Advertising tend to be the domain of the creative, but ironically also the domain of the traditional. In other words, as much as there is a big focus on producing creative advertising material, the places where it is displayed or made available to the public are not exactly out of the box or original. Most advertisements end up on television or radio. Print still has its little share of the market and obviously digital is growing – ironically though digital It took a long time for advertising revenues to move in an upward direction – it lagged a long way behind actual user numbers. But what other channels and angles are there? Where could you be spending your advertising budget more effectively? This is a very important question, especially if you are a smaller business looking to get the maximum exposure from your money. Here are a few ideas and angles.

Screens

We all know the power of televisions and how people expect to see advertising served up on them. But we also know that advertising on broadcast channels is very expensive. But a solution that uses a television to deliver its message, but which is a screen rather than a broadcast is a very effective way to go. A screen like a Samsung display, that is placed in a high-profile area is a win. Mix advertising with other messages, perhaps news or some entertaining video and you are on to a winning product. The screens mentioned are also designed to be hardy and durable and effective both outdoors and inside.

Billboards

These are frightfully old-school, but they do work. A billboard is simply signage in an outdoor space. It could be an actual billboard, traditionally found at the side of a busy highway. But it can also be advertising on the side of a bus or on a truck. These are just moving billboards and where the former option waits for the traffic to come past to deliver its message, the latter involves taking the message to the people. Either way, if your billboard is in the right business place it is a highly effective and non-expensive way to deliver your brand to an audience.

SMS

Text messages are a good way to reach a certain demographic. Not as popular as they once were following the rise of instant messaging, the SMS is still a good way to reach a wide audience. If you are targeting a specific demographic or geographical area the SMS can work well. Include bit.ly links in the message to track responses and make sure that the message is targeted and effective and the response rates can be very good.

Captive audiences

Advertise to people who have nowhere else to look or go. A great example of this is advertising at urinals or on the back of toilet doors. There are not many places to look when at the toilet and if the product is situation relevant then even better. For example, if you want to advertise condoms to men on the pull, a good place to advertise is in the toilet at the nightclub. It triggers a thought process that you will hope to benefit from.