In the ad sales process, there are many elements that must be brought to the table in order to grab the attention of marketers with budgets, and then to tap into those budgets. Career ad salespeople know this. Through a combination of smart emails, media kits, and relationships, they navigate the heavily-mined waters of the ad sale and come out on the other side afloat with money and creative.

Revealing your entire arsenal of options and extras in this first round of contact is never a good idea. If you have kept nothing back you have removed your position of power in the negotiation. Get your carrots but dangle them one by one. But one thing that every successful network must have are solid case studies that prove, not just the effectiveness of DOOH in general, but of their network in specific.

The DP-AA, the organization responsible for forging ahead better unity among the ad-based networks, has contributed heavily to education and research. Their website is a goldmine for both advertisers and networks to see what other groups are doing and to get some ideas as to how to format their marketing materials. Take for instance their case studies page, which has blinded and unblinded examples of how well marketing campaigns performed across different DOOH networks. For the overall emerging media of digital out of home, everyone should be sending the DP-AA a thank you card. If you can afford their membership fee (and in truth the networks that need them the most usually cannot) there are even more benefits.

However, for most networks that are struggling to attract the big name advertisers that will in turn help to establish legitimacy, general case studies are not enough. It is one thing to show that the medium is solid (it is), but a completely different thing to show that a particular network is solid (which is not always the case). With these difficulties in place, how can a DOOH network build up strong case studies that can be used to validate the advertising power of their screens?

1. Give a few screens away for free

It is naive for some of the smaller networks out there to think that they will be automatically added as a line item in a major advertiser’s yearly marketing budget. It takes time and proof in order to build that sort of relationship. Generally speaking, in a network, just like in any chain store, not all locations are equal. Pick out the most desirable few screens and offer them to a company in exchange for only seeing how well they do versus the other media that a company is utilizing to get out their message. The marketing community is highly aware of what other marketers are doing, they have to be, so approaching a company that is well-known for its marketing efforts can influence how other marketers will view a specific network. If the results are compelling, not only will you have an excellent case study, but you will also have the beginning of a good relationship that will start to blossom with a relevant advertiser.

2. Work with non-profits

Non-profit cause marketing relies almost entirely on donated advertising space. While every DOOH network out there should be donating space already (see DOOHGood) helping with a campaign not only assists the social cause, but also can be used as a case study, especially where there are tangible results such as how many people donated money or attended a promoted event. The resulting case study will then be attractive not only because the network is sensitive to causes, but because it is effective too.