Should You Use Billboards? The Powers and Pitfalls to Remember

Brandon Welch 0:00
Every single day, no matter what your business is doing, that’s how you build a tomorrow customer, just like you build a good friend, just like you build strong relationships, you are showing up to people daily. And while the market may not allow you to go, you know all 80,000 people that drive by your billboard this week need what you do, or maybe very, very few of them. And maybe, maybe, maybe you’re a plumber, and by the time they’re in their car, they’ve either got the problem solved or they’re not aware that it exists yet. Yeah, the point is to make them not just aware of you, but to like you and to bond with you.

Welcome to the Maven Marketing Podcast. Today is Maven Monday. I am your host. Brandon Welch, I’m here with Caleb Agee, the co host, and I have a question, yeah, are we having fun? We’re having fun. Are you having fun? I’m having fun. This is such a blast. This has been such a wild ride. Already, energy is high. People are responding. We appreciate the likes and comments so much. And just the response and the mission that we’re filling here is already way farther along than I thought it would be. And yeah, so thank you for being here. Thank you for all the people who have subscribed and sent us questions. Speaking of good energy, why did the bicycle fall over? I don’t know, because it was too tired. So every week we are taking your real life marketing questions so that you can eliminate waste in advertising, grow your business and help you achieve the big dream. And we have some great questions today from some awesome business owners, don’t we?

Caleb Agee 1:32
Yeah, we’ve got, I’ve heard you may have seen it in the title, but today is all about billboards, bill

Brandon Welch 1:38
boards. Who’s bill? Who’s billboard? Yeah, maybe we’ll find out by hand. Well,

Caleb Agee 1:44
this is some good jokes we’re laying down here. So Lori and Deanna both sent a very, very similar question.

Brandon Welch 1:51
So if you’ve ever wondered, oh, similar question about billboards, so happened to happen in like, the same few days we’re planning this podcast. But, yeah, if you ever wonder about billboards, today is the episode for you. We’re gonna go through. Should you use them? Why should you use them? When do they work and how do they work? And start us off with Deanna. All

Caleb Agee 2:11
right, so Deanna says, I have a med spa. Brandon goes often,

Brandon Welch 2:16
no, I’m just I may or may not know that.

Caleb Agee 2:18
No, I have been getting proposals from marketing salespeople, and I’m thinking about doing a billboard. My question to you is, with a limited marketing budget, should I invest about $1,200 a month in a billboard rotation, or should I put that money somewhere else?

Brandon Welch 2:36
Wow, great question. So Med Spa, these are pretty luxury services, right? I think, yeah, I think that’s what Deanna is trying to serve. Who she’s trying to serve the best, right? Yeah, any of us could probably use a med spa, but probably only the fanciest of us do, right? Yeah, us. I don’t know. I may or may not be in that category, but so the way the question was asked, I’m going to answer it the best, just flat on, flat on, straight on, head, on, whatever you prefer, whichever way I’m going to say, probably not. Okay. And here’s why. The way the question was asked is, I have a limited marketing budget, and should I put that money somewhere else, or should I spend it on billboards that usually means somebody’s looking for a quick result. And Deanna, if that’s not you, I have another answer here in just a minute. We’re gonna get to kind of the best uses for billboard, but knowing deanna’s category, I would say probably not, and knowing if she’s wanting that quick result, probably, they’re probably asking her to spend, you know, that, $1,200 for six months minimum, yeah, and you’re gonna go, oh, wow, I’ve spent like $10,000 by the end of a ton of paid for our work and all that. And I just don’t think you’re gonna see the short term result that is not made. Billboards don’t work, but they do not work usually for the today customer. Okay, tell us what the today customer is, yeah. So

Caleb Agee 4:04
remind us today customer is somebody who already needs what you have, what you’re selling today. So if Deanna is doing micro needling or permanent makeup or laser hair removal, whatever that looks like, if I’m a today customer, it needs it means I’ve decided that I need laser hair removal today, or I woke up and my face looked like trash and I was tired of putting on makeup. So don’t talk about yourself that way. Don’t talk about my friend Caleb

Brandon Welch 4:34
like that. Talk about my friend Caleb.

