By Rose Sugatan
In today’s highly driven business milieu, companies are continuously exploring innovative ways to effectively reach their target audience. This is where a multichannel marketing strategy becomes crucial. This approach involves utilizing a combination of different marketing channels, both online and offline, to deliver a cohesive and integrated brand message across various touchpoints. While digital marketing has gained significant prominence, traditional forms of advertising still play a vital role. One such method that continues to have a strong impact is truck advertising. By leveraging the mobility and visibility of trucks, businesses can enhance brand exposure, engage with a wide range of audiences, and augment their multichannel marketing strategy. In this blog post, we will explore the various benefits and considerations associated with truck advertising as an integral component of a comprehensive marketing approach.
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First, let’s delve into what multichannel marketing is all about. It’s a marketing strategy that involves engaging with customers through a diverse range of communication channels, both direct and indirect. These channels can include websites, retail stores, mail-order catalogs, direct mail, email, mobile platforms, out-of-home, and more. The goal is to provide customers with the freedom to choose their preferred channel of interaction and encourage them to take action, ideally making a purchase. Simply put, multichannel marketing revolves around offering choices.
The Significance of Multichannel Marketing
This type of marketing holds great importance due to the essential need of being present where your customers are. In today’s world, customers are everywhere and can be found across various channels. What’s more, customers who use many different channels tend to spend significantly more money—around three to four times more—compared to those who only use a single channel.
One other thing that’s clear is that customers now have more control over the buying process than marketers. With the wide array of available channels, customers have an abundance of choices when it comes to accessing information and making purchasing decisions. We are actually witnessing an unprecedented expansion in the number and diversity of channels through which businesses can reach customers. The constantly evolving marketing environment offers numerous avenues for communication that were unimaginable in the past. As the number of channels continues to grow—because it undoubtedly will—adopting multichannel marketing is not only advisable but also a critical necessity.
Maximizing Your Strategy with Truck Advertising
Now, let’s see how we can seamlessly incorporate truck advertising into a multichannel marketing strategy. As truck advertising falls under the category of Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising, it’s important for brands to understand how to integrate truck ads effectively into their overall marketing efforts. While truck advertising can certainly serve as a powerful standalone channel, it also offers the advantage of lower CPM rates compared to other advertising methods, making it a cost-effective way to expand your audience reach.
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By strategically incorporating truck advertising alongside other media channels, you have the opportunity to greatly enhance the success of your marketing campaigns. Truck advertising serves as a dynamic and attention-grabbing medium that can captivate audiences on the move. But here’s the best part—combining it with other channels can unlock even greater potential for your campaigns and create a harmonious marketing scenario.
A Multichannel Strategy Takes Careful Planning
Building a multichannel marketing strategy that incorporates truck advertising involves careful planning. To make this a more specific discussion, we will examine the integration of truck advertising with digital media to create a powerful and cohesive multichannel marketing strategy. As of 2023, the global social media user base is approximately 4.89 billion individuals, with users typically accessing an average of 6.6 social media platforms per month. Facebook alone has approximately 65.86% of its users engaging with it on a daily basis.
Here are some steps to help you get started:
- Define your goals. This is an essential step in creating a successful multichannel marketing strategy that incorporates truck advertising. Start by understanding your overall marketing objectives, such as increasing brand awareness, driving sales, expanding your customer base, or launching a new product/service. Once you have a clear understanding of these objectives, break them down into specific and measurable goals. Consider how truck advertising can contribute to achieving these goals.
For example, if your goal is to increase brand awareness, you can leverage truck advertising to reach a wider audience and expose your brand message in various locations. Ensure that your goals are feasible within your available resources, budget, and target market. Define key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of your goals , such as website traffic, social media engagement, lead generation, or sales revenue. Continuously monitor your KPIs and make adjustments to your multichannel strategy, including truck advertising, based on data analysis and insights gained. This process of aligning your goals with truck advertising will help create a purposeful and focused multichannel marketing strategy.
- Set specific and measurable goals. Once you have identified your overall marketing objectives, including the integration of truck advertising, it’s important to break them down into definite goals. This approach helps provide clarity and allows you to track progress and evaluate the effectiveness of your campaign across various channels. For example, if your objective is to increase brand awareness, you can set a specific goal such as achieving a 20% increase in brand mentions on social media within a six-month timeframe, driven in part by your truck advertising efforts. This goal enables you to track the impact of your truck advertising on social media platforms and measure the growth of brand awareness among your target audience, while also considering the contributions of other marketing channels.
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Similarly, if your objective is to drive sales, you can set a specific goal to increase online conversions by 15% in the next quarter, with the inclusion of truck advertising as part of your multichannel marketing strategy. This goal focuses on the measurable outcome of driving more conversions through your online channels, taking into account the role of truck advertising in generating interest, awareness, and customer engagement.
