{"id":44626,"date":"2023-10-20T15:37:17","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/why-your-startup-should-consider-offline-advertising-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:37:17","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:37:17","slug":"why-your-startup-should-consider-offline-advertising-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/why-your-startup-should-consider-offline-advertising-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Why your startup should consider offline advertising – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

Offline advertising for startups sounds like a joke, right?<\/p>\n

Startups are innovative and offline ads are a thing of the last century. Nonsense.<\/p>\n

Offline still dominates and it\u2019s becoming more affordable, which means you might get a better ROI than a few years ago.<\/p>\n

Get traction or die trying<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s simple: As a startup, you either get traction or you\u2019re done.<\/p>\n

In the early days, it doesn\u2019t matter how you get it as long as you\u2019re building your critical user base. But a key thing for startup is to get traction efficiently. If you\u2019re not making a ROI, eventually you\u2019re going to run out of money.<\/p>\n

Online advertising is hot. And one of the problems with things that are hot is that their price inflates.<\/p>\n

Today it\u2019s no longer unusual to pay more than $500 per customer acquisition. And cost per install increased by 25% last year for iOS and 52% for Android.<\/p>\n

The cost of offline, on the other hand, goes down.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s definitely a channel you should look at.<\/p>\n

The good news is that offline ads can be easy to test. For as little as $300, you can put out a radio ad in a market you\u2019re targeting and see how it performs.<\/p>\n

Offline can work<\/h3>\n

You want to test offline alongside other media – the good thing about it is that you can test relatively cheaply. And if you\u2019re smart and creative about it, you can get phenomenal results.<\/p>\n

For example, a search engine startup, DuckDuckGo, placed a $7000 billboard in the startup-heavy SoMa district of San Francisco and called out the difference between the privacy you get with Google and DuckDuckGo.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The media loved the story of a startup calling out a big guy, so aside from attention, they also got press coverage from Wired, USA Today, Business Insider, and several other blogs and media outlets.<\/p>\n

That month, DuckDuckGo\u2019s user base doubled.<\/p>\n

Getting started<\/h3>\n

There\u2019s a number of options available in the offline space. What you want to do is to take a small part of your budget and break it down into smaller chunks. Then try various channels and see how they perform.<\/p>\n

The first thing to consider is the demographics.<\/p>\n

For example, newspaper ads will appeal primarily to an older crowd that still buys newspapers. When considering a purchase, ask the agency for an audience prospectus. It should provide you with all the info you need.<\/p>\n

The second thing to consider is cost. An ad in Times Square will cost considerably more than some local ad in the middle of nowhere.<\/p>\n

Tracking your ads<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s quite difficult to test multiple channels if you can\u2019t track your ROI.<\/p>\n

Compared to digital ads, offline are much harder to track.<\/p>\n

But offline tracking is perfectly possible. Usually it involves URL shorteners, unique web addresses and promotional codes to measure effectiveness.<\/p>\n

For example, you can create flyer ads that link to website.com\/flyer. By tracking visits to that specific URL, you can approximate how many visits originated from your flyer campaign.<\/p>\n

Another option is to provide unique coupon codes and offer a discount or promotional offer. Just make the name of the media (e.g. \u201cWired\u201d) a promotional code.<\/p>\n

You can even track your ROI with Google Analytics. As a first step, create a vanity domain. Once you\u2019ve created your vanity domain or landing page, you\u2019ll need to set up a 301 redirect and include Google Analytics campaign parameters (e.g. startup.com\/?utm=*).<\/p>\n

At minimum, include source (e.g. Wired), medium (print magazine) and campaign name for that specific group of ads you\u2019re running.<\/p>\n

When doing your offline campaign look out for niche opportunities. Many entrepreneurs and magazines run podcasts or offer other additional content.<\/p>\n

Maybe you can get a better rate and ROI there.<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook,<\/em> Twitter,<\/em> LinkedIn<\/em> and <\/em>SoundCloud.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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