The DOOH campaign was driven by data targeting a custom segment of women small business owners/entrepreneurs and women with company revenue of less than $500,000. Photos courtesy Vistar Media
How Alberta Women Entrepreneurs’ March 2024 digital out-of-home (DOOH) campaign drove triple-digit increases in awareness and sign-ups for their BOLD Leadership and Strategic Edge programs for women entrepreneurs.
By Joe Lasala
In Canada, entrepreneurship faces significant challenges, from rising inflation to the increasing cost of living. According to a report by the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), the number of entrepreneurs in Canada has decreased by 100,000 in the past 20 years, despite the country’s population growing by more than 10 million during the same period.
However, amid this overall decline, there has been a notable increase in women-owned businesses. The Diversity Institute reports that, in 2023, 18.4 per cent of businesses will be majority-owned by women, up from 15.6 per cent in 2017.
The opportunity
The Alberta Women Entrepreneurs (AWE)—a not-for-profit organization focused on supporting women entrepreneurs in Canada—saw this trend as an opportunity to expand its offering nationally and support a greater number of Canadian women entrepreneurs during these challenging times.
AWE, through its extensive experience supporting women entrepreneurs over the years, understands that they continue to encounter systemic barriers. According to a report by the Paros Centre for Women’s Enterprise, women entrepreneurs face several significant obstacles. These include greater difficulty accessing funding and a higher likelihood of outright rejection than male applicants. Additionally, they often lack mentorship and networking opportunities—crucial for entrepreneurial success. Women are also frequently confined to certain industries due to prevailing gender roles and remain underrepresented in male-dominated fields.
The outlook
AWE teamed up with Vistar Media, a global provider of out-of-home (OOH) technology solutions, to launch a digital out-of-home (DOOH) campaign throughout March 2024. The campaign was driven by data targeting a custom segment of women small business owners/entrepreneurs and women with company revenue of less than $500,000. The result? The programmatic DOOH strategy drove triple-digit increases across all objectives.
AWE’s three main goals of the DOOH campaign were to drive awareness, consideration, and sign-up intent among women entrepreneurs nationally (outside of Alberta, specifically) for its BOLD Leadership and Strategic Edge programs. BOLD is a live webinar-style program designed to help women entrepreneurs rethink their digital strategy and implement technologies to improve business performance nationally. Strategic Edge is a national program offered by AWE, designed to help women business owners develop a data-driven growth plan with support from AWE’s expert advisors.
The obstacles
- While AWE is a recognized organization in the province, it needs to expand its network nationally. It doesn’t have brand and service awareness among women entrepreneurs outside the region.
- The business development industry is saturated, with profit and non-profit organizations targeting aspiring entrepreneurs on traditional digital channels. AWE needed to ensure it could uniquely break through the crowd.
AWE gathered audience data from previously successful Alberta campaigns, including detailed data on what resonates best with women entrepreneurs looking for mentorship and support. To effectively use the data, media selection was crucial. The target audience was those who identify as women, women small business owners, and women with companies with a revenue of less than $500,000. The data showed that this group was concentrated in urban centres: Toronto, Vancouver, B.C., Regina, Sask., St. Johns, Nfld., Winnipeg, and Montreal, Que. Data also showed that many of these entrepreneurs are not full-time business owners—it may be part-time or a side hustle, with full-time work located in urban cities.
The placement of DOOH screens was strategically determined based on a deep understanding of the core target audience, beyond merely targeting office buildings.
The operation
Entrepreneurship is rooted in innovation. As more consumers become immune to digital ads—66 per cent, according to a survey by Bango Audiences—programmatic DOOH advertising emerged as a compelling alternative. This channel effectively reaches people at the right time and place, creatively engaging the target audience.
The placement of DOOH screens was strategically determined based on a deep understanding of the core target audience beyond merely targeting office buildings. The team combined demographic and business-to-business (B2B) data to effectively reach women entrepreneurs leading companies with specific revenue thresholds. This technology and targeting precision, enabled by rich audience data and insights, were key factors in the success of the programmatic DOOH strategy.
