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    Billboard Advertising Guide: Costs, Tips, Effectiveness & More

    billboard-intro-image.png

    We rented a KopywritingKourse billboard for $904 for a month! [Jump down to see].

    However in researching how to buy a billboard, it was nearly impossible to find much helpful information.

    So we've compiled everything we've learned about advertising on a billboard into one helpful guide:

     

     

     

    Where to buy billboards:

    Billboards are all fragmented. You can have individual Mom-And-Pop style outfits that sell space on their private billboard, or big companies like Lamar Advertising.

    Here are the top 10 billboard advertising companies in the United States:

    If you enquire about advertising with them, you will most likely be assigned a local "billboard broker" who will help you.

    The billboard industry seems pretty old school and fragmented.

     

     

     

    How Much Does a Billboard Cost (Pricing)?

    There’s two primary costs associated with a billboard:

    Cost #1.) Printing and posting the billboard.

    Cost #2.) Renting the billboard.

    Printing a billboard is between $400 and $1,000 depending on size. I was actually surprised how cheap this part of the process was.

    For some reason I assumed printing 300 sqft of sign would be extremely expensive. However the cost was pretty reasonable.

    Just like real estate, it completely depends on WHERE you want your billboard.

    After requesting samples of billboards we could rent around Austin, here were 3 billboards within our $1,500/mo budget:

    billboardrates.png

     

    Billboard #1:

    Description: Located in north Austin, this bulletin targets traffic heading north towards Pflugerville, Round Rock & Georgetown, which avoids traffic on I-35.

    Size (in feet): 14' x 48'

    Weekly Impressions: 91,542

    Rental Cost Per Month: $495

    Printing and Posting Costs: $1,000

    Total Cost: $1,495

    -outdoor-billboard-pricing-sheet

     

    Billboard #2:

    Description: Located in north Austin, this bulletin targets traffic heading north towards Pflugerville, Round Rock & Georgetown, avoiding traffic on I-35.

    Size (in feet): 12' x 40'

    Weekly Impressions: 58,808

    Rental Cost Per Month: $350

    Printing and Posting Costs: $792

    Total Cost: $1,142

    outdoor-billboard-pricing-sheet

     

    Billboard #3: (The one we rented)

    Description: Located on the east side of Austin, this bulletin targets traffic heading towards downtown Austin.

    Size (in feet): 12' X 24'

    Weekly Impressions: 33,692

    Rental Cost Per Month: $400

    Printing and Posting Costs: $475

    Total Cost: $875

    Address: 2609 E Cesar Chavez St.

    outdoor-billboard-pricing-sheet

    Since we're spending all this money as just a "fun experiment" I decided on the cheapest billboard. After all the printing, rental, and taxes, the total cost of the billboard came to $904.

     

     

     

    Billboard Sizes:

    The way billboards are sized is with a "sheet" system.

    Billboards are divided up into "sheets" that comprise of 27" x 40" inches sheets. Each sheet is limited to how big most commercial printing machines can print.

    The more sheets you have on a billboard, the larger it is (duh).

    Size

    Width x Height (inches)

    Width x Height (meters)

    4 Sheets

    40" x 60"

    1.02 x 1.52 m

    6 Sheets

    47" x 70"

    1.20 x 1.80 m

    12 Sheets

    120" x 60"

    3.05 x 1.52 m

    16 Sheets

    80" x 120"

    2.03 x 3.05 m

    32 Sheets

    160" x 120"

    4.06 x 3.05 m

    48 Sheets

    240" x 120"

    6.10 x 3.05 m

    64 Sheets

    320" x 120"

    8.13 x 3.05 m

    96 Sheets

    480" x 120"

    12.19 x 3.05 m

    The billboard we decided on was small enough (12' x 24') to be printed all at once with a huge vinyl printer. Here's the box it came in:

    Kopywriting-Kourse_Turn-everyone-in-your

     

     

     

    How to Design A Billboard:

    There’s some interesting best practices when it comes to designing a billboard.

    So here’s the information and best practiced we gathered from speaking with billboard designers and brokers.

    From what we gathered, those are the primary guidelines for billboards. If you have any other advice, share it in the comments!

    However we tried out 11 different versions of the billboard with slight variations between each. We then put each draft through a visual attention simulator to see where people were most likely to look at each version.

    Our design specs for the billboard were aa follows:

    • 1" = 1’ ratio. (One inch equals one foot).
    • We needed a final file at 13" x 25" at 300 DPI. That includes a 1" bleed.
    • Art board can be sized to 12" x 24" with a 0.5" safe area.

