This past weekend I took a trip to Louisville with Rachel to experience some of the sights and sounds. On the drive back I started noticing some things that made me start to contemplate different types of marketing.
When we passed cities on the freeway… there were plenty of billboards announcing everything from a hospital to your local fast food chain. Some of the billboards made complete sense and others did not. There are really two types of billboards that make sense to me in the marketing realm:
1. Local Services – This billboard is announcing either a gas station, hotel chain, and restaurant that is available for the local consumer to frequent while driving by the exit on the freeway.
2. Entertainment – You experience this type of billboard while driving past cities that have entertainment value like casino or museum of interest.
They made complete sense to me. If you have a billboard and your restaurant is off the exit… why not advertise that a driver could eat at your establishment. Same goes for entertainment… makes sense right? Maybe?
The billboards that make no sense are the ones that are for brand value only. Why would you be spending that much money on something just for an intangible brand value?
Are you measuring anything from that billboard? Probably not. This is a huge problem… and it is time to change. NOW.
Let’s talk about the spend.
An average spend for a monthly billboard is said to be around $3000 – $5000 per month if you buying advertising on a major highway. Let’s look at Facebook advertising at that amount.
This is an example of a daily Facebook ad campaign:
For those of you not in the Facebook game. You can buy ads on Facebook that will direct market to any segment, age, demographic, or user information you can possibly think of… any user segment. If you want to market to divorced women within a ten mile radius of a certain zip code… you can do it. Did I mention you only pay-per-click?
There was an ad spend of $305.20 over the course of a week which garnered 785,000 impressions of unique niche individuals and 987 clicks.
When you are buying a billboard the salesmen usually tries to sell you on the amount of eyeballs that will be driving past your billboard. The amount of eyeballs? If you are not measuring the amount of eyeballs that actually result in some type of ACTION it is a terrible spend in the marketing world.
Let’s look at what a $3000 a month spend on Facebook would get you in clicks and impressions assuming you are spending $100 a day. $100 a day will gain (on average) 250,000 impressions if you are using Facebook ad campaign the right way.
250,000 impressions x 30 days = 7,500,000 impressions
394 clicks x 30 days = 11,820 clicks
Let me be clear… this is niche marketing. We are marketing a message to individuals based on their needs, wants, and desires not because they are driving a vehicle.
Even if your clientele is not using Facebook wouldn’t you think an integrated strategy with email and direct mail (that is measured) is a better spend than a billboard?
Integrated marketing is not about finding multiple channels to deliver one message but finding multiple aspirational, generational, transactional, and psychological aspects of each consumer AND THEN finding the tool that will best deliver that… unique message.
Or.. you can keep marketing to drivers.
Jason Keath
You are basically saying there is no sense in advertising (despite the medium) if all you are after is brand awareness. I think it would be silly for some, but for large brands, getting the name and logo and tag line of your current campaign in front of large audiences of any kind is important.
If Coca-Cola took down all their billboards tomorrow, their sales would go down. It is much harder to measure and much less targeted, agreed. Buit it is an incredibly hard thing to a brand into the mind of the consumer consistently so that it is there, in the front of your mind, in the buying moment.
It makes much more sense for Coca-Cola to do billboards than it does Facebook ads since it is guaranteed that I am out of the home when seeing the billboard, which is where I buy Coca-Cola. (They should really do both, but for different reasons)
In reality, it comes down to the exact business case. And doing both probably makes sense for many. But I think in general, billboards can make a lot of sense for a lot of situations and should not be written off because you can get better tracking on eyeballs online.
kylelacy
Okay. If you are dealing with brands with a billion dollar marketing budget… that makes complete sense. I'm with you on that.
kylelacy
Jason… for some reason my last comment didn't post… this is what I am saying..
I agree with you on the multi-billion dollar ad campaigns that want to spend on billboards. However, most people can't afford to buy up huge amounts of integrated marketing whether it is newspapers, billboards, directmail, or text messaging. They need to be smart in the way they spend their ad dollars.
