Advertising Advice
|
Advertising Advice | |
|
|
| • Site Map • Site Home Related Sites >Traffic-Reach - Unlimited Quality Traffic - On Demand • SmartAuctioning.com • Forward Productions SitesMap • Join Our Links Directory! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
The Skinny on BillboardsSeveral years back the billboard people put a big picture of "Sharlene Wells, Miss America" on billboards all over town. She was everywhere. The clever use of the girl had two purposes; the first was to cover up all the unsold boards. The second was to show the effectiveness of billboard advertising. Surveys were conducted before and after the one month showing of Sharlene's pretty mug. Before, only 1.5% of people surveyed could recall her name when asked "Who is Miss America". After, the number jumped to an amazing 12%. The billboard people pointed to this example as proof of the power of outdoor advertising. It gave them the open door to pitch hundreds of potential new customers. If you bought 50 billboards in your town and used the Miss America approach, people would surely know your name, too. Here's the skinny on outdoor advertising; billboards.You MUST Plan Ahead First, outdoor is not a "quick fix". If sales are down, you can't quickly put up a few boards to boost the numbers. You must plan ahead. Lead time is not short when using outdoor advertising. The best use of boards is for image building and brand awareness, they are not cost effective for one time only sales or non-repeating special events. Billboardsare image builders. Using billboards is akin toTV, it can mean you have "arrived" as a formidable business. Most are sold for a minimum of one month. You pay twice. First for the board location and second for the media used to put your ad on the board, paint, paper or plastic. Paints- Painted billboards are the oldest form of outdoor advertising. They are painted with special outdoor paint that is weather resistant. Some outdoor paints are specially formulated to resist fading. Painted billboards are also known as"painted bulletins" but most commonly as "paints". Papers- Poster Boards may be the best known. We have all seen the billboard guy hanging off the ladder with the swirling wallpaper-like panels being pushed into place with the big glue broom. Poster Boards are printed on 8 to 30 sheets of heavy paper, depending on the size. Posters with 8 sheets (6 x 12 feet) are called juniors. Regular boards use 30 sheets and make a 12 x 25 foot sign,counting the heavy metal frame. They are called 30-sheets. Some old timers refer to poster boards as "papers" and "paper bulletins". Papers look good for about a month, depending on the weather. Nothing looks worse than an old paper board, unattended for long periods where the wind and weather has ripped and torn the panels so that parts are torn away revealing layers of old signs. Plastic- All the rage now is the use of vinyl on boards. This allows for better color, longer life and very fine graphics. If vinyl boards had been available when they did the Miss America test, people would still be in love with the lady on the board. Vinyls are printed with a special printer, not unlike your computer printer. Once sprayed with the ultra-violet finish coat, vinyls can last for years. Vinyls are easy to spot. They look brighter and better than traditional paper boards. Wind has a tendency to get under them can make them ripple, as they are normally not glued to the surface, but attached at the edges. These are called "flexvinyls" and can be moved from board to board without damage. Some vinyls are slipped over old paper boards like a sack and you can see the outline of the paper board's metal border under the vinyl. Bulletins are the giant boards you often see along Interstates. They can be as big as 20 x 60 feet or as small as 10 1/2 x 36 feet. Many of these large boards are supported by one huge metal pipe in the middle. Rotary bulletins are the same as bulletins but are moved every 60 days (hence the term rotary). Some bulletins are painted, most use plastic. Showings- Boards have ratings like TV shows, called Gross Rating Points (GRP). Each board has a traffic count, and when divided by the population, the result is a GRP. Billboard sales are usually made in GRPs. Meaning you buy a 25 showing or a 50 or 75 or 100 showing. A 25 showing would mean that at least 25% of the population would see one of your boards at least once a day. A 25 showing could take one board, three or many, depending on the traffic count and the population. It is possible to buy only one board, but not cost effective. After you decide to use outdoor, you have to pay for printing the paper or vinyls and they usually come in units of 10. The best goal is to get a 100 showing. Studies have shown that in a 100 showing, advertisers can reach 88% of the adults 28 times a month. In a 50 showing, advertisers can reach 83% of adults 15 times a month. CostFor example, a recent 50 showing in Salt lake City included 84 boards and cost $22,512 for one month (the 1- Month Rate). Buying that many boards brought the cost per board to under $275. Don't expect a rate this low for smaller markets or a one or two board buy. In most cities the average billboard costs $400 to $600 a month. Some board locations are stacked. Opinions vary as to whether top or bottom position is better. Some boards are "tri-vision" mechanically turning small panels to reveal 3 different ads every 30 seconds. There are other forms of outdoor. The giant single pole super boards along the Interstates are best used for spur of the moment sales... "next exit" and "clean restrooms". Small 4x8 painted boards stuck on a post in a farmer's yard must be fixed and redone by you regularly. Let it sag or fall over just once and your image can go with it. Here are BIG Mike's Tips for Better BillboardAdvertising.
