A+ back to school marketing guide & campaign ideas for September
Back to school marketing takes place during one of the busiest retail times of the year, as parents and students rush to make sure they have everything needed for the start of term. From uniforms to packed lunches and everything in between, there’s a lot on the shopping list – and spending is expected to reach £2.3 billion in 2024.
With shoppers on the hunt for good deals and competition high among retailers, finding ways to make your brand stand out is vital. Out of Home (OOH) advertising can help you reach customers, trigger consideration and drive engagement as they edge towards the point of purchase.
Understanding Back to school OOH Advertising
With so many competing back to school advertising campaigns, it can be hard to cut through the noise. But this is exactly why Out of Home is such a powerful tool during this time of year.
OOH is one of the least saturated forms of advertising. Unlike the constant roll of radio ads or the constant scroll of social media, where everything starts to blur into one, OOH stands out within its environment. OOH also provides 24/7 exposure, ensuring advertisements are both impactful and hard to miss.
It also lets you target shoppers while they’re actually out shopping for back to school products. You can place your brand right in front of audiences who are in the buying mindset, and ensure that you’re front of mind as they make their choice.
Engaging Families and Students
Creating effective back to school marketing campaigns requires an understanding of both students and their parents. You’ll need to think about the needs, interests and behaviours of each audience in order to maximise engagement.
Some tips for doing this include:
Target high-traffic areas – as well as retail environments, focus on other high-traffic areas where families and students often pass through (such as train stations and bus stops).
Use interactive ads – attract and engage younger audiences with fun interactive advertising campaigns.
Feature special offers – appeal to budget-conscious parents by promoting seasonal offers and discounts.
Create eye-catching visuals – bold, colourful designs can help capture attention and increase engagement.
Benefits of Back to School OOH Advertising
OOH advertising offers some key benefits to retailers looking to promote their products during the back to school season.
High Visibility and Impact
Few forms of advertising carry as much impact or offer as much visibility as a strategically placed billboard. Whether positioned on an arterial road or a busy pedestrian thoroughfare, you can reach commuters driving home from work, families on days out and teenagers meeting up with friends.
People often travel the same routes every day, which means they are frequently exposed to the same billboard. This builds familiarity and helps strengthen brand recall during the pivotal back to school period.
With a standard billboard measuring around 3m x 6m, it’s impossible to miss the content on display. Your brand message stands out loud and proud, creating undeniable impact.
Targeted Reach
Out of Home is known for its phenomenal reach – Clear Channel’s estate alone reaches 91% of UK adults per fortnight. But it’s also an effective solution for delivering hyper-targeted back to school advertising campaigns.
With our proprietary mobile data platform RADAR, you can access powerful insights that help pinpoint the best places to advertise to reach your ideal audience. The platform combines data including demographics, movement patterns and online browsing behaviour to provide in-depth targeting options.
The Importance of Timing in Back to School Campaigns
Launching a successful back to school marketing campaign is all about timing – here are the most important aspects to consider.
Aligning with Shopping Seasons
In the UK, most students will return to school sometime during the first week of September. However, parents are preparing for this moment weeks in advance.
Back to school retail activity tends to gradually amp up between late July and the tail end of August/start of September. Throughout this period, there are multiple opportunities to target audiences with tailored messaging:
Early bird shoppers (late July) respond to the idea of getting things ‘ticked off the list’.
The majority of shoppers (first three weeks of August) are looking for the best deals.
Last-minute shoppers (late August/early September) are motivated by themes of ease and convenience.
For some brands, such as uniform retailers, it makes sense to advertise throughout summer. For others, it makes more sense to align with a specific period. For example, a snack brand wanting to target parents looking for lunchbox treats by advertising in supermarkets will most likely see the highest ROI over the weekend before school starts.
For college and university students, term usually doesn’t start until mid-late September. However, students moving into halls of residence can often move in around the first or second week, so this is the ideal time to ramp up advertisements for furnishings (e.g. bedding and mini-fridges).
Planning Ahead
With the massive commercial opportunity provided to retailers during the back to school season, competition is naturally high. For this reason, planning ahead is crucial.
Prime OOH advertising spots get snapped up quickly, so it’s a good idea to book at least three months in advance if you want to secure your ideal location. Planning ahead will also give you plenty of time to work on your campaign creative and omnichannel strategy to ensure optimum results.
