Marketing remains one of the most important aspects of a business. From a small tea stall to a large multinational, everyone needs a marketing spend. The question, however, is how to efficiently use the marketing budget to reach the desired goal. Over the years, many forms of marketing and advertising have evolved. Word of mouth was probably the only source of marketing in the olden days. Then came newspapers, flyers, leaflets and in the 1800’s, the idea of billboards was born. Then came the Internet and lured business owners into reaching out to the masses.
Marketing is to a company what investment is to an individual. Just the way it is advisable that we should not put all eggs in one basket and must look at different avenues of investment, similarly while devising a marketing plan, it is essential to select the right medium, rather the right combination of marketing avenues.
As business owners, first we must have complete clarity of the product that we are selling and the exact target audience for the same. This helps us to decide the marketing medium. No medium is right or wrong. We just need to choose the right one. OOH advertising continues to have a huge appeal to people. Conventional billboards tend to appeal to the senses of the people while they move around the city. The sheer size of the billboard make it eye catching and delivers the message straight to the viewers. The only pitfall is that if people just pass by the billboard, they might miss the message completely. Technology has given way to digital billboards. They are surely more attractive that the conventional ones. Nothing can beat the magnanimity of billboards.
On the other hand, digital media has become a hot favourite in the past few years. This is majorly because social media offers the flexibility of reaching out to more number of people. At the same time this reach can be customised to the exact target audience. Most of the times, online marketing is also cheaper than OOH forms.
It is also a better idea to keep a combination of online as well as outdoor media. Marketing campaigns can be designed in such a way that marketing is done in a phased manner where awareness can be created through outdoor and reinforcement of the same can be done through digital media. This can also give the benefit of reaching out to a variety of audience.
Marketing is the lifeline of any business and requires a careful consideration. No amount of money is less if funds are employed intelligently.