Billboard Advertising – Concept, Advantages, Types, Cost, Tips

 By Hitesh Bhasin 

Billboard advertising is when Billboards are positioned in a way to attract the maximum number of people to the advertising. They are generally put up on roads where there are various audiences.

It is one of the simplest yet the most powerful ways of advertising. It helps them to be viewed by more people and thus spread the word better.

Billboard advertising is also one of the best marketing tools that businesses use for increasing their exposure and market presence. Outdoor billboard advertisements are quite incredible in optimizing the presence of any brand in the target niche.

Appealing and intriguing pictures of huge sizes together with catchy slogans are used in billboard advertisements, so passersby or bystanders cannot overlook or ignore them. This form of advertising has been a compelling method for conveying your message and doing effective branding in front of the bulk chunk of the population.

Putting resources into billboard advertising is an amazing publicizing technique that is also cost-effective for promoting any product, service, or business. In this post, we will dive deep into the world of billboard advertising to understand how it works and what different types of billboard advertisements can work for your business. So let us get started right away-

Table of Contents

Why use Billboards?

Print ads are viral because of their low costs and more effectiveness. Among the various types of print ads like newspaper ads and magazine ads, there are billboard ads as well.

Billboards are enormous printed structures that are put up on roads or in public places.

There can be many advantages to it like attracting more audiences and mostly, everyday people.

It has been observed in many surveys and studies that billboard advertisements have the most considerable number of audiences and impressions.

They have achieved excellent results for many products and services. Businesses have prospered dynamically after deploying the right techniques of billboard advertisements.

What are the factors that influence Billboard Cost?

The Billboard advertising cost lies with these three main factors which need to be considered-

1. Circulation of traffic in the area

The billboards should be located in a place where there is maximum circulation of traffic occurs. This traffic will form the audiences that the advertisement has targeted.

The information regarding the traffic in that area can be found out from the local authorities and the local people residing in that area. The more the traffic around the billboard, the more is the cost of advertising on billboards.

2. Demographics of the traffic

Demographics can be defined as the study of the population and its attributes. These attributes may include age, gender, occupation, and the income level of that population. This data can be used for generating information of the audiences to be targeted. Billboard cost depends on the demographics of the area as well.

3. Impressions of the billboard

Impression is a term used to express the number of people who come across the advertisement. It can be accredited to the demographics of the traffic and the size of the billboard.

The creativity used to design the billboard is also instrumental in enhancing its impression. Naturally, if you want to run a creative campaign, Billboard advertising cost might go further up.

So how much does a Billboard Cost?

As discussed above, the cost of renting a billboard might vary on 3 different factors and any of the 3 factors can influence the cost. In fact, you can see this Quora thread if you want to see New york’s Billboard costs, If we wanted to average it across the US, here are the averages

• Digital Billboards – $2000 to $9000 per month
• Large Billboards Or Bulletins – $400 to $1600 per month
• Medium Billboards or Posters – $600 to $3500 per month
• Small Billboards or Junior posters – $400 to $900 per month

Types of Billboards

Billboard advertising is a popular method of publicity. The audiences that get targeted through billboard advertising are huge, and hence, its impact is also massive. There are two main types of billboards based on their essential characteristics.

1) Physical billboards

These billboards are painted or printed physically. They have many subtypes like traditional billboards, poster-like billboards, and vinyl billboards. They are bright and have a glossy appearance.

There are traditional ways to advertise your service or product using a physical billboard.

2) Dynamic billboards

With the advancements in technology, physical billboards have transformed into dynamic billboards. They have pictures and sketches which are in motion. They create a better and lasting impact on the audiences. Also, one billboard can be used in many ways for many ads by changing the graphics on them. Hence, they are mostly reusable.

Nowadays, with changing trends, electronic billboard advertising, and mobile advertising are also gaining lots of prevalence. Let us go through these as well-

3) Electronic Billboards

Electronic billboard advertising is highly popular these days. You must have noticed appealing LED billboards in large urban markets.

The brightness and the superb creativity of these billboards can transfix anyone, and hence, they don’t let individuals concentrate upon stationary billboards. What is the most fantastic thing about electronic Billboard Advertising is that the message can be tweaked anytime as per the requirements.

Moving pictures, top-notch quality, and exciting visuals make such billboards quite apt for promoting products or services. The most significant advantage of the electronic bulletin is that you can change your message over and over.

What’s more, when you need to change or alter your commercial, you can do it by simply sitting before the PC, and you would not be required to send a team up on the board to do it.

Where you can use Electronic Billboards?

Businesses can get their electronic board introduced outside a superstore, food-street, park, central market, huge buildings, and so on.

Such use of electronic billboards makes it a powerful local advertising medium.

Times Square is one such place where you can see many electronic billboards working simultaneously. Any place you go, you may see these sparkling, brilliant, and vivified electronic billboards. Various urban places have various sorts of electronic billboards what you will find in California that things will be entirely different in Las Vegas.

