Billboard advertising could be just what your brand needs to expand its target audience and maximize revenue in the next quarter. But it’s one thing to put up a bunch of billboard ads; it’s another to ensure that those ads are highly compelling and converting for your target audience. Let’s take a look at seven tips for effective billboard advertising now.
Advertise to a Target
Successful, effective billboard advertising requires you to understand your target audience, just like other forms of advertising. To that end, you should do plenty of market research before putting up any billboard ad or OOH marketing material.
Specifically, you need to know:
- The demographic attributes of your target audience, like age, sex, etc.
- The interests of your target audience
- How your brand or product can solve a need of your target audience
- And more
Once you know this information, you’ll be able to craft advertisements that speak to and resonate emotionally with your target audience members. That, in turn, will make your ads much more likely to feel compelling and interesting to everyone who views them.
Simpler = Better
Any billboard ad benefits from simplicity. Your ads’ designs should be simple, striking, and elegant from start to finish. Try to avoid making and posting billboard ads that are too complex or busy, as such designs will only make people look away from your ads instead of absorbing them in their entirety.
Simpler is always better than complicated. This extends to the next big tip…
Make Copy Easy to Read
Any copy – that is, text, numbers, etc. – needs to be easy to read and minimal. Generally, billboard advertisements should have no more than seven words total, including any words you use for a call to action.
Therefore, you should plan out what your billboard ads will say or require their audiences to read. You have to keep the copy easy to read and minimal so that people driving by can absorb your billboard advertisement quickly and fully without having to slow down or stop.
Naturally, this also means your billboard ads’ text needs to be in a big, readable font; don’t go with a cursive, hard-to-read font that takes extra time on the part of your target audience.
Only Include 1 Call to Action
Speaking of a call to action, make sure each billboard ad only has one call to action rather than several. The call to action is the inspiring request that the ad viewer perform an action, like Google your brand name, call a phone number, etc.
Only include one call to action per billboard ad so that your audience members don’t feel overwhelmed or like you’re demanding too much from them. This ties into the earlier tip about keeping your billboard ads simple as well.
Choose the Right Location
Location, location, location. It’s just as important for effective billboard advertising as it is for real estate. Specifically, you should pick billboard ad spots that are competitive, even if they are costly, rather than picking billboard ads that are not competitive yet overly cheap.
It’s usually more cost-effective to have one or two expensive billboard ads in prime locations for your target audience members than it is to have a dozen or more billboard ads in less-than-stellar locations that don’t get a lot of foot or vehicle traffic. Pick the right location, and your billboard advertising will be much more successful.
Be Bold and Colorful
When deciding on the design for your billboard advertisements, try to go with bold, contrasting, and colorful shades, like black and white, yellow and purple, red and green, and blue and orange. Bold, colorful hues are more likely to catch the eyes of passersby and drivers, plus make your advertisements more unique and memorable to everyone who sees them.
Consider Surrounding Landscape and Conditions
Last but not least, try to consider the surrounding landscape or physical conditions around a given billboard spot. For instance, if you have a billboard ad right before a tunnel, incorporating the tunnel in the text through a reference could be a great way to make your billboard ad stand out and seem unique.
This requires a little more planning and preparation on your part, as you need to know where your billboard ads will be placed. Still, this is an excellent strategy to differentiate your brand from the competition, especially if you are trying to advertise in a place with a lot of similar billboard ads.
As you can see, keeping your ads simple – and considering how best they’ll catch the eye of drivers or pedestrians – will go a long way toward maximizing your billboards’ effectiveness. As you build your out-of-home billboard advertising campaign, keep these tips in mind. That way, each billboard ad you put up results in major conversion benefits for your business!