Crafting the Perfect Back to School Message
Getting your brand in front of audiences is half the battle – the other is making sure that your messaging resonates and inspires action. Here’s how to craft the perfect back to school marketing message.
Understanding Your Audience
Creating a compelling message starts with understanding your target audience. The more you know about different demographics, locations, behaviours and interests, the more you can tailor your messaging to be both relevant and engaging.
For example, those who prefer to do their shopping online can be targeted with messaging around free delivery. Using a URL or QR code with a link to your website will ensure they can take action there and then.
Emotional Appeal
For both parents and students, returning to school or starting college signifies a new chapter in life. It’s an emotional time – even with all the practicalities of getting ready for the start of term.
Parents might feel a sense of bittersweetness at their child growing up, or even nostalgia for their own school days. For students, there’s often a lot of excitement around seeing friends again after the summer break.
Appealing to these strong emotions can be what takes your marketing campaign’s success to the next level. Don’t try to focus on all of these feelings at once – keep your message impactful by picking whichever one is most suitable for your target audience and brand offering.
Clear and Concise Messaging
OOH advertising works best when it conveys a simple message in a clear manner. This is especially true during the back to school period, when people are rushing around trying to get everything sorted before the start of term.
Keep your message easy to digest by using minimal text and avoiding complex ideas. Phrases should be easily read and understood without the need to pause, while images can help convey meaning.
Focus on your value proposition by highlighting key benefits or incentives, and don’t forget to make clear what action you want audiences to take.
Visual Strategies for Effective OOH Campaigns
OOH is a visual medium, which means that designing an appealing creative is crucial to campaign success.
Eye-Catching Designs
Regardless of the advertising environment, there are some basic design principles to follow to help your billboard stand out:
Keep copy to a minimum and format it in a logical, readable order.
Focus on one key theme and make sure all text and images are cohesive.
Avoid visual clutter and use negative space to highlight important elements.
Make sure your font is legible from your audience’s perspective.
Utilise dynamic content to capture attention with movement.
Use of Colours and Imagery
The colours and imagery that you use can have a big effect on your billboard’s appeal. Back to school marketing ideas often involve visual cues like:
Children in uniform
Chalkboard-style lettering
Books piled up on desks
Lined paper and handwritten fonts
Recognisable imagery like this quickly gets across the purpose of your ad and the audience it’s intended for.
You can also use colour to create an appealing and memorable billboard. Using contrasting colours for the messaging and background can help pull attention as well as make your message stand out. A bright colour palette will add a sense of fun, while the colour green is often used in back to school campaigns because of its connotations with life, freshness and prosperity.
Brand Consistency
Effective back to school marketing requires that your billboard visually conveys the theme while also allowing your brand identity to shine through. The colour scheme you use should be chosen with your brand colours in mind, and should complement rather than detract from your logo.
Your branding and messaging should be consistent across all back to school advertising materials to help reinforce familiarity. Stick to the same core themes and ensure that your logo is clearly visible on every advert.
Measuring the Effectiveness of Your OOH Campaign
Whether you’re using a classic 48-sheet billboard or an innovative digital 6-sheet, measuring the success of your campaign is crucial to enhancing ongoing efforts.
Key Metrics to Track
The metrics you should use to measure success will depend on your campaign’s core objective, but will usually include at least one of the following:
Reach
Impressions
Frequency
Dwell time
Website visits
QR code scans
Social media engagement
Foot traffic
Brand searches
Sales
Tools and Techniques
There are various tools and techniques available to advertisers to help measure campaign effectiveness. Out of Home media owners will usually provide core analytics such as campaign reach and exposure frequency, but there’s plenty more you can do to gain a more granular understanding of success.
Increases in website visits, brand searches, foot traffic to stores and overall sales that line up with your OOH campaign’s run time can indicate the effect it has had on brand awareness and conversions.
By using URLs and QR codes to move audiences captured through OOH into the digital sphere, you can track individual customers and follow their behaviour post-exposure with greater accuracy.
Continuous Improvement
The data gathered through your OOH campaign can then be used to inform future efforts. In the case of Digital Out of Home advertising, you can even optimise your campaign while it’s still in progress.
All kinds of insights can come out of analysing campaign data. You might find that certain locations respond best to a specific back to school messaging theme, or that public transport users engage with interactive ads at higher levels than supermarket audiences.
Kickstart your back to school marketing and achieve A+ results with a high reach, high impact OOH campaign. Contact us today to find out more about the capabilities of OOH and how it can be tailored to your needs.