Electronic Billboard Ad Tips

• In your billboards, you can plug different events, sales, products, or services. You should wisely invest your money in such ads, and that is why choosing the right billboard advertising agency is vital here.
• You can likewise put a simple token code on your electronic billboard, and afterwards, you can see the favourable response. Tokens that are given with billboard ads are in reality just a motivating force for a potential customer to buy that item.
• With your electronic billboards, you should get your story straight, plus the ad should be short, sweet, and safe. You should also make your ad colourful and location-driven to make them useful.

4) Mobile Billboards

This form of billboard advertising is the most recent and one of the best techniques in the marketing and advertising world. Many entrepreneurs and sponsors have come up with such imaginative approaches for viably conveying their messages to the general population. They use vehicles like trucks for doing effective mobile advertising of their brand, product, or service.

Mobile billboard advertisements are generally displayed on the flatbeds of trailers or trucks that are going to tour around to the key places for ensuring the most encompassing presentation of specific items or organizations.

As a matter of fact, along with the static vinyl-type mobile billboard promotions that we see on truck flatbeds, many businesses additionally utilize mammoth LED billboard ads that show various pictures each for 5 to 10 seconds.

Let us have a look upon the benefits of Mobile LED Billboard Advertising-

Features of Mobile LED Billboards

• With mobile LED billboards, it is almost impossible for anyone to disregard these appealing ads. Such ads comprise an effective in-your-face strategy that dexterously pull-in the purchasers.
• Mobile LED billboards makes all the more long-lasting impressions to buyers because mobile advertisement trucks have pre-decided courses (the businesses choose these) that they over and over move through inside a 5-day time frame or 40 hours in a week. However, this scheduling may vary with different companies.
• Your target audiences will never feel exhausted or bored while taking a gander at your advertisements. With such ads, you will give your customers a genuine opportunity to roll out some customary improvements or enhancements to update and engage them.
• Mobile LED Billboard advertising is less expensive than many other types of advertising means such as infomercials, paper advertisements, or radio ads. With adept management and excellent negotiation, you can do cost-effective advertising via billboards.

Advantages of Advertising on Billboards

Printed ads are significant and crucial in the marketing scheme of any company. The physical and dynamic billboards have many advantages. Some of them are listed below.

1. Less expensive than other advertising methods:

The ads which are done on television cost hefty amounts. The ads that are done on billboards are less expensive. Also, physical billboards cost less than dynamic billboards.

2. More established inventory and infrastructure:

Billboards have been in the market for a long time. Hence, people have a lot of experience of working in that field. They know how to design a perfect billboard for the right products and services in the best possible way.

3. Physical billboards have no glitches:

Advertisements on TV and radio have technical glitches. Also, dynamic billboards have shortcomings of damage or malfunctioning of the light-emitting diodes (LEDs). But, physical billboards have no such glitches and flaws.

4. Flexibility in the content on dynamic billboards:

Dynamic billboards are highly advanced concerning the technology used there. It is effortless to change the content displayed on these billboards. Also, one billboard can be used efficiently for many ads by changing their content.

Tips to Create Effective Effective Billboards

There are specific tips that can ascertain the success of an advertisement done on a billboard. Given below are some of those tips.

1. The location is instrumental

The location where the billboards are to be put up should be taken into consideration as it plays a massive role in the success of a billboard advertisement.

The advertisement on the billboard should reflect the surroundings and the location where it is located.

2. Keep it simple yet bold

A billboard should be catchy and bold. It should attract passersby and create an impact on them. Yet, it should not lack simplicity. Too flashy or glamorous billboards are disruptive and distracting.

Hence, boldness and simplicity should be in the correct proportion in a billboard advertisement.

3. Make the content memorable

When one looks at a billboard, he/she should be able to keep in mind and not forget it easily. The content or the design should be so memorable that one hardly forgets it quickly.

Here, creativity can pick up the lion’s share. A creative and beautifully designed billboard grabs the attention immediately ad makes the content memorable.

4. Keep the content interactive

Every viewer likes interactive content. If someone can get to think and respond to the content, the billboard advertisement gets the audiences involved.

The content should be thought-provoking.

5. The logo size is important

When a company promotes its product among the people, it wants the viewers to know about the company. One of the identifiable entities for any company is its logo. The logo size should be such that it can be noticed quickly and yet not be bulky and space-consuming.

6. Content of seven words or less than that

A person who is driving or merely passing by on foot has no time to stop by and read one whole paragraph or a massive block of text. Hence, surveys have shown that only seven or lesser number of words can be read in a glance which lasts for 5-10 seconds.

7. Do not distract the viewer

The viewers who pass on that road have very little time. Hence, the billboard should be noticeable even from a long distance. However, there should not be any distraction caused to the drivers or even pedestrians. It may lead to minor or also significant mishaps, and this is not desirable.

Final Thoughts about Billboards for Business!

Advertisements are a crucial point in the marketing of any product or service offered by a company. Billboard advertisements are viral and successful. In the text given above, there are types, advantages, and tips for creating a billboard advertisement.

Advertising strategies have genuinely gone to an entirely different imaginative level – the new field of marketing and advertising is genuinely found on the boulevards and urban streets today.

So, if you do not consider new ideas and think outside the box while using billboard advertising, you will wind up eating the dust of other market players. Along these lines, while it is still early, make a point to make the most out of billboard advertising to get more favourable outcomes.