From flights to fast food, everything we could ever want or need is available online, just a few taps away.

But not D/OOH advertising.

Traditionally, purchasing digital and classic OOH has been a cumbersome process for advertisers and media owners alike. Sales teams rely on spreadsheets and advertisers make phone calls (within business hours!) every time they need price and availability. With advertising increasingly bought by the click-to-purchase generation, media owners must meet their demand to buy D/OOH from anywhere at any time. Enter, automated online purchasing and ecommerce for OOH.

A ready-built ecommerce store can get you ahead

With the big players moving slowly in the race to automate, there is a real opportunity for smaller, more nimble media owners to get ahead. Through white-label, cloud-based software, media owners can quickly power an e-commerce storefront that automates the planning and purchase of D/OOH to supercharge sales, transform long tail purchases into profitable sales, and overcome boundaries like time zones, language or currency.

While automation is sometimes met with reservation from media owners, software developers are responding better than ever with tailored solutions that allow media owners to remain in complete control.

For some, however, automation still feels like jumping off a cliff into the unknown. But it certainly doesn’t have to start with a great leap of faith. We recommend a stepped approach to transition your OOH media business to full e-commerce. Start (or even stay!) at step one or dive in where you feel comfortable.

1. Launch a private OOH ecommerce store

For media owners only interested in sharing their inventory with those they know, this option is perfect.

• A closed online platform branded to look like you.
• Only accessible privately to those you have created an account for.
• Live D/OOH price and availability on an easy to search map.
• Pick and choose which panels are listed (and for what price).
• Create secure logins for staff to quickly check price and availability and manage orders.
• Choose to create secure logins for regular clients, empowering them to self-serve from price and availability check to purchase, payment and artwork upload.
  

2. Launch an OOH ecommerce store where users must create an account to gain access

Capture valuable long tail purchases and build a list of potential leads by keeping your inventory behind a login wall. Perfect for media owners seeing success with option one who are ready to open up their inventory (but not completely!) to untapped markets.

• Online store accessible to users who create an account and log in.
• Capture the name, company and email address of valuable leads for your sales team to chase and well as opportunities to cross and upsell.
• Linked from your existing website and branded to look like you.
• Live D/OOH price and availability on an easy to search map.
• Pick and choose which panels are listed (and for what price).
• Customise the price and availability shown to certain clients.
• Create secure logins for staff to quickly check price and availability and manage customer orders.

3. Launch a fully open, e-commerce store (think Amazon for OOH!)

• Open an online store where anyone can search price and availability, but they must create an account to purchase.
• Linked from your existing website and branded to look like you.
• Live D/OOH price and availability on an easy to search map.
• Pick and choose which panels are listed (and for what price).
• Customise the price and availability shown to certain clients.
• Create secure logins for staff to quickly check price and availability and manage customer orders.
• Capture full advertiser details.

It is this scenario many media owners have in mind when staring off that cliff. But operating open ecommerce for OOH isn’t like abandoning your open ledger book at a bar on Friday night. Using software to list your inventory online allows new customers to search, find and buy, while you retain full control over which panels are displayed and for what price. You can even offer tailored pricing to certain clients, allowing them to benefit from national buying power, at the local level.

With good marketing, opening an e-commerce platform for OOH holds unlimited potential to boost your sales success. Better yet, it brings D/OOH to the click-to-purchase generation ensuring you are open for business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in whichever language, currency or time zone they prefer. But the best part for media owners is the flexibility of automation software that means you don’t have to go full monty to get ahead and start using the world of ecommerce to sell your OOH inventory.

If that sounds like an option worth exploring, take a look at Console, Signkick’s white-label ecommerce storefront for OOH media owners or get in touch with the team.