Advertising is the key to exposing your business – discover how to create an effective outdoor advert.
If you aren’t focusing on how to build your brand and increase awareness, then consumers won’t know that you exist. If you want to build a better outdoor advert, then here are a couple of tips to guide you.
Selecting the correct stock images
Plenty of small businesses use stock images when they create their advertisements, but picking the right images to use is important to the success of your advert. There are plenty of free stock images out there that have been used time and time again on multiple different adverts, and this can look amateurish if you’re planning to stand out and improve your brand recognition. Our team of designers can help you pick the right stock images to use in your adverts to improve your exposure without appearing cheap. However, if you’re looking for the absolute best, our team of designers can work together with you to design something completely unique.
Bright colours stand out, but they also make your eyes cry
Again, the design is important and if you’re using colours in an inappropriate manner, then people will dislike your advert and that may extend to your business. Using brightly coloured designs for the sake of standing out is like wearing a ridiculous costume and going to work in it. Sure, you’ll be noticed, but for all the wrong reasons and someone’s going to eventually point out that you look silly.
Choosing the right font for the right situation
Basic fonts look tacky and amateurish. If you’re serious about making a statement and standing out, then you’re going to need talented designers to pick the right fonts for you. Adverta’s designers have plenty of typography experience and can help you choose suitable fonts to fit your advertisements. The text on your outdoor advert should pop out to catch attention and it shouldn’t appear out of place. Choosing the right font can go a long way to improving your advert’s recognition.
Pick and choose your contact details wisely
Outdoor advertisements can have either a short or extended dwell time. Depending on your panel type, some people viewing the advert will be stationary in traffic or a bus/tram stop, or be a passenger on the vehicle in question and therefore able to take more information in. Others will be busy driving or walking around, so not sitting and staring at your advert. As a result, you don’t want to have too many contact details and you want to make sure they’re suitable for your needs. For example, you might not want to include your address, unless you are a physical store only. You might choose to give the general location of where you are, and not a full address including a postcode. Likewise, if your company is digitally-focused then you should probably put shorter contact details like a website or even Twitter or Facebook account.
Fewer words can give more meaning
Words are important in any advertisement, but it’s even more important in outdoor advertising. You need to get your message across quickly by skipping the fluff and you also need to make your choice of words meaningful. People don’t have time to read entire sentences so stick to short messages like questions, call to actions or key information.
Know who you’re advertising your services to
As they say, knowing is half the battle. If you know who you’re targeting, then your message will get across more quickly and it will attract eyes. This is something that you should be thinking about when you first start your business, but you can often lose sight of it especially if your core audience has shifted. If you’re designing an outdoor advert, then it’s likely going to be seen by busy people that commute to and from work. Use this to your advantage to create an advertisement that will appeal to busy individuals.
Don’t copy overused tropes and slogans
The old “Got milk?” slogan has many varieties and it’s still commonly used by parodying it. If you want to stand out (for good reasons, not bad ones) then you’ll need to come up with your own phrases and tropes. Using someone else’s catchy slogan by editing it to fit your business is cheap, lame and won’t improve your business—it will just look tacky. Be original!
Do something creative and unusual
Having said that, it’s important to attract attention and you can do this by being creative, unusual or just plain different. Don’t follow the rules because there are none. Don’t look at other advertisements to copy from them, but you can use them as inspiration.