Local advertising, where to start?

Written by Sarah Magee, Marketing and Communications Manager

Does your county, division or district have funding to experiment with advertising?

Here is a quick guide to help you make impactful decisions on ad spend.

Top questions to ask yourself before you start:

What do you want to achieve from running an advertising campaign?
How are you going to measure whether the campaign was successful?
What is your call to action?

Examples:

Objective	Call to action example	Measurement example
Volunteer recruitment	Visit Girlguiding.org.uk /join-us to register your interest	No. of volunteer sign ups through GO over the date period of the campaign. Could even break it down further into areas of interest vs. placement of advertising.
Girl recruitment	Visit Girlguiding.org.uk /join-us to register your daughter	No. of girl sign ups through GO over the date period of the campaign. Could even break it down further into areas of interest vs. placement of advertising.
Fundraising event sign ups	We’re taking part in the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support. Let us know you’re coming (link to event page on Facebook or similar)	No. of sign ups through event page over the date period of the campaign.

Write down a measurable marketing objective to help you stay focused on what you want to achieve.

For example: We want to increase sign-ups of adult unit helpers by 25% in Farnham.

Now you know what you want to achieve think about who you need to target in order to fulfill your objective.

Are you looking for parents or university students, city workers or Duke of Edinburgh participants?

The more specific your audience the more targeted and personalised your campaign can be.

Where does your target audience hang out? This will help you decide whether digital advertising or outdoor advertising is best. Strong campaigns often use a combination of both as the concept of effective frequency comes into play - i.e. the more times an individual is exposed to a message the more likely they will act on it.

If in doubt ask your audience by conducting a simple focus group or online survey with your audience you will become more informed about potential ad space/ locations that you may previously have never of thought of.

Now think what would surprise your audience? For example you would expect to read about Girlguiding on a community notice board but would you expect to see it on a mirror vinyl in your local shopping mall or inside your locker at the gym? Maybe you could get your message featured on the intranet of your local university or college? Sometimes your audience don't even know these options exist - which ultimately will make your ad campaign even more memorable!

How to find ad space. Whilst large organisations often use agencies like Clear Channel, Primesight and Exterion Media for booking outdoor media there are options out there for smaller bookings including Bubble Outdoor who offers simple one-off online bookings for local outdoor media space such as billboards and bus shelters.

Also don't under estimate the power of local mailing lists and ask organisations whether you could add an ad to their e-newsletters, brochures or simply pop a poster up in their office tea room. Alternatively local press and magazines would be a good place to start to run print ads.

Pretty much anything can be branded from petrol nozzles to railway ticket gates - whilst budget is often the deciding factor on how creative you can get, it might be worth talking to local volunteers to see if anyone has any contacts who can offer last minute deals on local media.

There are so many agencies out there offering media space on such a variety of items often a Google will find you your most local provider. If you have an amazing idea, I'm sure you can make it happen! After all, if you don't ask, you don't get - and don't forget you've got the region marketing and communications team who can help you book in media and offer advice on your campaign. Just get in touch.

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