Spend most of your time working on the concept and design, 'cause once it's up there, it can't be changed and will been seen by everybody. Final ThoughtFYI - Miss America 2004 is Ericka Dunlap. For more about advertising, get my article "What the Newspaper Won't Tell You"MailTo:NewspaperAds@BigIdeasgroup.com ©2005 BIG Mike McDaniel All Rights ReservedMike@BIGIdeasGroup.comBIG Mike is a Professional Speaker and SmallBusiness Consultant with over 30 years experience,http://BIGIdeasGroup.com Subscribe to "BIG Mike's BIG Ideas" NewsletterMailTo:subscribe-956603364@ezinedirector.net
Help keep Advertising Advice available by donating any amount.
MORE RESOURCES:
Google News |
| | | RELATED ARTICLES The Graphic Problem Digital printing has revolutionized the sign industry. Current printers can reproduce an image at 1440 dpi (dots per inch) at virtually any size. The Internet and Beyond - 12 Tips on Writing Better Brochures Every year thousands of online businesses fail. None of them begin with the idea they'll fail, in fact they have high hopes of success, but they fail all the same. How to Make Your Claims Believable When you hear claims like: "Best Lawnmower in the country" "Absolute Lowest Prices In Existence" "Leaves your hair cleaner than any other shampoo," do you believe them? Or is there a certain degree of doubt in your mind about their credibility, or whether they are 'hyped up'? Think about it. Everybody expects advertisers to exaggerate their claims. Push vs Pull Advertising Push vs. Pull Advertising - Understand the Consequences for your Product or Service - You will save yourself a considerable amount of time and money if you first determine your product's (or service's) suitability for "pull" and "push" advertising. Internet Advertising: How To Use The Golden Rule To Enrich Yourself. What is the golden rule of internet advertising? Give, so you may receive.It is as simple as that. Why Your Ad Failed So you spent good money on an ad, put it in a magazine or newspaper, and waited patiently for phone calls that didn't materialize. You're upset: you feel that you've wasted money and time, and now you're convinced that advertising doesn't work. The SKINNY on Newspaper Advertising The SKINNY on Newspapers - Using the paper is considered gospel by many people in business. Use it wisely and it can be a good tool. For All Those People Who Struggle With Benefits and Features For Everyone Who Has Ever Struggled Sorting Out Benefits From Features - "SWAT Them!"SWAT is not actually an acronym. It is a compaction of the question "so what? "You see, one of the biggest problems that even experienced copywriters and marketers fall into is being clear on what benefits their product or service actually delivers to their customers. What To Do With Your Business Cards Without a plan to distribute your cards, there's no need to print them in the first place. Many fall into the trap of thinking that all the thinking about business cards is over once the order is placed. 8 Low Cost Ways To Advertise, Promote and Market Your Business We all are looking for ways to market our businesses cost effectively. I have come up with 8 ways to do just that all low cost to free. What Makes Advertising Successful? MANY INDIVIDUAL ELEMENTS COME INTO PLAY MAKING A SUCCESSFUL AD: 1. PERSUASIVE SELLING COPY. How To Create Instantly Compelling Ads Every Time Use This Quick 3-Question Evaluation Process, So You Can Be Sure Your Message Will Sell! EVALUATION #1: "Well, I Would Hope So!" When you make a claim, don't think about it in terms of words coming out of your mouth. Think of it in terms of words entering your prospect's ears. Why Hire an Advertising/Marketing Consultant? As a business owner, you have the option of taking several different approaches to handling your Marketing and Advertising. You may choose to handle the responsibility yourself, with the idea that no one understands your business quite the way you do. Advertise Where It's Forbidden to Do So The most common way to drive people to your business site is advertising. You cannot succeed without advertising, this is a fact. The ONLY Type Of Advertising People LOVE!! Can it be? ? ? Is there advertising that people actually love? You bet there is! And you are already very aware of it. The type of advertising I'm referring to is promotional items, also known as advertising specialties. 3 Simple But Powerful Off-Line Advertising Strategies There are several ways to advertise and get the word out about your business online and the best of them include free search engines, pay per click search engines, writing articles, utilizing press releases, doing joint ventures/ad co-ops, and posting to message boards and forums related to your target market. But one advertising method that's neglected by most online marketers is off-line advertising. Become a Storyteller Not an Advertiser and Watch Your Traffic Increase When you read the newspaper, do you read advertisements as closely as you read news stories? Do you believe advertising as readily as you believe news stories? I don't and neither do most people I know. Because we have advertising shoved at us from every angle we tend to ignore it, but we pay attention to news or public interest stories. Electronic Display Signs Electronic display signs are used nowadays in great extent to display important information instantly all over the world, which uses LED technology, which stands for light- emitting diodes. These are widely used in the worlds of commerce, government and even non-profit organizations. Five Characteristics of Highly Successful Advertising Have you ever spent a small fortune on advertising that generated disappointment rather than sales? Many small business owners have been down the road of flat advertising results and are at a loss when it comes to developing new ideas to improve the response to their ads. Whether you run ads in your local newspaper, your industry's top periodical or on-line, you need your investment in advertising to pay for itself, and then some, in order to justify its cost. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Site Map • Site Home Related Sites >Traffic-Reach - Unlimited Quality Traffic - On Demand • SmartAuctioning.com • Forward Productions SitesMap • Join Our Links Directory! |
|
|
| © 2006 Forward Productions |
