Whether you are the business owner of a small, medium, or large company—or you aspire to be-your business can only succeed and reach its full potential if the public knows it exists. Businesses of all sizes must establish brand awareness and maintain visibility with the public. Creating visibility is all about crafting an offline and online presence that demonstrates to consumers your business’ position as a viable brand on the market.
Just what will shape the presence you curate for your business? It’s brand identity. In other words, the way you want returning and prospective customers and consumers to view your brand and distinguish it from competitors. Components of your brand’s identity include your company’s name, tagline, logo, and other aspects of design—things you’d want to make known and show off in a marketing campaign. Investing in a marketing campaign will benefit you as you work to get your company off the ground and in the long run. A successful marketing campaign helps you strengthen your brand, gain recognition, create trust with consumers and clients, and develop a lasting following. Digital marketing can help you efficiently express your message about your business’s goods and services, especially considering how many people have been using the internet in recent years. But consider prioritizing the use of outdoor advertising space in your local area, too. Why, you may ask? Because doing so can help your business gain recognition in physical places that your audience may visit daily or weekly. Consider driving engagement and inspiring action by utilizing out-of-home (OOH) advertising methods.
What is OOH Advertising?
Out-of-home advertising refers to outdoor media that consumers view outside their homes. It’s the billboards, neon signs, and murals people see when they’re out and about. This form of marketing is experiencing growth that nearly equals pre-pandemic highs. Per the Out-of-Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA), OOH advertising revenue saw a 28.9 percent increase this year in the second quarter compared to last year. As more people are heading back out into public spaces after spending so much time staying indoors because of COVID, OOH advertising methods have significant importance and effectiveness in the current marketing climate. They can help you effectively reach more people.
Considering the fact that Americans take literal billions of trips on public transportation, bus wrap advertising may be the OOH advertising method you need to send widespread messages about your brand to the public.
What is Bus Wrap Advertising?
City bus wraps are essentially digitally printed mobile billboards. For bus wraps to materialize, you’ll work with professionals like View Chicago to craft your advertisement. Then, we print it on vinyl in full color with the logo and graphics of your choice to catch the eye of locals and travelers. These durable vinyl decals are designed to partially or completely cover the sides and back of buses. Plus, they’re fully customizable, making them more versatile and easy to manage than paint jobs.
Is Bus Wrap Advertising Worth It?
In a word, yes! Maybe bus wraps weren’t the first form of advertising that came to your mind when you began thinking about how you’d market your business. But, industry numbers—which don’t lie—suggest that you should consider giving bus wrap advertising a try. They show how widespread buses are, providing you with an idea of how these vehicles can positively impact your business by increasing your brand awareness and sales.
Perhaps the greatest advantage of implementing bus wrap advertising into your marketing strategy is that these vehicles allow you to cover a lot of ground. The U.S. Department of Energy Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC) reported that a transit bus has an annual average of more than 40,000 miles traveled. This mileage is fitting, considering 46.3 percent of all public transportation riders—approximately 3.6 million people—stated that the bus is their primary mode of public commuting. Based on these numbers, utilizing city bus wraps is a surefire way to get your company’s message about its goods and services seen by many, many people.
The Benefits of Using City Bus Wraps
Buses drive through plenty of busy Chicago streets lined with crowds of people. When you’re able to take over the Downtown core, loyal patrons will associate your business with the buses they regularly board. All the people who see or ride on buses with city bus wraps showing off your brand will be reminded of your business and your message every time they go out because they’ll have frequent viewings of your ads.
Our clear, well-designed bus wraps can help you inspire trust in your local area and build an omnipresent brand presence in your community. When viewers see a fun yet sophisticated bus wrap displaying your business, they’ll likely get that impression about your business. They may assume your business has the same type of fun yet sophisticated atmosphere. In addition to garnering trust, you’ll be able to generate curiosity and ultimately boost customers’ confidence in your business and the goods and services you offer.
You can target affluent audiences. When you consider how large the viewing public is, you’ll notice there’s even room for you to get more specific and engage in targeted marketing. At View Chicago, our professional bus wrap consultants will work with you on your marketing strategy and help you decide the most ideal location for your advertising. We’ll help you consider the demographics of your audience when choosing possible ad locations. Meaning, we’ll help you determine the people who are likely to see your bus wraps, whether it’s people who live or work in the Downtown core or those who commute through it. View Chicago Bus Wraps follow a targeted route through the Downtown core. Many, many advertisers of luxury brands, high-end retail brands, hospitals, and more wish to advertise in the Downtown core, so using our Bus Wraps to reach this area can help you make your business more viable and competitive.