Caleb Agee 4:37
No, I just I get tired of putting on makeup every day and taking it back off. And so you may, you may have decided that permanent makeup was what you wanted, that

Brandon Welch 4:46
did Deanna do this nice? Yeah, beer that you have is that permanent?

Caleb Agee 4:49
This is permanent makeup. Yeah, I just scribble it in

Brandon Welch 4:53
exactly. So the day customer, they already have the need, pain, hope or fear that they’re looking for a solution or would respond to a solution today. Do. And so keep in mind the Med Spa customer. And if, if, if I was wrong about what I just said, here’s why I would be wrong. Okay, if Deanna does have an an offer that is that has mass appeal, okay, to a lot of people, and she can make some sort of very quick, credible offer that’s probably based on price, or maybe hassle, like, like a today type offer, yep, you know, maybe laser hair removal for $99 some sort of loss leader, well, everybody else charges 840 or something, something that’s going to get somebody’s attention who goes, maybe I wasn’t actively driving or looking for a laser hair removal, but, man, I’ve been thinking about that, and that would pull me into your yes to your world that could work, okay, work or Botox for $9 a unit. And I cannot disclose how, but I happen to know Botox in most places is like 12 or 15 or $18 a unit. Right, your forehead creases are looking real good. So something that you can make. Yeah, I don’t use Botox, but that’s all I’m gonna say about that. I do happen to know that it costs $9 a unit. Okay? Shout out to Dr Reynolds. So what are we doing there? We’re doing a mass appeal someone, something that somebody already knows about, that doesn’t take any explanation, right, especially if it’s a billboard, right? And I can just say you’ve heard about it. You know what it costs. I got it for less. Yep, and call me or drive around the corner and find me right,

Caleb Agee 6:29
because you don’t have any time to explain correct? So some of these medical spa treatments are pretty hefty. Yeah, it’s, they’re, they’re really powerful. They make good results. But if they’re not household known. Everybody knows what laser hair removal is. Takes a sophisticated pitch, right? Yeah. So if it’s something you can sell me on really quickly, that’s that’s the

Brandon Welch 6:49
answer. So if you are location driven, have a transactional high need business. Um, billboards can be a good way to get business today. So think McDonald’s, truck stops, entertainment venues, the gun show coming up this weekend, the fair the fair churches, anybody that needs church, lots of people, right? Mass Appeal, right? Yep. So good uses for today, customer billboards, like when you’re trying to get that immediate action, are that and you have to pair that with a very, very easy to understand, already understood value offer so complex services like med spas not going to get the today reaction, probably. And I don’t think Deanna wants to sell Botox for $9 a unit, but there is a very, very, very good use for billboards. And we spend lots of money on billboards for our clients. And I would say that that is for the tomorrow customer, if you’re not one of these transactional event driven high location people buy it everyday. Businesses, yeah, tell us about the tomorrow customer. Yeah.

Caleb Agee 8:01
So the tomorrow customer is somebody who isn’t your customer today. They don’t need what you’re selling right now, but they will eventually right so they haven’t realized their need, or they haven’t come to that moment where they need what you’re selling. Yes. So plumbers, yeah, you don’t call them till it’s broke. Yes. Auto Repair, probably, or

Brandon Welch 8:23
Exactly, yeah. Mechanics, plumbers, roofers, think things that either happen big ticket, items that happen all at once, and people wait a way a long, long, long time to buy them. So what? Why would we want to advertise using a billboard? There? Billboard superpower is showing up to a lot of people at one time, okay, like better than any other media, dollar for dollar, the amount of people you reach is super, super high, like, almost as high as TV. So for the nerds, the media nerds, we have billboards that we are able to reach people for, like, $2 cost per 1000. For every $2 we’re spending, we’re reaching 1000 people. You’ll hear that a CPM, yeah, it’s called CPM, if you ever seen that. And TV, like, even the best, most efficient TV, is probably the neighborhood of, you know, $5 which is still really, really good. Yeah. Facebook and digital advertising can be as high as 50 or $60 cost per 1000. So the dollar you pay to the billboard company is reaching a lot of people. If you buy it in the right high visibility area, your billboard sales person can help you figure that out, but just count on them, as long as you’re not buying one in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of nowhere, or or maybe middle nowhere, but just buying it appropriately, like high visibility areas is what you want, right? Yep, that’s the billboard strength. And so what is the best way to build a tomorrow customer? Like, how do we build and reach them?