     

    Below you can see all 11 versions of our initial billboard drafts (with visual heat maps and eye tracking):

     

    Version 1:

    Plain white background. StickPerson looking to the right.

    billboard mockup

     

    Version 2:

    Plain white background. StickPerson looking down.

    billboard mockup

     

    Version 3:

    Plain white background. StickPerson looking up and to the right.

    billboard mockup

     

    Version 4:

    Green background. StickPerson looking down.

    billboard mockup

     

    Version 5:

    White and Green split background. StickPerson looking down.

    billboard mockup

     

    Version 6:

    Yellow background. StickPerson looking down.

    billboard mockup

     

    Version 7:

    Yellow and Green split background. StickPerson looking down. Waving hand is between the split background.

    billboard mockup

     

    Version 8:

    Yellow and White horizontal split background. StickPerson looking down.

    billboard mockup

     

    Version 9:

    Yellow and Green horizontal split background. StickPerson looking down.

    billboard mockup

     

    Version 10:

    Yellow and Green horizontal split background with white logo. StickPerson looking down.

    billboard mockup

     

    Version 11:

    Yellow and Green horizontal split background with black logo. StickPerson looking down.

    billboard mockup

    We originally put a web URL on all the designs, but in the end the head designer gave us this sage advice:

     

     

     

    The KopywritingKourse Billboard!

    So after spending a total of $904 and about 2 weeks of back-n-forth with the billboard broker, here's what came out.

    Here's two examples of how the billboard looked before we rented it:

    billboard-before.png

    ...and here's what it looks like now!

    kopywritingkourse billboard

    kopywritingkourse billboard

    kopywritingkourse billboard

    kopywritingkourse billboard

    kopywritingkourse billboard

    kopywritingkourse billboard

     

    kopywritingkourse-billboard-Posted.png

     

    kopywritingkourse-billboard-Posted2.png

     

    kopywritingkourse-billboard-Posted3.png

     

    kopywritingkourse-billboard-Posted4.png

     

    kopywritingkourse-billboard-Posted5.png

     

    kopywritingkourse-billboard-Posted6.png

    If you’re in Austin, TX. Between Nov. 13th and Dec. 16th you can see this billboard.

    Description: Located on the east side of Austin, this bulletin targets traffic heading towards downtown Austin.

    Size (in feet): 12' X 24'

    Weekly Impressions: 33,692

    Rental Cost Per Month: $400

    Printing and Posting Costs: $475

    Total Cost: $875

    Total Cost after taxes/fees: $904

    Address: 2609 E Cesar Chavez St.

    Dates Running: 11-6-2017 - 12-3-2017

     

     

     

    Download This Whole Billboard Guide:

    Click here to subscribe

    -- Keep in your files --

    -- Share with colleagues --

    -- Download in PDF or Google Doc format --

    Sincerely,

    Neville N. Medhora - Proud father of a newborn billboard

     

    P.S. Have you ever bought a billboard, seen a clever billboard, or designed your own billboard?? Tell everyone about your experience or results here!

     


    User Feedback

    Recommended Comments



    You sir just spent $904 to make a blog post, this must be a new record!
    Link to comment

    I did, actually.

    I used to have my own company and at the very beginning (it was an e-commerce business), I thought that I might as well sell those things offline.

    So, I ordered a bunch of vinyl banners... I put them all over the place. On the fence. At the entry gate. And a gigantic one on the building itself.

    Within a week I had more customers in my store than orders online. It worked.

    Link to comment

    Awesome post - be sure to share your results later!

    What is the "visual attention simulator" tool you used to generate these heatmaps?

    -Oleg

    Link to comment
    Awesome post. This is something I would probably never do, but makes COMPLETE sense that you did!
    Link to comment
    How close do you have to get to the billboard to make out the words "Kopywriting Kourse", Neville? Maybe it's my poor eyesight, but while I can read everything else written on the billboard easily in all of your images, I can only read your company name easily in one or two. Potential problem?
    Link to comment
    The most brilliant one I've seen recently is an English school's billboard in Croatia featuring Melania Trump -- google it. But it wouldn't pass the 7-word test. :(
    Link to comment

    I have just read D. Kennedy's "No BS Direct Marketing".

    And my question is - how do you track results from this type of advertising?