If you are spending $60,000 a year on billboards and you are not measuring the return… when your budget is $250,000 a year… you are missing out on budget reallocation that will further your marketing spend… and increase sales.
scloho
Kyle, I agree with your comments regarding the good billboards. And I have never ever clicked on a Facebook ad.
This got me thinking, what is the real difference between a highway billboard and a targeted Facebook ad.
While I'm driving, or riding as a passenger, I have fewer items vying for my attention than when I'm online.
The radio, my wife, other traffic, that's about it. And then when a big colorful sign appears in the distance, my eyes and mind wander to give it a glance and evaluate if it is relevant to me.
Online, I'm looking for stuff. I'm already reading. There are between 6 and 16 tabs open on my browser and I screen out as much as possible to avoid brain explosion. I don't need an ad to distract or entertain me.
So the value of the billboard is higher in terms of the possibility that I'll see it and read it. That's one of the reasons they are priced significantly more.
Then there is the theory that all marketing is measurable in terms of Return on Investment which I find false.
And I work in the advertising world.
Unless there one and only one form of marketing for a specific business, it is impossible to tell which ad or marketing piece caused a person to buy.
Yellow Pages used to conduct surveys to prove their value to their big clients like plumbers, for example, that used the phone to connect with customers. When asked how did you hear about us, the phone book was pretty popular since that was the last form of media that a customer used to look up the plumbers phone number.
But why choose plumber A over plumber B? Name recognition, brand awareness, word of mouth, all beat the phone book advertisement. This is impossible for us to measure with 100% accuracy due to human nature, memory and similar factors.
I could go on and on, but the main point is comparing Facebook Ads with Highway Billboards is like comparing pecan pie with an ipad. Both have their own purposes.
kylelacy
couple of points scloho… great post by the way:
I think you missed my point. I know the title is a little extreme. I'm not saying that using a billboard is not a good idea. I'm saying that you need to measure the whether or not the billboard is actually being viewed.
There are ways to measure all forms of marketing… word-of-mouth and referrals are all intangible that come with good service… not good marketing (in my opinion).
You can't justify the reason why Facebook ads (being targeted or not) are not viable because YOU do not click them. The point of this weeks post on the blog is to make the case for niche, targeted, and measured marketing that can be traced and point all the way back to your sale.
Spend $5000 a month on a billboard and then sit back and say we received brand awareness? It is the dumbest thing I have ever heard! I can take $60,000 a year and do direct digital variable printed post cards and get a higher return that is all measured from the source of the ad spend.
THAT is true marketing.
scloho
An integrated marketing and advertising program works best depending on how much money they have to spend.
Kyle, I like to use the term marketing to cover everything that presents a business to their customer. This includes signage on their building and trucks, customer relationship building activities, etc, along with paid advertising.
This is a fun topic to discuss, thanks for bringing it up!
Ben
scloho maybe we need to rethink the definition of marketing if you toss all the above into it. Existing customers, friends, family members, etc. are all inside your circle of influence. They've met you, interacted with you, etc. In my opinion, the purpose of marketing is to attract those outside your circle of influence.
The service you provide to your existing customers and new customers determines if your circle of influence grows or shrinks. Generally a referral is a result of good service, not good marketing though that may not always be the case (i.e. my friend heard your ad on the radio and told me about your company).
scloho
You are right Ben, I use the term Marketing to cover any and all influences that help a person decide to or decide not to do business with you.
We have more control over these things than we often realize.
Chuck Gose
This is an interesting topic to discuss Kyle. I'd be curious to see a billboard company provide their "sales pitch" as to the roles that brands play in their sales process.
In some communities, billboards are a controversial topic, especially digital ones. Often times, the old school printed billboards are viewed as eyesores and the digital billboards are labeled a distraction to drivers.
But as you've said, I'm sure there that the nearby venues (such as restaurants) are currently seeing some value out of the placement. But when things like the 4G connected car aren't that far away (http://www.ngconnect.org/ecosystem/connected-car.htm), will billboards as we know them be a thing of the past? Will brands advertise directly inside our cars?
kylelacy
Good point Chuck. However… without 4q being used by a huge amount of people you can't discount the billboard salesman saying we get 465,009,903 eyeballs looking at your billboard everyday. Thanks for the link by the way… that is awesome!