Caleb Agee 9:54
Yeah, we talked about that a lot. I think it’s just showing up every day, consistently in their life. Bond. With them building relationships.

Brandon Welch 10:01
What about on Christmas, yes. What about when it’s raining? Oh yeah. What about when my competitor comes into town and they’re kicking my butt? Do I still advertise even better? Yeah? What about pandemic supposing? Oh yeah. One of those, yeah. Hopefully every single day, no matter what your business is doing, that’s how you build a tomorrow customer, just like you build a good friend, just like you build strong relationships, you are showing up to people daily. And while the market may not allow you to go, you know, all 80,000 people that drive by your billboard this week need what you do, or maybe very, very few of them. And maybe, maybe, maybe you’re a plumber, and by the time they’re in their car, they’ve got the problem solved, or they’re not aware that it exists yet. Yeah, the point is to make them not just aware of you, but to like you and to bond with you. Yeah. And so we’re going to talk in a minute about how to make billboards worth the best and how to, you know, some of the principles you want to use when you’re actually going to your creative but just think about what mode. What we’re doing here is we’re we’re starting with strategy. Okay, yeah. We’re not saying, Should I do a billboard or Facebook or TV or radio? We’re saying, What do you want to make happen? Yeah, and so companies that are in long term buying cycles, your best bet is almost always to focus on that tomorrow customer that’s going to be far more profitable in the long run. And so that’s kind of, that’s kind of guiding my media decisions, yes. And then is it billboard versus some of the other tomorrow strong medias, billboards work really great at reaching a lot of people. Their weakness is it’s very, very small amount of words, right? Very short message, yeah. So if you don’t have anything else going on, like, if you don’t have a well tuned TV or radio campaign, a billboard alone is going to make it really hard for people to understand who you are and why they should care about you, yep, unless you have a really good copywriter or really visually pleasing product or something like that, yeah? Like something you can really earn attention. Yes, it’s not impossible, but it’s probably not the best way, because you’re gonna need a little longer. You’re gonna need that 32nd ad, yeah, in that, in that time to build So short answer for Deanna, probably not good for today customers, you’re probably gonna be going, Man, I wish I would had done something a little bit more targeted, at least, to get you to that higher advertising budget, if, if $1,200 is, yeah, you know of concern that you probably do need to spend that somewhere else. But if you’re a well branded company, it is a fantastic way to add impressions and get people to remember what they already know about you. That kind of leads us to Lori’s question.

Caleb Agee 12:38
Yep. So Lori’s question is, I have an estate planning law firm with nine locations. I’ve done some billboards in conjunction with my TV campaign. So she’s running TV, okay, but I’m thinking about adding more in smaller towns that I serve. Is this a good idea? And what should I say to get the best impact? So

Brandon Welch 13:02
nine locations, that tells us Lori is an extremely established business, right? That’s a great company, right? Yeah, hats off to Lori. I We know Lori. We’ve worked with Lori. She’s built a phenomenal business. Yeah, also happen to know Lori has a very, very cool TV campaign, and she has been committed to her audience for years, and has invested appropriately. And she’s like, You do not think about her category in the town she serves without thinking about her right? So she’s owning that. And so she’s saying, Okay, I’ve kind of got that going on for me already, but I’ve got these other smaller communities. And should I put a billboard there? Should I put the money more in, like a, you know, increasing my TV, radio budgets? Yeah. And I would, I would say to Lori, extremely good idea. Yeah. Because especially in smaller towns, that impact is even greater. But again, Billboard strength is reaching a lot of people at once, and you already have this awareness because your audience has seen you on TV. And so that’s like 30 more times a month, maybe even, maybe even 5060, more times a month. Yeah? Because you’re twice a day, if you Yeah, maybe driving home, driving to work, driving home, you’ve seen it twice, right? That is taking the kids to, you know, soccer practice. You see it all the time, yes, and you’re just, it’s a phenomenal way to increase what’s already established for you. If you’re a no name business, kind of hard. But this is not Lori. So she’s saying, so do more billboards in the smaller towns. I love that idea. And then she’s also saying, what is the best way, what’s the best messaging to use? And I I kind of pulled, actually, from the Maven method. This is in chapter 14 of the Maven marketer our book, page 161 has a lot more about this, but pull the top five like recommendations if you’re using billboards for tomorrow customer and you want to just compound that awareness and likeness. Of you. Yeah, here’s number one, high visibility wins. So do not buy half the billboard. Do not buy the billboard around back the Dairy Queen, not by the billboard that’s covered up by, you know, 10 other billboards, by the one that’s going to stand out, by the one that is not covered. And buy it on the right side of the road, so the people seeing it, right hand reads, yeah, left hand reads, even though you can buy them at a discount, a lot, lot harder to make an impact there, yeah. Um, so if you can help it do all, don’t do all of those things, but do not buy like this random rotation or small billboards, or try to save a little money, because you’re it’s not, it’s not scaling the result down just a little bit, it’s a lot. So if you’re not disrupting attention, you’re toast. Okay, high visibility wins two. This is hard for a lot of people, but use seven words or less.

