How to Set Up Your Own DOOH Business?

The digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising business has been growing exponentially in recent years. With predictions saying that it will double by 2030, the rise of DOOH shows all signs of accelerating. Along with the business, DOOH technologies continue to advance, making the business more affordable, flexible, and logically- more attractive to a larger sector of the market, globally.

As the interest toward the business keeps growing, let us take a look at the steps that must be made to start a business of DOOH advertising.

Startup Costs

Every business begins with planning and calculating necessary investment. What will be your startup costs if you decide to do DOOH advertising? Well, a lot of expense should go to acquiring the screens, digital signage players, cables, mounting brackets, actual installation, etc. It is important to research and select the best hardware options for your [articular needs, and above all that, you will have to cover costs of various services like upgrades, software licenses, real estate, remote access, monitoring, internet and support.

Well, let us assume that you already have all that in place. The next step will be to get acquainted with out-of-home selling inventory.?

Selling to Different Types of Buyers

Media buyers have a variety of requirements to the sellers of ad spaces: some of them want to achieve a specific number of impressions; others may target specific audiences in specific locations. Naturally, the more accurate you can be when reporting on audience data and impressions, the more money you can make on selling ad space. To achieve this goal, you should be able to deploy a campaign that best supports the media buyer’s target.

Let us look at an example: if you know that your audience are mostly people who enjoy sports, you can sell that space to a sportswear brand for a premium. This brings more value to you and to the media buyers, as they’ll prefer to reach this particular audience.

Meeting media buyers’ goals has become an essential part of selling DOOH inventory. Furthermore, some digital technologies are able to pick information about audience demographics when particular ads are playing. Logically, a greater level of accuracy influences the success of ad campaigns.

As the metrics and pricing used to sell DOOH inventory is becoming more and more complex, it is vital for you to have a very well prepared sales team, which is ready for the particulars of DOOH. You need to invest time in training them to ensure they can sell digital campaigns.

Unlike traditional billboards where an ad sits on display for weeks, digital ads tend to run in slots measured only in seconds. This means your sales team will need to be prepared for a likely increase in the volume of bookings. They will also need to be prepared to work with different pricing models and different kinds of campaigns. There is a variety of OOH sales software (eg.: Broadsign Direct), it can be a perfect help for your team in the dynamic sales process.

All Is Digital

Well, If you’re planning on starting your own digital OOH business, it’s important to know that programmatic DOOH refers to the automated buying, selling, and delivery of out-of-home advertising. All transactions are automated by computers in response to external triggers or targeted at a specific audience. In this business, buyers are able to set their own conditions under which they want to buy media. If their campaign is approved and the targeting conditions are met, ads are purchased automatically. For example, an advertiser selling umbrellas may only wish to run their ads when the forecast is calling for rain.

Well, you should also keep in mind that buyers like being able to make DOOH a part of their existing digital advertising spend.

Finally, you need to adapt your business to the fact that programmatic offers a great way for large brands to reach out to large audiences simply by changing the targeting conditions of their campaign, while the newcomers to the DOOH space who want their inventory to be selected for campaigns run by the biggest companies around will have much better odds if they support programmatic selling of their inventory.

Well, there is a lot more that goes into the business of DOOH. Here are a few more things to keep in mind as you look into starting up:

• It would be a smart idea to start with a small team and slowly build your business up to minimize risk. Any unforeseen technical or economic troubles may affect your young business, so you’d better be very careful;
• In many cases, it is good to attract an industry-savvy financial adviser and create a detailed plan to build up your business.
• It is also good to have an experienced project manager: someone who sets up display installations, makes technical arrangements, and takes care of the details while you focus on business strategy.
• You will certainly need an in-house team of software engineers to oversee deployment and ensure that everything is running smoothly on a day-to-day basis.
• Your salespeople- those who will sell your DOOH inventory are your vanguard: select this team with special care
• And you will need regular legal assistance: someone familiar with the different bylaws regarding OOH generally and DOOH specifically to remain compliant with multiple regulations that may be set in your area regarding the size and height of screens, locations, separation between signs, type of content displayed, illumination levels, etc.

Before You Start, Make Sure To Answer These Questions:

• What is your target audience??
• Where is the screen most useful for the intended audience?
• Will lighting affect the viewability of the screen?
• Where is the nearest power source?
• Is there internet connectivity?
• Does the venue have rules or regulations for digital signage?
• Do you have all the paperwork and legal agreements in place?
• How about security? What is your digital security plan?

Well, as you can see, DOOH is not an easy business to start. But once it is set up, it can become a real goldmine for an energetic, hard working business owner, and the whole business is only beginning to thrive and today is the perfect time to enter the race.