' More than just billboard-buys and magazine ads, out-of-home marketing is often seen as the standard of true advertising, when reaching either the consumer or the wholesaler. While anyone can buy some ad-space online, out-of-home marketing is an investment, and like any investment can lead to nothing but a money-pit for the inexperienced.

Here's a cost-effective experiment you can run for your own business that can help you break into your hardcore niche markets with out-of-home marketing and give your brand a smarter start to making you money

• 2:18 The $1000 Ad Buy. If you're looking to move into out-of-home marketing, start small to get your bearings and to test your potential audience. If $1000 for a full page ad is too much for you, you're not ready for the next step
• 3:20 Know your audience. Make that $1000 ad buy stretch as far as it can by knowing who is reading it. Find a publication within or popular with your industry, define who you specifically want the ad to attract the attention of (consumer, or business?) and craft the message just for them. "Not a big distribution" says Matt, "just extremely targeted"
• 3:46 Funnel your replies. Before you can measure any ad campaign, you need to have a way to gauge the reaction to that specific ad, and not just general consumer traffic. Include a unique url or link in the ad, and direct readers to that rather than your landing page. If the only way to find the page is through the ad, then just the traffic for the page alone will tell you if it was a success or not
• 4:05 Count what you have. You may feel like your ad's a failure, but take a closer look at the figures once responses start rolling in. Matt may have only received 12 replies from wholesalers to his ad in one week, but that's 12 interested parties taking the next step to buying or selling the product. That's just $90 for a lead that then has to spend at least $500 minimum for a wholesale order through Matt's store. If even just half of them make a purchase, that's a return 3 times as much as was spent on the ad. For Matt, the figure was actually closer to 10 times as much.

If you're not taking these small, affordable chances and  always looking for ways to make your marketing strategy more effective and efficient, you'll soon find yourself left behind by both customers and competitors. 

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