Caleb Agee 16:00
That’s not very many in

Brandon Welch 16:02
that time that I just paused. You statistically, could not have read more than seven words, no and comprehended them, no, right? And that’s what happens at 55 miles an hour. Statistically, it’s possible, impossible for anybody to read more than seven words. So simplicity wins, and that is tough. And that is where the is, where the craft of having a Leslie on your team or a Carter on your team working for you, saying as little, saying the most amount of impact with least amount of words, yeah, is like gold for billboard writing, yeah, so.

Caleb Agee 16:39
And also, I’m going to add to that, because when you have a strong tomorrow campaign in other medias, yeah, TV or radio, what you you don’t really need to worry about writing. You probably, hopefully, if you’ve got a good TV or radio ad, there’s that hook, there’s that brandable chunk, there’s that like phrase that will recall. That’s that’s really what we’re trying to do, in that case, is just to remind them of the good feelings they had. You got to spend 30 seconds with them when they’re watching TV, and you got to sell a little bit more now you just need to remind me of those good feelings. Yes,

Brandon Welch 17:11
your TV ad might be 1000 bucks a pop one time, and the billboard is $1,000 a month, reaching 10s of 1000s of 1000s of people over and over and over. So if they’ve using the long form message on TV, they kind of sort of know about you already, and then the big thing just reminds them of what they already know. And all the better if it’s like a humorous thing or something that reinforces your personality, yeah, because you’re trying to make them bond with you. Yeah, as Roy would say, Williams would say, I’ll add to that.

Caleb Agee 17:40
You might even talk about this in a second, but putting a putting a face on it, putting some sort of connection, some sort of feeling that I can just bond with, even

Brandon Welch 17:49
though it’s going to seem cheesy to you and you’re going to feel like Billy Mays or something, yeah, put your face on the ad if you’re trying to build that relationship. People bond psychologically, subconsciously, with faces more than they do anything. Yeah, and that kind of leads to the to the next point, which is, use Stark simple graphics or pictures. Billboards are printed at such a low resolution you cannot get the detail. People aren’t going to notice the detail. It’s just going to confuse. So use solid color blocks. Probably avoid gradients and very, very stark images and like, two, three colors, maybe, right? Yeah, and you’re wanting to make those words as big as possible, and your personality, your likeness, as big as possible. Yes, if you have a really well done logo or really well done cartoon, we have a client that that does cartoons for their ads, that’s that use that sort of stuff. But yeah, not high detail, rich, deep graphics you want flat, easy to understand graphics and part of Stark can mean you can pay the billboard company extra to build like little 3d things that stick out beyond the you know, the record of the billboard? Yeah, I’m going totally blank. There’s a total there’s a name for that in the billboard industry. We’ll put that in the notes and billboard people, you can laugh at me. Yeah, we’ll have you on as an expert guest if you want. But use Stark symbol graphics. Use the catch phrases. This is tip number four, and images and similar styles to your other ads, the worst thing you can do is spend good money on a campaign that looks and feels different than your other ads. That happens a lot, not just in billboards, but

Caleb Agee 19:33
you’re diverging your all your efforts. You’re you’re advertising two different companies. Yeah, you’re competing

