In an OOH Today article, Chris Rulli shared six best practices for perfecting your out-of-home advertising. The article made some valid points, and so I’m taking the opportunity to expand on Rulli’s thoughts. It got me thinking about how the marketing funnel can impact your mobile billboard campaign. If your content is for awareness, information, purchase intent or reminder messages affects the quantity, frequency, time and route of your mobile billboards.

We always start by asking you what your main campaign goals are before making any media recommendations. We need to understand which audience you’re speaking to, what buying phase they’re in and what your key messages are. This allows us to best optimize your mobile billboard campaign. Your marketing funnel informs our mobile billboard campaign solutions.

AWARENESS
Our mobile billboards are effective brand awareness vehicles. Many would agree out-of-home media (OOH), in general, is effective at lifting awareness. A roadside billboard, for example, is repetitive if you pass it every day to and from work. Repetitiveness churns a high frequency and recall.

Mobile billboards, however, can saturate a market. For an awareness phase, you may want to:

• run 4 or more weeks in a market
• activate multiple units to cover each main neighborhood within the market to drive frequency
• cover multiple markets by activating at the same time or in tour style
• design your mobile billboard creative to be simple and brand-heavy
• pair with mobile display advertisements that mimic the simple messaging on a user’s screen with a “learn more” type of call-to-action (CTA)
• place awareness ads across other channels to create broader strokes in market

Scale is one of our strongest strengths. According to Nielsen, 90% of U.S. residents age 16 or older noticed out-of-home advertising in the past month. With a large and ever-growing fleet of advertising vehicles, we can create a domination effect in any U.S. market.

For full coverage in Chicago, for example, we may recommend one unit in each main neighborhood, depending on your audience. We could run in: Evanston/Skokie, Arlington Heights, Naperville/Bolingbrook, Oak Lawn, Cicero, South Loop, Millennium Park/Downtown, River North, West Town, Garfield Park, Lincoln Park and Wicker Park. A 12-unit campaign in Chicago for a 4-week or longer flight would provide massive reach and frequency. This would be an example of a solid brand awareness mobile billboard campaign.

For more densely populated neighborhoods where there is more pedestrian traffic, the radius of each mobile billboard would stay tighter. As you move into the suburbs, the radius could open up a bit to cover different areas on different days during the campaign. For more frequency, go smaller. For more reach, go larger.

We would then repeat the process for your other key markets. The smaller or less dense markets wouldn’t require as many units. The coverage area of a mobile billboard campaign is much greater than that of a static billboard campaign. This is due to the ability to move throughout the market and reach different areas. For most campaigns, each mobile billboard usually stays within a 3-5 mile area. But it can travel up to 10 mile radius, per day. For awareness campaigns, we often expand that area over the course of the flight while still maintaining a solid frequency.

To measure the lift in brand awareness, we can complete pre- and post-campaign brand studies. We can collect a sample set of device IDs which were near our units and send surveys to their mobile phones. Or we can work with a marketing research company to recruit an in-market survey panel for responses.

Additionally, there are cues that the brand can look for during the campaign. For example, Drinkfinity saw a 199% lift in branded searches during an out-of-home activation.

INFORMATION/ENGAGEMENT
The next marketing funnel phase is a period of information gathering and engagement. Your audience may now be aware of your brand or product and wants to know more.

Out-of-home drives more online engagement per dollar spent than any other media format. Nielsen research shows that 66% of smartphone users took some type of online action after seeing an OOH ad. These actions included searching online for more information or engaging with social media.

To grow more interest, we may recommend you:

• run 4 or more weeks in a market
• scale down the number of mobile billboards from the brand awareness phase to hone in on your specific audience
• change your mobile billboard creative to include a call-to-action or a mobile tag to boost engagement
• integrate with search and digital campaigns to make online engagement easier; set those campaign locations in the same OOH locations
• launch a content download, sign up, survey or contest, so the online engagement is valuable

Every mobile billboard campaign follows a prescribed route. We can take into account the demographics and affinity segments of your target audience. We can layer that audience data onto our map. We also consider key points of interest and relevant locations throughout the market. We always customize a route specific to your campaign. If the creative has an interactive tag, we’ll also factor in parking areas or permitted spaces that promote easier phone-to-creative engagement. The mobile billboard will travel to the most strategic locations to reach the right audience.

