Why OOH Salespeople Shouldn’t Worry About Programmatic Competition
When considering adding their inventory to a programmatic ad marketplace (demand-side platform), out of home media companies are often faced with the question – “what will our sales staff think?” “Are we replacing them with online-based buying?” “Will they, and should they feel threatened?” The simple answer is absolutely not. Programmatic buying simply fills a need in the media buying industry for advertisers that prefer to buy their ad space online. Furthermore, it provides the opportunity to buy at the last minute, which benefits everyone.
There will ALWAYS be a need for the human side of outdoor advertising sales.
Without out of home advertising sales executives finding advertisers by reaching out to new businesses, building relationships with them and explaining our industry, many would not be taking advantage of the powerful tool that is billboard and digital display advertising. Our industry was built on the hard work of our sales exec’s, long before programmatic was around.
There will always be a segment of advertisers that will prefer a more guided approach to their advertising campaigns. They want a friend, a confidant they can pick up the phone and call whenever they have a request or a question about their advertising. This need is filled by salespeople in the out of home industry.
On the flipside, there is a growing population that prefers a more hands-on style of ad buying.
Millennials and Generation Z, now the larger of the generations, often prefer a more technology-based approach to purchasing and customer service. See this article about millennials. This segment of the population is perfectly catered to by programmatic ad buying platforms like Adomni, whose easily accessible database of digital billboards and screens can be purchased quickly and easily. They don’t have to wait for a sales rep to contact them about advertising their products or services. All of the information they need about digital out of home advertising is at their fingertips, including locations, demographics, measurement, and pricing.
Media owners are now seeing this new segment of advertisers purchase their spaces through these programmatic platforms. Billboard owners often report a completely new subset of clientele they normally would not have been able to cater to for their advertising needs. This means their sales staff are not competing for the programmatic ad buys. They are simply taking advantage of a new market with new revenue streams.
If you’re ready to utilize out of home, Adomni’s platform has over 150,000 programmatically connected screens available to purchase within minutes.
If you’re a media owner and want to list your inventory on a programmatic demand-side platform, contact Adomni to get started.
