Free outdoor advertising for small businesses is no longer a pipe dream with a new initiative that will allow SMEs and entrepreneurs to advertise on digital billboards for free.
Tractor Media Holdings, South Africa’s independent media owner, allows entrepreneurs and SMEs to promote their business through a national digital board network to support the country’s economic recovery.
SME Launchpad is a platform that allows small businesses to benefit from the widespread marketing exposure of Tractor’s roadside digital and Digilite networks in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.
SMEs will be able to use the SME Launchpad to create awareness of their products and services in the cities they operate in through a high-reach and high-frequency digital out-of-home campaign that will be live for two weeks.
“The initiative is inspired by the campaign #SMEHeroes Tractor, which will take place in 2020 and 2021. The campaign is intended to support the businesses most affected by the pandemic, using the greatest resource we can – our outdoor inventory network,” Remi du Preez , commercial director at Tractor Media Holdings, explains.
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Qualifying businesses receive an extensive media package that will help raise the highest awareness, with a total media value of around R8 million.
He said the response to the campaign was so positive that he decided to start an ongoing initiative that would allow small businesses to adopt and benefit from it.
“To increase access to outdoor advertising, we need to develop a self-service platform, which will be a permanent fixture hosted on our website. SME Launchpad is designed specifically for SMEs, so they can create campaigns quickly and easily thanks to a user-friendly interface.
Du Preez says he understands that small businesses generally don’t have the resources to work with an agency to plan creative content or manage campaigns and that’s why he keeps it so simple.
“To apply, the business owner or representative must visit our website and create a profile, where they will be asked to provide details about their business. They will then be directed to a dashboard where they can upload creative content that must be provided according to the specified specifications and select the area where they want to launch the campaign .
Once the application is validated and the creative content is approved, the campaign is included in Traktor’s DOOH flight schedule, based on the live date selected by the user, subject to availability. The dashboard will even allow the applicant to monitor the campaign after it goes live.
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“The preliminary inspection of the artwork is automated to speed up the process and we have also activated the end-of-campaign reporting function, which sees the user receive an overview of the inventory of creative content launched, how many ads are in each location. and the estimated number of consumers who saw the campaign.
According to Du Preez, if this new pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that South Africans need to stand together and support each other.
“The growth and success of the small business sector is considered critical to the country’s economic recovery. The SME Launchpad is another way Tractor aims to support those around us, in line with our vision to cause ripples of change that will positively impact socio-economic success our country.