Bus wrap advertising is functional and can generate better views than other marketing efforts. Bus wrap advertisements can last longer compared to other forms of marketing. For instance, with traditional print marketing materials like flyers, posters, brochures, packets, and more, viewers may look at these tangible ads once and then choose to throw them away after they’ve served their purpose. Likewise, certain forms of digital ads like YouTube ads can be skipped and commercials displayed through television and streaming apps can be skipped, too. Bus wraps and other forms of OOH ads can’t be skipped. Bus wraps can literally go the extra mile!
It is easy to maintain or change city bus wraps. City bus wraps come with the benefit of being easy to install. The nature of bus casing makes the installation process of bus wrap advertisements more efficient than other methods. Plus, they can be replaced easily, as they can be taken off without damaging the paint that lies underneath it. Such ease allows you to have complete peace of mind as you have new wraps installed and switched out. This functionality is advantageous and convenient, making bus wraps the perfect solution for when you have time-sensitive or seasonal promotions you wish to advertise. Whether you need a one-time customized bus wrap cover or ongoing bus wrap maintenance, View Chicago can help you realize your advertising vision.
The Cost and ROI Associated With Bus Wrap Advertising
When you decide and begin planning to embark on a campaign advertising through city bus wraps, you may initially think, ‘how much do bus wraps cost?’ You find yourself hoping that they’ll last as long as possible and be worth the cost. And they will be!
Statistics show that city bus wraps have the lowest cost per thousand impression (CPM) of all major advertising methods. The OAAA reports that the CPM for vehicle wraps is only $0.77. Compare this to Facebook ads which have an average CPM of $7.19 and radio ads which have average CPMs that range from $12.00 to $16.00. The average CPM for television ads is about $25.00 to $36.00. Per the numbers, the CPM for vehicle wraps is several times better than that of Facebook ads, radio ads, and TV ads. The low CPM of bus wraps gives you the potential to generate more leads and reach more people at a lower cost.
Not only are bus wraps more cost-effective and efficient compared to other forms of media, but they’re also more cost-effective compared to paint. You can even apply them to windows, maximizing the advertising space for the money you spend. You’ll be in a position to use your cost savings toward future city bus wrap designs or even reallocate them to other areas of your business, ultimately allowing you to develop a balanced, efficient advertising budget.
Measuring the ROI Associated With Bus Wrap Advertising
In addition to being cost-effective, bus wraps tend to produce a fast return on investment (ROI). This is because of how many bus commuters, pedestrians, and other drivers and viewers get to see the bus wrap each day. Consider every viewer of your bus wrap as a potential client of yours—you’ll want to increase leads and drive sales by reaching viewers with impactful messaging.
There are many ways to measure bus wraps’ ROI, which View Chicago can provide for you. It’s up to you to decide what results you’re hoping to get from your bus wrap advertising in order to determine if your campaign is a success. Consider asking yourself these questions about the future direction of your business:
Is your goal to generate more positive online and offline press?
Do you want to boost your brand awareness? Facilitate brand loyalty?
Are you aiming to improve your conversion rates?
Are your specific hopes to boost sales?
These are related metrics, but ultimately several different ones, so the data you’ll need to understand them will be different. If the goal of your bus wraps campaign is to gain a certain amount of new clients per month, we’ll be able to help you develop a marketing and business strategy that specifically aims to achieve that result.
Consider Also Using Online Methods to Measure the Impact of Your OOH Advertising
Consider using a “task completion” metric to measure ROI. Doing so can help you get to the core of understanding if viewers of your bus wraps proceeded to visit your business site. And if they did visit your site, did they complete the action they set out to do on your site? Maybe they were visiting your site to research goods and services you offer to make a purchase later on. Maybe they were ready to make their purchase right then and proceeded to do so.
Try finding out what they did on a visit to your site by asking them outright. Questions such as, “how did you hear about us?,” “did you complete what you wanted to on our site?,” and “are you satisfied with your visit?” can be effective and give you useful information. Include a page on your website that asks customers to leave ratings and reviews. Keep these pages spam-free and ask original questions explicitly focused on your bus wraps. You could even benefit from creating original forum pages where prospective, browsing, and returning customers can ask their own questions—just make sure you answer them!
Invest in Bus Wraps Today
Print and digital marketing methods are still significant ways to efficiently and clearly express your business’ message. But it’s local OOH advertising that allows you to market your brand in physical locations that members of your target audience visit often, sometimes even on a daily basis. Ultimately, these high-quality bus wrap advertisements can boost brand awareness, push engagement, and inspire customer action. Reach out to our local experts at View Chicago today to get started with developing a bus wrap advertising campaign that fits your budgetary needs and advertising goals. We’ll provide a custom quote for you, giving you exact numbers according to your campaign objectives.