Advertising and marketing are, arguably, the very lifeblood of every business large and small. Without effective marketing methods, your brand simply goes unnoticed.
You may very well have the best products or services in town – or even globally. But if no one knows about them, you won’t sell a single one. As a result, you must use the strongest forms of advertising available – and digital billboards are one of the most impactful advertising media around.
What Are Digital Billboards?
Digital billboards are large, computer-controlled LED displays, capable of displaying images, text and other content that can be digitally changed by remote or automatic means.
Usually found by major highways, freeways and in busy town and city centers to draw the attention of both foot and vehicular traffic, advertisements that display on digital billboards rotate every 6-10 seconds, keeping the content fresh and engaging for viewers.
(Image source: movie.media)
Eye-catching, unmissable, and visually stunning, digital billboards combine the big-impact benefits of traditional billboard advertising with the convenience and innovation of modern technology.
With digital billboards, advertisers can launch campaigns almost instantaneously, respond to real-world events such as weather conditions, traffic, and news announcements and optimize and update messages in real-time, for maximum relevancy, impact and ROI.
Read more: 5 Reasons Digital Billboards Are a Better Alternative for SMBs
Why Are Digital Billboards the Future?
For decades, advertisers have utilized outdoor advertising on billboards to communicate key messages to large numbers of consumers in public places. However, in the past, billboard advertising was a print-based, analog affair – and an expensive, time-consuming and largely immeasurable one at that.
Today, that’s all changed thanks to the growing network of digital billboards and other digital Out of Home (DOOH) media.
Digital billboards offer numerous advantages over their traditional, print-based counterparts, as CEO and Founder of outdoor media aggregator Wildstone Damian Cox explains:
“Digital billboards are the future of OOH advertising for several reasons, both commercial and environmental. The campaigns can be better targeted based on the screen location and quickly adapt to traffic conditions or changing weather. Multiple brands can advertise on one screen, as the campaigns rotate automatically every 10 seconds. This, in turn, eradicates the need for changing the posters every two weeks, which saves tonnes of paper and CO2 generated by frequent vehicle trips to thousands of billboard sites.”
Figures collated by PwC for Out of Home (OOH) advertising trade body Outsmart reveal that digital Out of Home advertising now accounts for 64% of total OOH revenue – and continues to grow at a pace three times as fast as its non-digital counterpart.
(Image source: outsmart.org)
Why are digital billboards becoming the most popular form of outdoor advertising?
It comes down to the key advantages digital billboard media offer over traditional OOH.
The Benefits of Digital Billboard Advertising
Electronic billboards offer advertisers high-value impact for their buck. Let’s look at five top benefits of digital billboard advertising.
1. Heightened Visibility
Digital billboards are strategically placed in high-traffic areas to ensure advertisers enjoy huge exposure and build brand awareness. Due to their electronic nature, digital billboards are brighter and more vivid than their printed counterparts, and do not succumb to the elements like traditional billboards do.
2. Proven to Engage Consumers
With heightened visibility, digital billboards are proven to engage consumers, helping businesses increase sales and win new customers. According to figures from the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA), 65% of people who notice digital billboards take action – such as visiting the advertiser’s store/restaurant, website, or social media channel – and 52% engage in a mobile action, such as scanning a QR code, using a hashtag, using an app, accessing a discount, or making a purchase.
(Image source: oaaa.org)
3. Drive In-Store Traffic
Being location-based, digital billboards are a perfect tool for giving drivers or pedestrians directions to your nearby store or restaurant – like McDonald’s famous digital billboard campaign that used segments of the Golden Arches logo to direct traffic to the nearest outlet.
(Image source: topoutdoor.ca)
This type of campaign is proven to get the desired results. The same OAAA study found that 52% of consumers notice digital billboards that give directions to a business. Of these, 57% proceed to visit that business – where 93% make a purchase.
(Image source: oaaa.org)
4. Quick to Access and Easy to Edit
Unlike traditional, print-based billboard advertising, which takes weeks to set up, and then can’t be changed for the duration of the agreement with the media owner, you can launch a digital billboard advertising in minutes and update your messages in real-time.
This is thanks to programmatic advertising platforms like The Neuron that give you instant access to premium digital billboard inventory everywhere. All you need to do is upload your creative, set your conditions for when you want the ad to go live (time of day, day of week, weather conditions, target demographic, etc.), and the programmatic DOOH platform does the rest.
Read more: The Beginner’s Guide to pDOOH: Programmatic DOOH and Why It’s a Game-Changer
Should you need to edit or change your ad, you can do so in a few clicks.
Additionally, it’s never been easier for advertisers to design their creative digital billboard ads, thanks to the 100% free-to-use DOOH Design Studio from The Neuron.
Jam-packed with hundreds of professionally-designed, vertical-specific digital billboard templates, you simply choose your design, customize your message, add your logo – and you’re away. Digital billboard advertising has never been easier.
5. pDOOH Platforms Allow You to Target the Right Audiences at the Right Time
As with all advertising, your success hinges upon the right audience seeing your messages at the right time.
Today, utilizing the power of modern pDOOH platforms, you can target specific audiences that you know will be in the vicinity of specific digital billboards at specific times of day. This is because programmatic DOOH solutions utilize anonymized mobile location data (plus data from other sources) to build a picture of where various audiences spend their time. Advertisers can then use this data to hand select billboards they know will be seen by their target customers in urban areas and along commuter routes.
Read more: How to Use Digital Billboard Advertising to Target Your Audience
Get Started with Digital Billboard Advertising Today
The benefits of digital billboard advertising are clear, which is why more and more businesses are taking advantage of them.
With The Neuron, you gain instant access to a huge network of digital billboards in multiple locations, and with the DOOH Design Studio you can design your creative in minutes and launch your campaign without delay.
With single-click processes, automated bidding, and powerful reporting and analytics, The Neuron is the only tool you need to run showstopping digital billboard campaigns and start seeing meaningful returns.