According to Nielsen, mobile billboards over-index to many demographic segments, including: black, Hispanic, Asian and ages 16-49. If you’re aiming your message to a certain audience, the mobile billboard will go to those people at the places that matter most.

PURCHASE INTENT
Once you’ve built awareness and stirred interest, you’re ready to convert your audience to customers. We work with a variety of advertisers, but for the sake of this article let’s focus on two buckets. There’s physical locations (e.g., restaurant and retailer marketing) and direct-to-consumer bucket (e-commerce brands).

For a brick and mortar location, we would recommend you:

• activate 1-3 mobile billboards dominating within a close radius of your store location to capitalize on proximity
• choose shorter flights that correspond with special events, sales or seasonal shopping habits specific to your store and products
• concentrate on high volume stores or lower performing stores across the region or country where you need the needle to move the most
• geoconquest by driving the OOH message near direct competitors if it aligns with your overall marketing strategy
• use directional mobile billboard creative that calls out where the audience will find you (e.g., “Corner of Smith & Baker”); your creative may change from units that are further from your store to the one closest to your store with the most relevant directions on each
• pair with mobile display ads, two-fold: serve to your target demo at a DMA-wide level and also to all devices within close proximity to your OOH message, your store or any key competitor locations
• leverage tap-to-map or a special offer for those mobile display ads to align with your objective and generate more sales action
• integrate email and social campaigns to the same audiences in the same markets
• add field marketing teams to interact and engage with your audience, distribute coupons or swag and encourage in-store visits
• create an in-store experience to keep excitement and customer satisfaction high that can result in return visits post-promotion

What’s more effective for a new coffee chain – being posted on a busy freeway or driving a special offer outside the giant coffee chain location?

For a direct-to-consumer marketer, we would recommend you:

• drive 1-3 mobile billboards at key events, points of interest or in relevant neighborhoods to your target audience
• choose shorter flights that correspond with special offers or seasonal shopping habits specific to your products
• use an easy-to-remember landing page along with a QR code on the mobile billboard creative to drive direct site visits
• pair with mobile display ads that have a cohesive design but a clear offer or incentive to click through
• integrate email and social campaigns to the same audiences in the same markets
• utilize brand ambassadors at relevant events or high traffic areas to promote your offer(s) and drive instant site visits or lead generation

For these types of integrated campaigns, we often recommend a 50/30/20 break. Put 50% of your budget to the mobile billboard, 30% to field marketing and 20% to mobile display ads. This helps you keep awareness high while driving specific sales activation for higher conversions.

To measure a mobile billboard campaign with conversion as a KPI, we could:

• report verified walk-ins of those who saw the mobile display ad and then entered your store
• measure lift in sales or volume from the market pre- and post-campaign
• add a pixel to your website to track a sample set of device IDs that were near the mobile billboard and then later converted online

Out-of-home media cannot be skipped, blocked or viewed by bots. As more and more channel proliferation and noise is added to our everyday lives, OOH has a way to break through that clutter. Consumers see and are impacted by these out-of-home messages in such a natural way in their real-world environments. Often, it makes a big difference in your bottom line.

In fact, Benchmarketing and the OAAA found that all advertiser categories could benefit at some point of the funnel from increasing their OOH allocation. When you add OOH media to your plans, your ROI increases.

Before it was Metro by T-Mobile, MetroPCS activated the Freedom Rings Tour. They were able to attribute a 244% lift in year-over-year sales to this engaging campaign. Plus, they scored some great consumer insights through the marketing research that was performed during the tour.

BRAND REMINDERS
Is your marketing objective to stay top of mind for your established brand?

If that’s the case, you may want to:

• use 1 mobile billboard per market and concentrate on high traffic areas or your relevant coverage areas
• activate your sponsorship or event partnership opportunities by driving a mobile billboard outside the stadiums or venues
• consider brand-heavy creative or a local message for your mobile billboard design
• integrate your give-back or feel-good messaging with field marketing or an accompanying mobile display campaign

A mobile billboard is large curbside real estate that is really hard to miss. It’s an effective media format for reminding folks that you’re nearby or still a relevant part of their lives. There are many reasons why mobile billboard are important to your mix. As many advertisers run away from TV and radio, they’re opting for OOH and digital. Mobile billboards should be part of that plan.

Discover the value of mobile billboards in any stage of your marketing funnel.

We are excited to connect with you about your mobile billboard campaign. Please drop us a line!