    Link to comment
    Perhaps you could have spaced out the words "Kopywriting Kourse" over two lines, to have your font bigger and more legible to squinty people like me?
    Link to comment
    Guest Dan Ceballos

    Posted

    Very cool Neville!

    The sign looks great!

    Eventually when my chiropractic office gets “big enough” I will consider a billboard. (Maybe next to a cheesy PI lawyer).

    Today’s blog is going into the swipe folder.

    Thanks for sharing.

    Dan

    Link to comment
    Guest Antonio

    Posted

    A pretty creative use of billboards is from those who tried that channel... to be hired.

    Who's the 1st one in history? I don't know...

    Found about Bennett Olson quite far in time:

    http://www.businessinsider.com/desperate-hire-me-bilboard-actually-got-this-unemployed-22-year-old-a-job-2012-5?IR=T

    ...now the link on the billboard points to his Linkedin profile that is quite good. Looks like the strategy worked for him :)

    Now, I am inspired to be similarly shameless and let you know here about my initiative:

    http://cool3dportrait.com

    Link to comment
    Guest Felipe Trombini

    Posted

    I think in Billboard copy this past week.

    Here im my city, aways is 3.546.548 works, photos, fireballs and annoying things.

    I like to see a billboard like in a "Motion Blur Lenses".

    You never go drive slowly to read a billboard.

    (My good! In your city, the billboard is so tall)

    Link to comment
    Guest prince campbell

    Posted

    Great, interesting, and informative post. I knew nothing about buying billboards. Surprised at how cheap the entire process was.
    Link to comment
    Guest Scott Gurley

    Posted

    I used to work at a grand format printer (Commerce Color in St. Louis), they (and others) can print enormous signage... 14' x 48' is the most common bulletin board size in these parts... their printers are something like 16' or 18' wide 8-color inkjets essentially (that cost $$$$$$). They can also "weld" signage together to make epic size (building-sized) banners like you can see on their site http://www.commercecolor.com/

    They once did a project so big they had to rent out the St. Louis Ram's dome (at the time) to lay it out on the floor for the client to see - they were up in the nosebleed section....

    Link to comment
    Guest Dragomir

    Posted

    It must be strange for you doing a branding campaign like this one (considering you're more of a direct response person). I can imagine it was a lot of fun haha
    Link to comment
    Yeah I also want to know what is the tool you use for those attention heatmaps.
    Link to comment
    Guest Rick Siderfin

    Posted

    I'm sure you are ahead of me here, Nev, but your average biz owner has either little or no desire to turn everyone in his company into a copywriter. Now, if you took a BENEFIT of turning everyone in your company into a copywriter, (higher sales! better conversions!) and made THAT into your billboard, suddenly you would generate a lot more interest?

    Also, the pastel colours you used don't look very attention-grabbing to me. Hopefully your great stick man will make up for that!

    Feel like I am attempting to teach my grandmother to suck eggs here so be free to point out where I'm wrong. Eagerly looking out for the post to be updated with the results of the experiment in due course.

    Link to comment
    Guest eric wagner

    Posted

    What was your ROI on the billboard?

    How did you track that?

    Traditionally billboards are only good for brand awareness.

    Link to comment
    Sounds like the Billboard industry is ripe for a refresher! I love hearing about an old, antiquated industry.
    Link to comment
    Guest Chantelle

    Posted

    Rick was reading my mind... if you only have 7 words, is this the copy that would inspire any kind of beneficial action from viewing the billboard. It doesn’t tell a benefit and actually implies a huge cost of teaching something to EVERYONE in my company (without giving any reason why I should or making me curious enough to look it up).

    I’m extremely curious how you measure effectiveness of this billboard location vs the copy that was used?

    Link to comment
    Look for an increase in branded search traffic from your the city you put the billboard in.
    Link to comment
    Guest Matt Monroe

    Posted

    Fascinating post, Neville. Thanks for putting this all together. And thanks for being the sort of person willing to conduct experiments like this.

    Just a few quick thoughts... It's really quite surprising just how inexpensive billboard advertising is, especially the whole "monthly renting of the billboard" part. But this also makes me think to myself: "Hmmmmmm... How much would it cost to have a billboard built –– that is, the metal and wood structure? And what restrictions might there be in terms of placement and location?" If I could get ten billboards built and placed around town, rent them out for an average of $500 per month AND keep them rented, well, that's $60,000 a year (gross), for what is effectively passive income.

    Not too shabby.

    And THAT would be a hell of an experiment.

    Link to comment



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