most compelling advantages of Out of Home when carving out a share of voice is its ability to deliver high recall rates. Numerous studies have shown that OOH media consistently outperforms other channels regarding ad recall. This means that the brand’s message is more likely to stick in the minds of your target audience, even after a brief exposure.
Out of Home Media Boost the Performance of Digital:
Speaking of those digital campaigns…
They are a critical part of any media plan; we’re certainly not suggesting otherwise. Integrating the two channels can strengthen both and help drive key business KPIs.
Out of Home can leverage the advertiser’s first-party data and turn it into an asset for precise OOH targeting. The data can provide insights into the audience’s geographic location and demographic/behavioral profile, allowing the OOH media to be tailored to those audiences. For example, NerdWallet used a highly targeted approach to reach both tech and financial professionals in San Francisco by dominating key transit stations. By using this approach advertisers can take the large scale reach of Out of Home, but still make it highly targeted.
By incorporating geo-fencing into the overall OOH strategy, advertisers can build a database of consumers who have already been exposed to the brand and use that database for retargeting. Knowing this isn’t the first touchpoint, marketers can craft more targeted digital messaging for those groups.
Using QR codes or other interactive elements, OOH can also help funnel consumers into the advertiser’s digital ecosystem.
However, the most compelling reason for incorporating Out of Home is its ability to boost the performance of key digital channels. Over the last few years, numerous studies have shown that OOH can significantly impact the performance of online media. From search to social, Out of Home consistently delivers a positive “halo effect,” improving the other media.
For a media channel so focused on even small changes in performance, the ability of OOH to improve that performance on a reasonably modest budget is not something to be overlooked.
Out of Home can work with your digital campaigns by:
- Using first party data to inform targeting
- Funneling exposed consumers into the digital ecosystem with geofencing
- Giving consumers a direct gateway via QR codes
- Boost digital performance with the “halo effect”
And while we’re talking about budgets…
Out of Home Can Supercharge Your Media Budget:
We’ve spoken at length about how cost-effective OOH media can be. Many virtual businesses, especially startups, operate with limited marketing budgets. This constraint requires marketers to maximize the impact of every dollar spent on advertising.
Of course, the biggest draw is that Out of Home has a relatively low CPM compared to other media. OOH is usually second only to display and far below other mainstream media like TV, radio, or print.
But as we’ve discussed, it’s not just about the CPM. There are all the other factors to consider as well. The amplification mentioned above of other media channels, the sheer size, the boost to brand metrics like fame and credibility, and the improved recall of multiple formats.
Unfortunately, Out of Home media is often left to the last when it comes to media planning. This is a shame because when it comes to cost-effectiveness, OOH frequently punches well above its weight (so do we, but that’s another story). Out of Home media for virtual businesses should be one of the first channels planned and considered a core media buy for budget-conscious brands.
Don’t Forget The People: Experiential Activation
As marketers, we sit at our desks, look at charts and graphs, pour over analytics, work to balance the media mix and brainstorm award-winning creative. Sometimes, we forget what this is about—reaching people, actual human beings with a pulse, thoughts and ideas, likes and dislikes, and everything else that makes us human.
Virtual businesses can struggle to make these personal connections with consumers. With no store-front or employees to interact with, the only connection is with a website or email chain. Experiential marketing activations are surprising, unique, and memorable. They can create strong, memorable impressions with consumers and help build a more personal connection.
Experiential activations offer the opportunity to bring the brand’s personality to life outside of a relatively sterile digital environment. Activations can incorporate such a wide variety of elements – sights, sounds, even flavors – that the experience becomes significantly more memorable and maybe even… fun.
But experiential isn’t just about having a good time – there must be some positive impact to justify the cost. Studies have shown that 85% of consumers are more likely to purchase after participating in an event or experience. Experiential activations also offer the opportunity to deliver offers or personally sign up consumers for your service or email.
Out of Home Media for Virtual Businesses is a Growth Driver:
If the last few years have shown us anything, it’s that businesses can evolve quickly when they need to, and this often leads to further innovation. In ten years will be talking about how consumers are going back to malls because they crave the social experience, and the fun of a more personal, tactile shopping experience? Maybe. Perhaps we’ll all be drinking Orange Julius again.
But in the meantime, virtual and online businesses are the rule of the day, and with good reason. They bring a whole range of great features. But to maximize their chance for success they need to bridge the digital-physical gap, and find ways to intersect with consumers IRL.
Out of Home media for virtual businesses can:
- Build brand awareness and trust
- Cut through digital clutter
- Improve ad recall
- Improve the performance of digital marketing channels
- Provide economies of scale
- Forge personal connections with experiential activation
At EMC we have over 30 years of experience helping brands step into the world of Out of Home. We provide concierge level service to our clients, and help them strategically integrate OOH into their media plans to help drive business growth.
Contact Us to find out how Out of Home could help drive business for your brand – virtual or otherwise.