Chuck Gose
You are correct that 4G is very much in its infancy but when launched will show that people will be viewing data in a whole new way.
Serina Kelly
But trips without billboards would make it very difficult for this mom to play the alphabet game with the kids! I know we have DVD players or the games on their phones to keep them company, but we have to take a break now and then and have some good old fashion travel games, right :)?
Brett Atkin
Since a previous commenter mentioned Yellow Pages, what do you think about their billboards around 465 here in Indianapolis. I know I'm getting older, but there is a YP billboard on the north side of Indy on the side opposite my travel direction that is not only angled poorly but about impossible to read because the text is so small given the distance from the sign and the average speed of a car. Now that is stupid billboard marketing. And I think it reflects poorly on YP.
Ben
Brett many moons ago I used to work for Infinite Graphics Technology (http://web1.userinstinct.com/16670961-infinite-graphics-technology-inc.htm) a billboard printing company here in Indy. We used to crack up all the time to see the stuff that came through. It was grossly obvious which designers had a handle on designing for billboards and which didn't. Small fonts and lots of text do not work for billboard ads.
robbyslaughter
Quick, which car company makes the Corolla?
You said Toyota. It doesn't matter if you're in the market for a car. It doesn't matter if you only buy foreign cars. Almost everybody knows this because Toyota has spent zillions of dollars establishing this brand.
Sometimes, billboards are designed with a specific call to action, like "Lunch special, $5.99, next exit!" But much of the time they are about reinforcing brand concepts to keep them top of mind.
You can measure brand recall through surveying people. You can also measure whether branding strategies are effective by connecting with people at the point of sale.
So, billboards are not stupid. They are just a relic of an era in which there was only mass media.
Bob Golobish
Your example "Lunch special, $5.99, next exit!" made me think of this one. I see it often. "XYZ University, Dream! Achieve!" ($30,000 to $100,000 sticker price and somewhere up ahead) Do you think it makes sense for colleges and university to use billboard advertising? Some of the big name institutions receive so much publicity from their athletic programs that I wonder why they advertise.
Bob Golobish
Great post. Very insightful. I think it is helpful to begin by focusing on the decision maker, i.e., prospective customer, then craft the message, select messenger, and then the communications tactic that can deliver the message to the prospective customer. And, you need a tracking mechanism to see if it is working. Yes, it makes a lot of sense to promote local services, i.e., have a billboard that promotes a restaurant near an intersection. The people in the car may very well be hungry! The local restaurant owner will find out pretty quickly if they are.
Unfortunately, in marketing there is a lot of pressure to do what everyone else is doing, regardless of whether or not it is effective. Mass communications is still popular with the older generation. I have heard it a hundred times: "They advertise. They use tv commercials, radio ad, newspaper ads, magazine ads and billboards. We should too. When are we going to start? He is an expert and he says we should. She is an expert and she says we should. Everybody is advertising. By the way, we need more PR, too. We need to get the word out. And, advertising and PR is the way to do that." To some extent, when you start to use these very expensive tactics these people think you are more legitimate and credible.
kylelacy
I think that is the paradigm shift that needs to happen…. the cost of a product or service doesn't necessarily show the value. It is a hard nut to crack if the decision maker is stuck in the old school way of thinking. It is time to shift and make a difference in the marketing world.
tom
A company has a patent pending on a high res camera that will be attached to a billboard and will actually be able to zoom into a car passing by and detect how many people viewed their ad. That way you can track the results.
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Blacksmith
I have a question…considering what has been said about billboards, would it make more cents (pardon the pun) to give out t-shirts with your advertising on them?
Making Marketing Count, Test Marketing | redwall LIVE Marketing
[…] of your market based on search and see what message gets the best response. A friend Kyle Lacy a Social Media Trainer blogged even about how you can target specific people with specific […]
Making marketing count, test marketing | Redwall
[…] of your market based on search and see what message gets the best response. A friend Kyle Lacy a Social Media Trainer blogged even about how you can target specific people with specific […]