Did you know that print or regional media can be an ally in amplifying the visibility of your cause, projects or campaigns?
By Renata Neves.
Source: Archive
Digital strategies are great for reaching a distant, online audience. However, it is common for some campaigns to need to work with local impact, and for that, OOH marketing can be a powerful tool if it is used well.
In fact, we can say that every marketing strategy needs a pillar in the digital world, since NGOs and social cause institutions can seize the opportunity to engage with their audience.
Even so, it is also necessary to find other routes to relationship or impact. That is why building a strategy with OOH actions matters for campaigns.
“Out Of Home” means promotion outside the home through, for example, billboards or leafleting. But because the strategy is demanding, we see a certain resistance to it being explored across every sector.
Today we are going to explain how OOH works and how offline actions really can help your CSO with its objectives. Shall we?
Raising awareness of social causes
The first step, before going deeper into OOH, is to understand that our objective as Brazilian CSOs is to defend or promote a cause. That means we want to bring visibility to something and generate a popular response.
Beyond that, we also want people to remember us, come back and carry on sharing our causes.
That is why digital activity has become important, since it is an easy means of reaching all of those goals.
In the market, the thinking is almost the same. If a brand wants to win loyalty, being active in the user’s life is the first big step.
Even so, today it is not certain that we will be in front of our audience’s eyes, nor can we guarantee that those located in a specific region already know us.
If you need volunteers from a given location, or want to attract the attention of residents to your project and events, relying on social media alone may not be enough.
It is in these cases that OOH marketing becomes a priority again for some strategies. But of course you always have to weigh up the possibilities of “Out Of Home” media and align them with your main objectives.
With OOH campaigns you create impact on the streets and are present in your target audience’s life all the time. You will always be conveying a message while they are on their way to work, to study or to shop.
One of the great advantages of OOH is that there is no ad blocker to stop you, and it is also an opportunity to capture attention.
How to use OOH?
There are several OOH formats to explore in a campaign or social marketing strategy.
The most common are the billboard, the backlight, the frontlight, the busdoor and smaller printed items such as leaflets, posters and placards. Less common, but also used, are digital panels and interactive panels.
To know which is most worth using, you need to align your digital strategy, your objectives and everything you know about your audience. But let us offer a few tips.
Using a billboard is worthwhile and interesting for staying in the audience’s mind for a long time. They usually carry shorter messages and make the most of a brand’s visual identity.
Even so, it is also possible to create a creative billboard, as the NGO Criola did in 2015 to confront and expose online racism.
The frontlight is a structure similar to a billboard, but with lights on the outside to illuminate the printed material. It is a medium that draws attention and gives reach.
The backlight, in turn, is a structure with lights inside, common on the streets and excellent for creating proximity with the local audience. Backlights attract attention and, used well, can be very appealing.
The busdoor is a fixed piece of promotion on the back of a bus. Very common and a good strategy for making your message travel between points.
Using leafleting, placards and flyers is ideal for giving more detail and deepening the audience’s understanding, which is why it is used to promote events and projects.
Meanwhile, digital and interactive panels use more technology and are carving out space in the market. For that reason they may be more expensive than the other conventional methods.
It is also possible to reinforce an OOH strategy by using physical newspapers, the metro, local actions, presentations and so on.
The Instituto Projeto Sonhar, for example, ran a campaign with OOH actions to catch the attention of an artist in the United Kingdom. The idea caught the attention of the newspapers, widening the CSO’s name and the visibility of the cause.
Measuring the impact of OOH marketing
Quantifying the results of an OOH action can be a challenge, but it is not impossible if the action is combined with a well-tied-together strategy. With that in mind, cross-referenced data analysis is the best solution for understanding the results of your investment.
Using a little technology, it is possible to assess the geographical coverage of the communication. There are platforms that provide the average number of people who pass through given places, and others that indicate the number of residents.
With this data alone, it is already possible to estimate the percentage of people who were reached or came into contact with the promotion.
There are more expensive and more precise technologies that measure how long a person stays in the location or give a more accurate number of people who passed near the advertisement. All of these are valuable data for measuring your reach.
Another solution is linked to social media activity. Depending on the campaign, it is possible to assess online engagement in order to determine the impact of the OOH media.
Finally, you also have the option of making use of QR codes and directing those interested in the subject.
Remember that it is also possible to explore local partnerships and lean on other institutions to help widen your message, as long as it makes sense and is beneficial for both sides.
The important thing, for OOH marketing, is always to align your goals with other fronts of action. As we said earlier, digital strategies make up a significant pillar of social marketing, but they do not necessarily have to be the only pillar.
Although they may seem like old methods, using OOH also matters for those you need to defend or call to the cause. All the more so if your CSO depends on positive regional impact.
Territory mobilisers
Taking territorial impact into account as well, Casa Hacker has been widening its communication strategies in order to improve the reach of its projects in Campinas.
Through the “Hackeando o Território” programme, Casa Hacker has managed to draw the attention of applicants and beneficiaries to its projects, taking its proposals for change directly to the public.
The programme involves mobilisers who carry out in-person activities to publicise the projects, attracting attention and engaging more interested people.
In the third sector, the importance of communicating with those who benefit from the projects stands out.
But sometimes the other strategies can be weak for the context or the location. That is why working with mobilisers becomes a very effective marketing solution.
Starting in July and close to finishing in September, the programme has managed to bring Casa Hacker closer to more beneficiaries, whether through the distribution of leaflets and stickers or through speaking at events that matter for converting the public. Five important figures in the quebrada of Campinas were chosen.
That selection was made according to the relevance and the reach of the personal network of each person multiplying the message. After a short training, they were assigned to occupy spaces where it was possible to capture registrations from people interested in Casa Hacker’s projects, thereby keeping consistency with the impact goals proposed for the communities of Campinas.
Jefferson Rodrigues, CEO of Ozipa Criativa and a member of the programme, describes his experience on the project: “It’s really important to have mobilisers who have been through the acceleration process at the institution itself, because that way we can speak with more authority and convince people to take part. Sometimes we come across people who have huge potential, but who need that little push to get started and develop alongside Casa Hacker.”
He also highlights the reach that comes from being present in the territory. “The best thing about being in this place is that you start going to new spaces and meeting new people. People really believe in it and they pass the information on.” After going through the promotion of Perifaimpacto and of Perifaimpacto — Impact Business Edition, the programme is in its final phase as it moves into promoting Quebrada em Movimento, aimed specifically at the people of Campo Grande.