Brandon Welch 19:38
against yourself, yep. So make it, you know, start, obviously, with colors, but try to anchor your brand to these value statements and these same, you know, three to five things you say over and over. And Lori has a fantastic one of these. You know, she closes her ads with, they’re gonna, you’re, you’re gonna leave it all to them someday. And they should earn every penny, or they should keep every penny, sorry. And then she has some other, you know, free Second Opinion language. And just this the way people are used to seeing her talk over the years. And so what we want to do is take those phrases, and she actually, one really stark and awesome thing she does is she wears a white suit in every one of her ads, right? And so people know her and her team, yeah? And it’s like, there’s the lady in white, right? So last couple of tips, use one call to action. And you could go either phone number or URL. We have a whole episode on what to call to action is best and why? Yeah, but don’t try to put all of your website and your years in business and your phone number and find us on Facebook. Don’t put don’t try to do that. It’s not reasonable, I could argue, maybe even not using any call to action. But if you’re going to do one, do one, single one. Just probably make it the the inverted color one that’s down at the bottom, so it stands out, right? So billboards recap, yep, the best use for service companies and long term buying cycles is reminding people and connecting with your brand. It’s more of a branding effort. Yeah, don’t expect the phone to ring off the hook, but it’s a fantastic way to become the guy or gal in your category over time, and you’re investing in long term return. I’m not saying decades. I’m saying after a year or two, like, yeah, you’ll, you will feel the difference in growth if you have a very clear, commoditized today, customer type business. And you can use seven more words, you you can use billboards to get calls to action. Yep, McDonald’s next exit. Yep. Loves truck stop, yes, gun show this Saturday. Um, Bon Jovi is coming to town, like those sorts of things, timely, short term things that people are already desiring. Yeah, use it. But probably it’s the best branding mechanism. And so great questions from Deanna and Lori,

Caleb Agee 21:57
can I? Can I throw something at you? You throw it. Okay, this, this is on the fly. So we’re in the digital age, so we’ve got digital and printed billboards a lot, which nobody asked about that. But I feel like we need to cover this real quick in this episode. So obviously, you’ve got digital boards, usually are on a rotator, as in, well, they’re physically rotating, you know, a few different slides of ads, and then you could buy permanently. You got printed vinyl, put it up on a printed board. What are the just quick pros and cons of each

Brandon Welch 22:32
Yeah, I’ll go pros cons and I’ll go, how I make decisions. Okay? Pros of analog, you know, print billboards are that they say the same every time, and you get that repetition factor faster with the same audience. Okay? Pros of digital is in The Twilight Hours, they pop like crazy, and they get a lot more visibility. So even though you might be on them one out of eight times and you’re paying kind of the same amount of money, the impact is greater because it gets attention. And I’ll add artwork is free, and you can change the artwork instantly, at will, at will. Yeah, so I especially like Bill digital billboards if it’s near a stoplight and where I’m gonna have traffic backed up, because I know, just by the nature of that thing changing and the contrast people are going to look over, and so it’s almost the same value. If they’ve been sitting there for the stop lights more than, you know, 60 seconds or whatever, I’ll prefer a billboard or a digital every time. Okay, highways, I’m much more analog, if I can help. Because, you know highways is 6070,

Caleb Agee 23:42
miles an hour, one, maybe

Brandon Welch 23:44
two. Yeah, they’re gonna get a couple of those impressions. So, yeah, sometimes you can’t help it, and some. So I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t freak out and say, never do one or the other. But if you have a choice, and all of the things are the same, yeah, analog on highways, digital at stoplights. And if you have a campaign that you can utilize the digital nature and change out creative often, maybe prefer digital in that way,

Caleb Agee 24:09
because you’re going to pay more than $1,000 to reprint your vinyl printed board.

Brandon Welch 24:14
Yeah, right, yeah. It’s a couple grand, and it takes forever, yeah?

