Why Coworking Space Advertising Is a Great Marketing Strategy

Coworking spaces are a mainstay of today’s work environment. These spaces originally appealed to niche businesses, becoming a booming industry within that market. Soon, other firms saw the benefits, and their appeal expanded to larger companies. Today, these spaces are bustling with high-value audiences that brands are striving to reach effectively and efficiently as part of their marketing strategy. 

As the popularity of these coworking spaces continues to grow, so does the potential for advertising in them. And growing they are. The market size of these flexible spaces is expected to grow from $6.9 billion in 2021 to $24 billion in 2030. This makes for a vast and captive audience of high-value decision makers that advertisers can actively engage. Here’s how the most effective brands are doing it. 

Coworking Space Advertising: A Forward-Thinking Option

By advertising in coworking spaces, brands can reach the workplace of a growing market of entrepreneurs, freelancers, small business owners and a growing segment of blue chip brands who value innovation.   

But coworking spaces are more than just a place to work. They represent a growing movement towards active networking and work-life balance. Their users value community, collaboration, flexibility, and creativity as much as productivity and profit. Coworking space advertising, therefore, allows brands to align themselves with a cultural shift, target this highly desirable audience, and position themselves as innovative and forward-thinking by aligning themselves with modern, state-of-the-art spaces. More, they present themselves to audiences that are getting more done in the workplace—researching and making purchasing decisions in the moments they can focus and get it done. One study found that 57% of Americans shop or search for their next vacation while at work—to the tune of 234 million hours a day browsing online.

The Innovation of Digital Screens

Modern digital screens can display a wide variety of content. They can present news updates, social media feeds, and other relevant information. The right coworking space media network partner can offer an array of curated, value-rich content that engages co-working space members—and doing this during the workday is the new essential timeframe for reaching in-demand audiences. 

These screens are being increasingly integrated into public spaces as a modern element of the atmosphere. You’ll find them in high-traffic locations like airports, shopping malls, and, of course, coworking spaces. This makes them ideal for advertisers looking to target high-value decision makers in the moments when it is critical to influence purchase decisions—working, moving from place to place, taking a break—not occupied with after-work activities or their personal devices.  

Related: Captivate and WeWork: The Impact of Our New Partnership on Agencies and Brands

Digital media companies provide digital screens with curated, relevant content that is targeted for each location using data-driven parameters. This means that, unlike televisions, digital screens can be customized to show highly relevant content that meets the specific preferences of groups in specific locations—like coworking spaces. 

Relevant content can include local and national news, weather updates, events, business news, travel stories, sports scores, stock updates, health & lifestyle content and much more. Ads are integrated with this content—in a brand-safe environment that is valued by people working in the space. 

In addition, digital screens create a more modern and dynamic feel in a building, adding to the overall experience of viewers. This puts the coworking space ahead of the competition, drawing in more high-value members looking for that elevated experience and putting more eyes on the content.

Elevating and Focusing Audience Reach

Coworking spaces are often filled with freelancers, entrepreneurs, small businesses, start-ups and remote teams working for the world’s leading companies. This provides brands who advertise in them the opportunity to reach an audience that is at once highly targeted and diverse. Traditional radio or television ads are hard to target specifically to working professionals. Yet, the audiences in coworking spaces are made up exclusively of this type of viewer.

That makes digital screens in these spaces one of the easiest ways to impact that hard-to-reach audience. More importantly, these audiences are engaged. Because they spend their whole work day in the coworking environment, they are a captive audience. According to the findings of one study on the Working Daypart, “In most cases, the office is one of the only true focused spaces to conduct meaningful brand research and then purchases.” Digital screens provide a primary source of distraction, entertainment, information, and viewing in the timeframe that decision makers are most available. 

Cost-Effective Benefits for Advertisers

We’ve seen how digital screens can benefit the owners and members of a coworking space while simultaneously benefiting advertisers. Both sides of this coin are important because ads can’t be effective without the right audience to view them. It’s essential that your advertising dollars go to a network that attracts viewers. That’s why many of the benefits discussed previously translate so well into benefits for advertisers. Let’s review the reasons why coworking space advertising is such a compelling proposition.

Reaching the Ideal Audience

Just as with the primary content, coworking space advertising on digital screens reach an audience eager to consume them. The people in these spaces often have a higher disposable income and are top earners, giving them the ability to make purchasing decisions more quickly and easily. Many hold senior positions within their organizations and are responsible for making strategic decisions that can influence the direction of the company. They have the financial resources to invest in new products and services that can help them grow their businesses or improve their work-life balance. 

