Billboard Advertising Effectiveness: It Doesn’t Work
I did a lot of driving around the holidays to see family and as I was on the PA Turnpike, I saw a bunch of billboards that were blank and were telling people “Advertise Here.” It actually made the chuckle a little. Businesses who want to win shouldn’t be looking at billboard advertising. Why? Because it’s no longer relevant. Some may disagree as I am no marketing genius, but the lack of people using billboard advertising on the PA Turnpike tells me I’m correct. If you aren’t utilizing newer marketing techniques, you are simply wasting your money. What should you be utilizing? Let’s discuss.
Table of contents
What is Billboard Advertising?
Billboard advertising refers to the use of large outdoor advertising structures to display messages, advertisements, or promotional content. These structures, known as billboards, are typically placed in high-traffic areas such as alongside highways, busy streets, or in densely populated urban areas to maximize their visibility and impact. Billboards are designed to capture the attention of passing pedestrians and motorists, making them a popular form of out-of-home advertising.
Key features of billboard advertising include:
- Size: Billboards are large in size, allowing for prominent and eye-catching displays. They come in various dimensions, with standard sizes like bulletin (14×48 feet) and poster (12×24 feet).
- Location: Placement is crucial for the effectiveness of billboard advertising. Strategic locations are chosen to target specific demographics or reach a broad audience.
- Graphics and Creativity: Due to their size and visibility, billboards often rely on bold graphics, striking visuals, and concise messages to convey information quickly. Creativity is key to making an impact in a short amount of time.
- Illumination: Many billboards are illuminated, allowing them to be visible during nighttime hours. This enhances their visibility and ensures that the message reaches a wider audience.
- Rotational Displays: Some billboards are part of rotating displays, where multiple advertisements are shown on the same billboard in a cyclical manner. This allows multiple advertisers to share the same physical space.
Billboard advertising is used by businesses and organizations for various purposes, including product promotions, brand awareness, event announcements, and public service messages.
Billboard Advertising Effectiveness
When you look at things like the billboard advertising cost and billboard advertising effectiveness, you’ll be left scratching your head. I look at billboard advertising like I do radio ads and television commercials — they don’t work (what about programmatic ads?). Why? Because no one pays attention to them anymore.
We all have DVRs today and skip over commercials or utilize things like YouTube, Netflix, and Fire TV. We all get impatient when commercials spots come on the radio and change the channel to find a song to jam along to. Point blank — we HATE commercials. No one wants to be sold to these days. Everyone wants to make their own decision; when they want to make that decision. No one wants their enjoyment interrupted by commercials or advertisements.
Something else to consider with billboard advertising is that there is no ability to have an effective CTA (call to action). Sure, you can put up a phone number or website on the billboard advertising sign, but most people are not holding their phones in order to punch in the phone number or type in a web address to view their site. Therefore, people drive by and a mile down the road completely forget about the billboard advertising sign.
So, why even both? In today’s digital age, not only are there better alternatives but cheaper ones as well.
Alternative Advertising Options
A billboard advertising cost is way too expensive for the little return you will get on your investment. With the advent of social media, not only can you get in front of a larger demographic, but you can get better conversion with your CTA by actually directing the user somewhere that you want them to go. For instance, promoting a new product or service on your social media platforms will allow your follower to go to a link that you provided where they can view exactly what you want them to see and get more information regarding.
Another great way to market your business rather than using billboard advertising is through specific content writing that resonates not only with your brand but also your demographic. I’m always telling people to overdeliver and add value to their customer in order to build loyalty and engagement. When you can build traffic and a community around content writing, you not only build traffic to your website to promote your business or service, but you also have something to promote on your social channels (ultimately, it’s a two-for-one deal with content writing).
Billboard advertising cost can be thousands of dollars down the drain with not only very little or no return at all, but it’s also not evergreen and something someone can see forever. With content writing, you have something you can put up on your website and have it live forever and to help build your SEO (search engine optimization) but also help educate the consumer or customer.
My suggestion, find someone who specializes in content writing and have them build out a content calendar for you. Something that you can post weekly or bi-weekly would be ideal. By hiring someone to do the content writing on your behalf, you free up time to go focus on other areas of your business rather than you, yourself, sitting down and potentially spending hours creating one piece of content. And if you don’t understand keywords and how content writing works to build your business, it’s best to outsource it.
In the end, billboard advertising is dead and isn’t coming back. More and more you will see billboard advertising for sale because the demand will continue to drop and everyone will move to digital. Your best play right now is online by using social media and content writing. You’ll save money and make more in return. Times are changing and if you don’t change with them you will be left behind.
*Disclosure: This article may contain affiliate links or ads, which means we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you if you make a purchase through these links. These commissions help support the operation and maintenance of our website, allowing us to continue producing free valuable content. Your support is genuinely appreciated, whether you choose to use our links or not. Thank you for being a part of our community and enjoying our content.
PLEASE CONSIDER SHARING THIS ON YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA TO HELP OTHERS LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS TOPIC. SIMPLY CLICK BELOW!