Within the urban centres identified, Vistar Media was able to narrow in on which recreational or public spaces the audiences frequented via its place-based technology. The campaign ran near schools, gyms, salons, office buildings, apartment buildings, malls, billboards, and transportation stations. While many of these locations seem broad, it is reflective of the diverse lifestyles of women entrepreneurs in Canada. Women entrepreneurs in Canada are concentrated in the 18-34 age group, ranging from university students to working professionals. Women entrepreneurs come from various sectors and engage in entrepreneurship as a full-time, part-time, or side hustle activity. Utilizing a broad variety of screens that address and reach the diverse lifestyles of these entrepreneurs was key to success and provided valuable insights for future campaigns.
Entrepreneurs at various stages of their journey understand the barriers they face, whether scaling their businesses, exploring new digital strategies, or adopting new technologies. These individuals are highly motivated, and the AWE messaging aimed to inspire them to see opportunities that could help them achieve their business goals.
Creative content across Canada was centred on key messages likely to resonate with the target market, including: “Dare to Transform,” “Your Journey Awaits,” “Scale Smart, Grow Fast,” “Shape Your Legacy,” and “Share Your Legacy.” A central theme across all creative messaging was to address the various challenges entrepreneurs face and how each program can help overcome them.
Another innovative touch to the creative was the use of QR codes. Intended to drive sign-ups, QR codes were used in the creative to provide a direct, simple call-to-action (CTA) among women entrepreneurs. Informed by Vistar’s expertise of the DOOH screens available, the QR code was correctly sized, following the 10:1 ratio—which recommends the QR code be a tenth of the size of the distance it could be scanned from. The QR code was placed at the bottom of the creative, beside the BOLD Leadership and Strategic Edge program mentions. This placement informed viewers that they can learn more or sign up on AWE’s website, which also provided them with all the details. The target audience is often strapped for time, and the reality in many of these cities is that Canadians are on the go. Incorporating the QR code allowed entrepreneurs to open the webpage and return to it at their convenience, giving them ample time to learn more and explore AWE’s offerings. While QR codes aren’t a new technology, there are considered a best practice when integrated correctly and effectively.
The outcome
To measure the success of this campaign, an Opportunity to See (OTS) study was conducted by Vistar Media through a market research partner, Toluna, measuring the campaign against objectives to increase awareness, consideration, and intent. Notably, the OTS study demonstrated a 178 per cent lift in competitive awareness, with AWE ranking second in terms of awareness among its competitive set of Women’s Economic Development Organizations. There was a 387 per cent lift in women nationally considering AWE as an option for entrepreneurial support. This achievement is significant, especially for those outside Alberta who might assume AWE services are not available in other provinces. The increased consideration indicates that the target audience clearly understands these services are offered nationally.
Incorporating the QR code allowed entrepreneurs to open the webpage and return to it at their convenience, giving them ample time to learn more and explore AWE’s offerings.
The campaign also drove a 273 per cent lift in sign-up intent, with 10 per cent of consumers (i.e., the exposed group) indicating they are likely to sign up with the AWE in the next six months. These results are particularly noteworthy for an organization not well-established outside of the province. The campaign, therefore, effectively utilized audience data to target and reach consumers in new markets.
Given the current economic conditions and AWE’s limited presence in other Canadian provinces, these results are a significant achievement following their first national DOOH campaign. AWE not only achieved outstanding results but also gained meaningful insights into their target audience and how to best leverage the channel to reach them in future advertising campaigns. It also highlights DOOH as an effective tool to drive top-of-funnel (the first stage of your marketing funnel, or where your customer begins their customer journey) results, with tactics such as QR codes and location-based targeting enhancing its ability to reach specific audiences at the right moment.
Reflecting on the success of the campaign, AWE’s marketing co-ordinator, Alycia Benson, says, “Partnering with Vistar Media for our first foray into programmatic DOOH advertising was an exciting new use of technology for AWE. Their expertise not only streamlined the process, but also delivered impressive results, helping us understand the national landscape of women entrepreneurs and utilizing that data for future marketing efforts.”
Joe Lasala is a senior account executive at Vistar Media, based in Vancouver, B.C. Vistar Media is the home of out-of-home—providing brands, marketers, and media owners with an intelligent platform for buying and selling DOOH. To learn more about how you can leverage DOOH in your own campaigns, visit: vistarmedia.com.
