Billboard advertising isn’t always easy. If you’re not an out-of-home pro it can be tough to know exactly what steps occur from an idea’s conception to a billboard’s eventual installation. Luckily, DOmedia has created a five-step process to take your billboard from ideation to installation in the most simple terms possible. If any of this seems overwhelming, you can always find an agency or technology solution that will handle everything for you.
Step One: Determine Your Objective
What is the purpose of this billboard going to be? Is your business opening a new location, launching a new product, or attempting to bring traffic to a web page? Are you highlighting an upcoming sale, or simply just trying to gain brand awareness? When deciding the purpose of a billboard, make sure it’s singular and action-oriented.
Step Two: Design Your OOH Display
Now that the billboard’s central goal has been determined, it’s time to create an attention-grabbing visual to convey your message. Readability is the main thing to consider when designing a billboard. Make sure your message is concise enough to be understood in ~2-4 seconds, and that it’s displayed in a bold, clear font that’s impossible to misinterpret.
Readability isn’t the only element of billboard design. Check out this post from the DOmedia blog for a more comprehensive list of billboard design tips.
Step Three: Find the Perfect Venue
Finding the perfect location for your billboard advertisement is crucial. To maximize your return on investment you’ll need to be reaching the right audience, at the right time, in the right way. Factors such as exposure, visibility, and target audience demographics are essential when determining if a particular venue is ideal for your OOH campaign.
Consider using DOmedia, the home to the largest database of OOH vendors in the USA, to help facilitate your search!
Step Four: Installation and Takedown
Now that you’ve designed your visuals and found the perfect location you must have your billboard installed so that people can begin to engage with your OOH offering. If you are running your ad on a traditional billboard the final step in the process is to hire a vinyl professional to install (and eventually, uninstall) your ad at it’s desired location. However, if you’re running your ad on a digital screen you won’t need to do this, and you can likely just send your artwork to the contractor directly to have them display it instead. Either way, most billboard vendors will handle this step for you (for a small fee).
If you’re interested in seeing the billboard installation process in action, check out this video.
Step Five: Analyze the Results
The fifth and final step is to look back at the ad you’ve just run and to try to determine how effective it was. Consider metrics like Cost per Thousand Impressions (CPM), and the average time the ad was viewed for. By doing so you’ll know if your ad was successful, and if there’s anything about it you should consider changing in the future.
Hopefully, this five step-process enables you, and your business to reach new heights the next time you run an OOH billboard campaign!
