You can skip digital ads, block banners, and sponsored posts disappear as soon as there’s no budget. Physical doesn’t work like that – it just sits there in the real world, racking up impressions without a cost-per-click for every eyeball. This isn’t an argument for Physical over Digital. It’s an argument for Physical making Digital actually work.
The Trust Gap That Screens Can’t Close
Our reliance on digital-first means that a customer can be five years into a relationship with you and couldn’t draw a picture of what your business looks like from the outside. For a local business in particular, there isn’t much in the world that delivers better ROI than simply letting your neighbors know you’re a real business that plans to stick around.
Physical Assets Generate Impressions That Compound
A search ad is visible only when you’re paying for it to be shown. A display ad is visible only when the website is being visited. A social media ad is visible only when someone logs in. TV, radio and print ads are visible only when a channel or publication is being consumed. A billboard, bus advert or your branded vehicle is visible regardless of what anyone else is or isn’t doing. The more people are stuck in traffic the more they’ll see you. The more people are using public transport the more they’ll see you. The more people are going for a walk the more they’ll see you. The more people are on their daily commute the more they’ll see you.
That said, some physical ads work better than others. Routes and locations that are more likely to be seen have a higher “opportunity to view”. Static, rather than moving, ads work best because they can be absorbed in a single long look rather than requiring the viewer to track. Familiarity is important so seeing you repeatedly (and coming to expect to see you repeatedly) is a good thing. And lastly, bigger is better. Voice-activated radios, Spotify, YouTube and Netflix (to an extent) mean radio and TV can no longer guarantee an audience and you pay per thousand potential viewers whether your advert is seen or not. Websites can no longer guarantee a reader and you pay per thousand potential readers whether your advert is seen or not. Buses and billboards get you closer to paying for your advert to be seen by a thousand pairs of eyes than anything else in the physical world.
Combined with the simple and age-old knowledge that you should allocate a larger portion of your marketing spend to busy times, busy routes, and when people are busy and have no choice but to sit back and stare at the world going by, coming back to the simple point that we leant on at the start of this tangent: if you have service vehicles and they’re not sign-written you’re missing a massive trick.
What Vehicle Branding Actually Signals
There is a type of vehicle branding that appears to be a mere detail – vinyl coming off, different lettering styles, a barely visible phone number. But instead of being a detail, it becomes a problem. It gives the impression that the company doesn’t care about presenting a consistent image or that it doesn’t have the resources to do so.
The type that truly works is what we have called a uniform fleet. The logo, the corporate color, and the contact information, are the same on each truck. When you manage to create one of these, your corporate fleet transmutes into a trust signal that has one of the highest impacts on your potential customers within your market.
These details can become really important. As a simple example, some companies even go to the extent of getting private number plates for your business vehicles. This is done in part because it makes your fleet look more uniform. Still, the main reason for doing this is to ensure that every single contact point that you have between your business and your potential customer is as consistent to your brand and therefore professional as possible. It is a small detail, however we are convinced that in these cases details really make the difference. Customers notice when everything looks good. They also notice when it doesn’t.
The Physical-To-Digital Feedback Loop
When people frequently spot your branding in a local area and then have a relevant brand search to make, they don’t look up the generic phrase; they look up your name. Branded searches convert more readily and are cheaper to win with paid advertising than generic phrases. The physical presence effectively cross-subsidizes your digital customer acquisition.
And that’s the magical feedback loop that gives the omnichannel strategy so much power. Physical visibility leads to brand recall. Brand recall stimulates those valuable branded searches. Branded searches reduce your customer acquisition cost. A lower customer acquisition cost creates more room for investment. The mistake is to budget for your physical and digital operations as different buckets when, in fact, they are force multipliers that, managed together, massively improve return.
This is at the root of why guerrilla marketing can be so effective – a physical, eye-catching activation creates a flurry of social media shares and online coverage turning a short term physical event into sustained digital ripples.
Building Something That Doesn’t Expire
When you invest in a physical marketing asset you take out an annuity on attention. You’ve seen the way a quality brochure can stay on a client’s desk for months. How a well-designed reception area doesn’t just impress visitors, it also keeps your team motivated. And how a striking exhibition stand creates must-visit moments on the show floor. These are the interactions that keep on giving. When your digital campaigns point back to impactful interactions like these they gain double the traction.