High Dwell Time

Some forms of display advertising are quickly seen and then disappear. Others might be missed entirely. A person focused or distracted by something on the road may not see a billboard at all, for example. But workers in a coworking space are there for hours a day, increasing the chances they’ll see, recognize, and remember a brand.

Brand Safety

No brand wants to be associated with an advertising environment that might distort how its audience perceives the company. With many forms of advertising, you have limited control over the surrounding context of your ads. The right digital media network, paired with access to great coworking spaces, offers a reliably professional and brand-safe environment for ads.

Data-Driven Strategies

Traditional forms of advertising don’t always offer all the data needed to improve and refine advertising. But digital screens in the right locations combine the data-driven nature of digital ads with the increased visibility of traditional displays. 

All of these benefits add up to an advertising medium that’s significantly more effective—and cost-effective—than the alternatives. The ability to ensure that an ad generates quality impressions seen by your ideal target audience—vs less effective mass reach impressions—makes it an essential part of an effective marketing campaign. As we’ll see in the section that follows, very few of the alternatives meet these goals.

Comparing the Alternatives

We’ve seen many reasons why digital screens in coworking spaces are such a valuable marketing strategy. Of course, a well-rounded marketing strategy will include a mixture of mediums and tactics. Coworking space advertising can improve that marketing mixture in a number of ways. Here are some comparative reasons why this strategy should become an essential share of any brand’s advertising budget.

Traditional Print Advertising 

Traditional print advertising, like poster and billboard ads, is an old-fashioned way of reaching an audience. Still, as consumers become more and more inundated with digital ads on their personal devices, they begin to ignore them. Print ads—or digital varieties in high-traffic areas—do a better job of getting in front of eyeballs and, according to Harvard Business Review, are seeing a resurgence. 

Digital screens multiply that visibility factor by the benefits of technology. Most importantly, their dynamic nature allows them to be highly targeted and reach pinpoint audiences. Advertisements on digital screens can be easily swapped out, dayparted, and A/B tested in a way that is difficult with traditional print advertisements. They also have the benefit of being displayed alongside contextually relevant information that workers will want to engage with.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing

PPC advertising, or pay-per-click advertising, changed how businesses thought about advertising. It allowed them to create highly-targeted ads and only pay for the ones that saw engagement. It allowed for the detailed data analysis we now associate with digital ads. However, as ads have become a ubiquitous part of the internet experience, they’ve also become an annoyance that many try to avoid with ad blockers and other methods.

Related: CAPTIVATE Webinar: ALL Impressions Are NOT Created Equal

Coworking space advertisements bring nearly the same level of targeting but with the benefit of being immune to ad blockers. They also have the advantage in another area of control, brand image. PPC ads can appear on any number of objectionable sites, alongside inappropriate content that might reflect poorly on a brand. But when connected with the right media network, ads in coworking spaces are always presented in a professional, brand-safe environment.

Influencer Marketing

The rise of influencers has allowed those with a large following to earn a living based purely on sponsorships. Companies are eager to pay influencers to promote their products and services because the influencer has a large, dedicated fanbase. Working with influencers, however, gives up a significant amount of control.

While you can pick influencers you believe align with your client’s brand, you can’t control their content. Nor can you ensure their content will always reflect positively on the brand. Advertising in coworking spaces gives you access to more refined, ready-to-engage audiences—with more control and less risk. It also allows for more precise demographic targeting. 

Content Marketing

Content marketing has become one of the breakout success stories in recent years. It’s helped to facilitate a shift away from outbound sales and toward inbound sales, where you bring the customer to the brand rather than the brand going out to them. However, content marketing is rarely used as a standalone strategy, as it only works when potential customers are actively looking for the solutions you offer.

For this reason, content marketing must always be supplemented with other, more powerful forms of advertising to get the word out about a product or service and build brand recognition. Where content marketing is a long-game strategy, digital screen advertising can bring more immediate and short-term results alongside long-term success. 

Reach High-Value Audiences with the Right Network

Captivate is a leading provider of digital screens in premium locations that offer brand-safe, content-rich environments for advertisers to reach high-value decision makers. We’ve recently partnered with WeWork to expand our office network footprint into their coworking locations. This partnership allows advertisers to combine an already great digital advertising platform with the unique benefits of coworking spaces—for maximum impact. To bring your ads to a more relevant and profitable audience, contact us today to learn about WeWork coworking space advertising opportunities and let’s get started.