Learning About Your Customer Through Physical Ads

Through digital marketing you can learn a lot about your customers, and you can build data about them that informs your future marketing efforts. This is known as enterprise data, and when combined with overall industry data and public information that is available from census and other demographic date, you can get a solid picture of how and where to reach your future customers.

But can you do the same with physical ads? The answer is a resounding yes, but it does require some strategy on your part. The other good thing about physical ads? If you use them properly, you can combine the digital and the physical to not only accurately measure your ROI but learn some important things about your customer.

There are four essential ways you can learn about your customers through physical ads like digital signage. This is what they are and exactly how you can use them to collect data.

Customer Polls

Want to know how a customer heard about you or your business? Ask them. Take polls when they request services or make a purchase transaction and ask how they heard about your business. This is probably the easiest, least expensive, and least intrusive way to determine if your physical efforts are working. It is also one of the most reliable.

Even if only 50% of your customers answer your poll, you should have a fairly good idea of how they heard about you and if your physical marketing efforts are actually worthwhile.

Use Keycodes

This is another simple method of learning where customers heard about you, although it is a little less reliable than customer polls, as sometimes customers will forget the keycode they saw, mistype it, or make some other error. However, if you offer a discount with the use of the keycode, they are more likely to remember it and enter it correctly on your site.

Keycodes can be created using the month and day they began or ended combined with a location code of some sort. Developing your own keycoding system will ensure that you get the most out of your data. Combined with other information the customer provides means that you will increase your database with more than just location data.

Promotional Codes

Promotional and coupon codes are essentially keycodes with coupons or special offers attached. Customers are more inclined to remember and use these since there is a reward for redeeming them.

Much like keycodes, promotional codes tell you where your customer may have heard about you and even something about their buying habits and the incentives they need to use your service, visit your restaurant or store, or whatever your call to action might be.

To really get definitive data on whether promotional codes are working or not and to get a true percentage you need about 1,000 impressions to pull from. Use these codes on digital signs in high traffic areas, on large bulk mailings, or in other wide-reaching campaigns. This will help you better determine ROI.

Call or Text Tracking

With some services, you can set up several numbers that will reach a single number. This allows you to know what add or campaign a user is calling or texting from. A precise way to measure ROI per campaign, this can also tell you some information about your customer including cell provider, brand of phone they use, and more.

This information can be invaluable not only for other marketing efforts but to know how better to reach your customers, and perhaps offers to combine in order to draw them in. For instance, if most of your customers are iPhone users on Verizon’s network, offering a drawing for a new iPhone or a year of free service might be a good incentive to develop new leads, as the majority of your customers or leads are already using these devices and services.

In other cases, you can partner with companies to provide their service or product at a discount if the customer buys your product or uses your service. This can be a win-win for both companies, but also helps you share leads and customer information. If your industries overlap anyway, this can be a great data sharing option.

Combining Digital and Physical

The best ad campaigns can combine elements of both the physical and digital. Perhaps you give the users a specific landing page to use and you can track hits to that page. You can give them specific codes or a QR code to scan to download your app for discounts. The code they use or scan will tell you a lot about them.

Directing them to your website and a specific landing page also gives you the opportunity to access your website analytics for demographic and online shopping behavior metrics. Combining digital and physical marketing efforts gives you the most data about your customers.

Do you have questions about how to measure ROI or learn more about your customers using digital signage and other physical ads? Contact us at info@signspan.comfor more information and to start your next campaign today.

Troy Lambert
Troy Lambert
Troy is a content strategist, freelance writer, and consultant from Boise, Idaho. He lives there with his wife, son, and two very talented dogs. In his spare time, he is a cyclist, skier, motorcyclist, and all around outdoorsman.

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