Advertising on billboards is big business and has been for many decades, gaining its popularity as the nation began driving. Every year companies spend over $5 billion dollars on billboard advertising. If they’re done right, they attract the attention of thousands of passing motorists and can leave a lasting impression in their minds.

Billboard advertising is a large-scale, high impact method of advertising and can be extremely cost effective in letting people know you’re serious about your business. It can be aimed at reaching a broad demographic group, such as interstate advertising, or can be more tightly targeted to deliver your message to a particular community, depending on where you choose to place your ad.

Billboard Advertising is Different

There are differences in billboard advertising you should be aware of if you’re contemplating using this medium for your message. For one thing, your prospect is most likely moving, and depending on the location of the billboard, may be moving at a rapid speed. For this reason, wording on billboards needs to be kept to a minimum. You want to get your message across in the fewest words possible.

The use of color is vitally important in billboard advertising. Often you have mere seconds to grab the attention of passing motorists, so colors should be brilliant, vibrant, and eye pleasing. The more of your message you can deliver in picture form, the more effective you use your billboard advertising space.

The biggest mistake many novice advertisers make using billboard advertising for the first time is trying to include too much information. Their thinking may be “Hey, I’m paying for all that space, I should make the most of it.” This type thinking will almost always lead to poor results. Billboard advertising needs to be quick and easy to read, without a lot of details that only clutter the space and dilute the effectiveness of the ad.

Mobile Billboard Advertising

Mobile advertising is rapidly growing in popularity as an extremely effective means of billboard advertising. It can be even more narrowly targeted than traditional billboards. Mobile advertising includes placing billboard messages on trucks or vans, and can be moved from one location to another to reach different demographic groups, such as those attending sporting events, concerts, or even beach goers.

These billboards are large and usually at eye level and moving, which means they draw the eyes of people around them. They get read, and isn’t that the point of advertising? These mobile messages are unique and draw attention wherever they go.

New Trends in Billboard Advertising

With the quantum leaps in technology, there are options for billboard advertisers today that weren’t a possibility even as recently as just a few years ago. Computerized billboards now allow for a changing message, sliding, flipping, or rotating ads in eye-popping colors that stand out even at night, when many static billboards seem to fade into the darkness. The cost associated with such billboards may be less than you think, as some rent space to multiple advertisers, evenly rotating different ads, effectively lowering the cost for each advertiser.