Caleb Agee 24:17
So you turn that art in, you got to wait three weeks. What about contracts specifically? So I know that’s a big it’s a big deal. It’s almost like you’re signing a lease agreement another and so they’re hard to get out of. They’re hard to get out of. What’s a what’s a typical contract? Link for a billboard, we see

Brandon Welch 24:38
the best rates come at 12 months, okay, or more, I would not plan to do a billboard if you don’t have, in your mind, your bank account and your tolerance to have it up for at least a year. Okay? It’s just a waste of my waste of money. Yeah, and waste is not a waste is not appropriate. But you’re just not going to met. You’re not going to reach that sweet spot. Where you’re going to feel it at all. So keep your money if you if that scares you, yeah. The only caveat to that would be if they’ll give you a few month contract on like a digital billboard, and you have an offer you want to test, yeah,

Caleb Agee 25:11
I’m fine with that. Or you have the show this weekend, right? Yeah, the show this weekend? Yeah, exactly, yeah. Do a real short term on that. But, and

Brandon Welch 25:19
if you have things like events, what will happen is, you go to a billboard company and say, Hey, I got three weeks to promote this. They’ll give you somewhat of a discounted rate to show up only on their like empty boards. Okay, that’s a good tactic if you have something like that, but otherwise, everyday business probably not. I wouldn’t do that, even if the rate’s super great. Yeah.

Caleb Agee 25:40
Okay, one last question in the speed round. You didn’t know we were doing this, so putting you on the spot, I like this. Last question is question I used the word rotator a second ago. But on digital boards, I know that sometimes there’s ownership of several digital boards in town by the same company, yeah, and they’ll sell you a package where it rotates across boards. You know, a different bad plan, not good. Bad

Brandon Welch 26:05
plan, because most the billboards highest and best use again, it’s tomorrow customers and when it’s different people, different routes, um, especially if it’s one side of the town today and then another side of town tomorrow. Bad plan, um, yeah, you want to own that corner. And the, you know, 50 100, 200,000 people that drive that route every day to work, that’s the magic of that repetition factor, yeah, and when it’s moving every time, they never, they never get comfortable with that. They don’t, they don’t adopt your likeness. So the billboard companies do have offers like that. And I’m not saying absolutely never, but I’m saying, unless you’ve got a really, really, really solid presence otherwise, and those are just icing on the cake. Yeah, I would pay higher money versus, you know, for an anchored spot versus discounted. I’m everywhere. Yeah, you’re just not gonna get traction. Okay, that was my last one. You have any others? That’s it. I think about Nate the camera guy. You have any questions?

Caleb Agee 27:08
He’s not no. Says Nate, shaking his head, no, don’t make me talk.

Brandon Welch 27:12
What a fun episode, and this is a kind of a narrow topic, but still, like there’s a lot of questions around that.

Caleb Agee 27:18
Yeah, well, I think a lot of times, and in life, we’ll go deep No. You have to decide what you what you believe about it, what you want from it, before the questions asked of you. And so oftentimes you end up with that salesperson coming to your door, and you’re like, I’ve never thought about billboards before, so we want to make sure we covered it early, absolutely so that you have thought about it and you have an answer. You know

Brandon Welch 27:44
best for long term thinkers, if you have a if you have a long term attitude about your business, and it’s like, I just know by people being encouraged or seeing me and me smiling at them, me having this good natured messaging over time, they’re gonna like me better. And I don’t. I don’t need to measure that on a spreadsheet and calculate how many people said they saw my Billboard, and that’s why they came in. That’s never gonna happen, by the way, if you, if you are okay with just accepting it as a trend over time, it’s very, very, very helpful, and I encourage you to do it, yeah, especially in conjunction with a good broadcast campaign. So, yeah, good stuff. We have some awesome topics coming up. Smash that Like button, as they say, five stars if you can muster it. If it’s four, give us a call and we’ll talk about it. We’ll talk about it, and then subscribe to the emails. We’re so thankful. We’re gonna keep doing this. We’re more on fire than ever about it. Yeah, anything else you want to say?

Caleb Agee 28:42
If you have a question, send them into Maven Monday at Frank and maven.com We’d love to get it in the rotation. We’ve got, we’ve got a list we were working through, and we’ll let you know when we air it so that you can we know you’re listening avidly to every single episode. Yeah. So

Brandon Welch 28:58
we’ll say hey, questions coming up in a couple episodes. Yeah, well, and we might even send you some swag or a book who knows, or assigned football by Nate the camera guy. We’ll be here everybody answering your marketing questions, because marketers who can’t teach you why are just a fancy lie. Thanks for watching, and have a great week.