- Develop a cohesive brand message. This means creating a consistent and unified message that aligns across multiple channels to reinforce your brand identity and effectively communicate with your target audience. Having said this, it’s crucial to define your brand’s unique value proposition and core messaging. Understand what sets your brand apart from competitors and identify the key messages that resonate with your target audience. These messages should reflect your brand’s personality, values, and positioning in the market.
Initially, you must adapt your brand message to suit the specific characteristics of truck advertising, crafting concise and impactful messages that can be easily understood and remembered even when glimpsed briefly on the road. And when it comes to digital marketing, leveraging the power of popular social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others is crucial for conveying your brand message effectively. These platforms provide diverse opportunities where you can connect with your target audience and make a lasting impact. You can share photos or videos of your truck ads on social media and encourage users to engage with and share the content. It’s also a good idea to consider running targeted social media campaigns that complement your truck advertising.
For instance, in 2016 Facebook promoted its live streaming feature on the streets and airports of the US and the UK. One of the components of the campaign was using bus wraps, with the message capitalizing on peoples’ fear of missing out (FOMO). Even when they weren’t riding the snazzy bus, the advertisement enticed them to try out Facebook Live on their phones. They broke down the procedure down into bite-size, easy-to-digest steps the audience could readily follow. This was a move on Facebook’s part to get people to make and view more videos from regular people like friends and family, and not just from public figures.
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- Optimize your website. Anticipate an influx of web visitors as your truck ads traverse various routes, capturing the attention of audiences along the way. To maximize the impact of your truck advertising campaign, it’s essential to optimize your website for conversions and deliver a seamless user experience. Start by creating dedicated landing pages or sections on your website that directly align with the messaging and offers featured in your truck ads. These pages serve as extensions of your advertisement, providing visitors with additional information, exclusive deals, or special promotions.
When enhancing your website, remember to prioritize mobile responsiveness. Out of 4.89 billion social media users, 99% access the internet through a mobile device, with only 1.32% accessing platforms exclusively via desktop. This means designing and formatting your web pages to display properly on smaller screens, improving loading times, and ensuring intuitive navigation for smartphone users. By catering to their needs, you can capture their attention and drive conversions, even when they’re on the go. Consider using mobile-specific advertising formats, such as mobile display ads or in-app advertising, to reach your audience on their mobile devices.
Additionally, focus on enhancing the overall user experience on your website. Make sure it is easy to navigate, visually appealing and provides clear calls-to-action that guide visitors towards desired actions, such as making a purchase or filling out a form. Streamline the conversion process by minimizing the number of steps required to complete a transaction or sign up for a newsletter, as frictionless experiences often lead to higher conversion rates.
- Coordinate messaging and timing. Synchronize your campaign elements across different channels to create a well-designed and impactful campaign. For example, you can plan social media posts that align with specific truck advertising routes or events. Use social media to generate buzz and anticipation for upcoming truck advertising campaigns, or provide exclusive promotions or discounts for customers who engage with your brand through multiple channels.
In one amusing experiential campaign in 2015, Google set up a food truck in Austin, Texas, where you could get a cupcake by trying their then-new photo app, Google Photos. What was the incentive for people to try the app? They had to download the app, take photos, and “pay” with a photo to get a gourmet cupcake from Google. But in a twist of one-upmanship, Zappos utilized the Google experience to build their own. They set up a giant makeshift box right next to the Google food truck. And if the tech giant used the hashtag #paywithaphoto in the campaign, Zappos levelled the field with #paywithacupcake. As it happened, people saw the incredible opportunity–they got a cupcake from the Google truck, walked right over to the Zappos box, and inserted the treat into an opening in the box. In return, they got cool gear like watches, backpacks, sunglasses, headphones, and gift cards. And to sweeten the deal even more, Zappos gave back the cupcakes to the audience.
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It’s unclear whether both brands collaborated for this campaign, but one thing is certain—being open to exploring the potential of integrating truck advertising and digital marketing is always highly beneficial.
Conclusion
The integration of truck advertising, social media, mobile platforms, and other marketing channels empowers you to forge a robust and cohesive marketing strategy. This holistic approach amplifies your ability to connect with your target audience, expand your reach, and foster meaningful engagement. However, it’s important to remain agile in today’s dynamic market landscape, embracing flexibility to adapt to changing trends and consumer preferences. Also by continuously analyzing performance data and gathering customer feedback can you fine-tune your strategies and upgrade your marketing efforts for even greater effectiveness. When you remember that a successful integrated marketing strategy is an ongoing journey of improvement, this ensures that you stay ahead and deliver exceptional experiences to your audience.
