When creating a billboard campaign, it can be tempting to focus solely on design. This is understandable — design is what captures the imagination and imparts the message. But how your billboard looks is only one piece of the puzzle. There are other crucial factors to consider, from crafting an effective buyer journey to measuring success.
In this article, we’ll highlight five essential steps you can follow to create powerful billboard campaigns that resonate with your target audience and drive engagement.
Step 1: Determine the critical success factors
For a billboard campaign to be successful, you first need to understand what success looks like. What goals are you aiming to achieve with the campaign? What metrics will you use to measure success? By starting at the end, you can optimise your campaign to deliver tangible results.
Out-of-home (OOH) advertising brings unique benefits compared with digital marketing. According to Route Data from 2023, 97% of all UK adults see an out-of-home ad each week, with 60% of all online spending done while people are outside of the home.
That said, billboard campaigns should be seen as an extension of your digital marketing efforts, not separate from them. By aligning your campaign goals with your broader marketing strategy, you can create a cohesive brand message that optimises your promotional efforts across different channels.
To measure campaign success, you need to establish key performance indicators (KPIs) at the outset. Your KPIs will help you track the performance of your campaign, enabling you to understand whether it’s meeting your objectives or not.
For example, KPIs for a billboard campaign could include:
Brand awareness and increased sales: While brand awareness can be measured by increased website traffic and online engagement, an uptick in revenue, store visits, or conversions provide a tangible metric.
Social media mentions and engagement: You can monitor online conversations sparked by your billboard ad to understand audience sentiment and reach.
Landing page visits: Billboard ads can include URLs to entice readers to visit your site and learn more. This is a great form of attribution that works well in combination with the other methods listed here.
It’s a good idea to use a mix of KPIs to measure the success of your campaign, and set realistic benchmarks. This will help you get a holistic view of the impact of your billboards.
Further reading: How an OOH marketing strategy can improve your online visibility.
Step 2: Select the optimal billboard location
The more eyes you can get on your billboard ads, the better. But the goal isn’t for your billboard to be seen by just anyone. You need it to be seen by your target audience. That means choosing high-traffic locations where your target audience is likely to be.
To find the right location, you’ll first need to define who your target audience is. Focus on differentiators such as age, gender, income, and lifestyle preferences. Is your ideal customer a young professional commuting to work, or a university student on their way to class?
Critically, you should also think about geographic location. Out-of-home networks allow for region-specific campaigns that serve your local area. For small businesses, it’s important to be able to narrow your billboard advertising purchases to specific parts of town, or even specific intersections.
Using sophisticated planning tools, ideal advertising locations that will help achieve various campaign goals can be identified. Plus, media owners can provide clients with dynamic campaign options that adjust to reach specific audiences at certain times. For example, targeting commuters during rush hour or sports fans on their way to and from stadiums.
Further reading: How to choose the best OOH locations for your ads.
Step 3: Develop a concise and engaging message
Once you’ve defined your campaign goals and found a suitable location to target potential customers, it’s time to shift your focus to messaging. What exactly do you want your target audience to do, and how do you plan to achieve that?
To answer these questions, you’ll need a deep understanding of your target audience — their hopes, dreams, and pain points, as well as the type of language and aesthetics that will appeal to them. Young students will resonate with a different tone of messaging than their 60-year-old lecturer, for example.
While there’s no single way to approach your campaign messaging, there are some best practices you can adhere to, such as:
Concise language: You may only have a few seconds to capture your audience's attention, so make it count! Keep your message as short as possible, ideally no more than 7-10 words.
Memorable slogans: Catchy or humorous slogans stick in the mind, particularly when coupled with alliteration, rhyme, or wordplay.
Visually appealing design: Your billboard ad should be attractive and eye-catching, with the design complementing the message.
Powerful CTAs: whether it’s following your business on social media, booking an appointment or just making a purchase, make sure the call-to-action is clear.
Personalisation: Make your message more relatable and impactful with audience-specific language or local references.
Step 4: Design with precision
Although we started by saying design isn’t everything, it is important to a successful billboard campaign. It’s the design that grabs the viewer’s attention, ensuring that your message is delivered clearly and effectively. Again, there’s no right or wrong way to design a billboard ad. That said, there are key design principles that will help your billboard make an impact, such as:
Font size and legibility: The text on your billboard should be large enough to read at a distance. Given that your audience may pass by the billboard in a matter of seconds, the text should be clean and easy to read.
Complementary colours: Colour is a powerful tool in billboard design, but choosing the wrong combinations can overwhelm the viewer. Choose colours that complement each other (e.g. blue and orange, red and green), and pick no more than two or three dominant colours that align with your brand.
A clear visual hierarchy: Your billboard’s design and typography should guide the viewer’s eye through the ad in a logical way, resulting in a coherent message and clear outcome. Supporting elements such as your logo should be noticeable but small enough that they don’t distract from the core message.
It’s important to incorporate the tips above without veering away from your brand identity. Your billboard campaign should be tailored to out-of-home marketing, but needs to align with other channels and general image. A bank and a burger shop aren’t going to want to convey the same feeling with their design and messaging.
Step 5: Implement and track the campaign effectively
Once your billboard strategy, location, and design are finalised, the final step is to launch the campaign. To understand whether your campaign is delivering on its goals, it’s important to gain visibility into key performance-related metrics.
As we touched on earlier, data relating to KPIs needs to be trackable where possible. By tracking impacts on sales, social media visits, website visits etc. during the time-specific parameters of the campaign, you can get valuable insights into the impact.
Depending on the size and scope of your campaign, it’s also possible to test the impact of different messages and themes. For example, if you are running a multi-location billboard campaign, you can compare engagement across different locations at different times. Likewise, if you are tracking multiple engagement-related metrics — such as URL visits or hashtag mentions — you can understand which mode of engagement your audience prefers.
These insights can be used to make adjustments to campaigns. They also help you fine-tune future campaigns by gaining a deeper understanding of what messaging, interactions, and locations are most effective for your target audience.
Get your message out there with Alight
There are multiple factors to consider when delivering effective billboard campaigns — from setting goals and establishing trackable data sources to the right location, messaging, and design. For a campaign to be successful, you should focus on all of these aspects. With a little planning and a little support, it’s easier than you think.
At Alight, we help businesses of all sizes connect with local communities through a nationwide network of digital billboards and bus shelters. Half of the nation’s adults engage with Alight ads each month. We take a personalised, hands-on approach, helping our clients deliver the most effective out-of-home campaigns — from design through to execution.
Want to switch on the true power of out-of-home marketing and get your brand seen fast? Get in touch and set up a call.