Advertising is a great way to reach out to a specific target audience and communicate with them, which can be done by many marketing strategies. Tools like print media, TV advertisements, radio ads, sign boards, banners and billboards are all valuable ways in speaking to consumers. Billboards have been a commonly used asset for years. Whether traditional or modern, big or small companies invest in billboard advertising to get recognized from a distance. Billboard advertising is a form of advertising that is hugely effective, and has an abundance of benefits. When marketers invest big money in billboard advertisements, and they remain a product visible to a selection of the population, you can’t help but wonder how they’ll be effective in our ecosystems.
How it’s Effective
The principal components of billboard effectiveness are greater market coverage and cost saving benefits. Generally displayed for a period of two-three months, billboards diffuse a market area with information surrounding products and services that can be accessed by people in the know. And for those people to be in the know, billboards that cover a larger scope of traffic will be effective. They won’t be lost or hard to find among other marketing strategies due to their coverage. It boils down to the large reach.
Billboards have cost saving benefits because it provides advertisers with the opportunity to share messages with thousands of people who pass by them. You won’t have to spend as much money finding and researching potential customers because billboards, correctly placed, will do that job for you. Having a billboard near a store or busy intersection can be a way for businesses to drive traffic to a given destination, which can spike sales.
Mobile Media Billboards
Technology has also had a huge say in the success of billboards presently. In earlier days, billboards were hand-painted which was an expensive and time-consuming process. However, with today’s cutting-edge computer technology, they can now be designed with the assistance of computers and printed on vinyl paper, and then displayed on a backcloth. The result is a superior advertisement done in less time and also at an affordable price. On top of that, mobile media billboards have also been taking off, which we will unpack.
Mobile billboards are truck-side advertisements that are seen by those who pass the vehicle.
Some advantages of mobile billboards:
– it’s less costly than running a TV commercial or even, at times, stationary billboards
– it has more reach; the vehicles are continuously driven and the messaging will be spread around constantly
– you have more control over the campaign; with vehicle tracking, you can see exactly who is being reached
– your ad is more likely to be noticed than a print ad; a viewer can’t put a mobile billboard down!
According to Outdoor Advertising Magazine, outdoor mobile media billboards can have as high as a 97% recall rate. Studies show that, on average, Americans spend about 20 hours in their cars, per week, either as drivers or passengers. Some people, especially those with long daily commutes, spend an even more significant chunk of their time in their cars than at home watching TV or reading magazines. This shows that billboards still present a gateway of potential to advertise effectively. Billboard advertising lets you take advantage of the hours your potential customers spend behind the wheel.
What Does Research Say?
- 58% of people learned about an event or restaurant they were interested in attending by viewing a roadside billboard.
- 56% of Americans mentioned a billboard they found funny in conversation
- 26% noted a phone number written on a billboard and 28% stated a website address printed on a billboard
- 71% of Americans consciously look at billboard messages while driving and many learn about an event or restaurant they later attended
Why is it Effective?
Billboard advertising is extremely effective because of:
1) Creativity: Large size, fewer words, and simplicity give the advertisers a significant place for creativity in a simple manner. The out-of-the-box approach gets people talking.
2) Pricing: Way cheaper than those Internet alternatives, when people spend very little time browsing through online advertisements. If you opt for mobile billboards, they are even less expensive with prices being small fractions of average advertising costs online.
3) Viewer Customization: One can outdoor market in a specific place and for a specific demographic whereas online advertising won’t offer you the same target market.
4) Lower Restrictions: Billboards face minor limits as compared to digital media ads and, if done on trucks, etc. (i.e. mobile billboards) the limits are even lower (no problem of size, height, etc.).
The Metrics for Billboard Effectiveness
An outdoor advertising company will be able to provide the numbers that need to be measured in order to see how well a billboard is performing. They will take into consideration the pedestrian or vehicular traffic passing by a given billboard at any point in time. Also, the demographic information related to those pedestrians or drivers will be available as well. People are more impressionable to simple, strong, persuasive messaging, which are key descriptors to consider for billboard effectiveness.
Check out the work that Movia Media does to provide you with effective mobile billboard services here.
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