The United States is in a depression. Money is short. And advertisers want real value for their dollar. One of the best ways of attracting advertisers – and providing a great return on their advertising dollar – is to reduce the cost of their advertisement. But how can you do that, when you have a minimum amount you can take for the sign?
Well, here are some ideas on how you can reduce the cost to the advertiser, and still meet your budget for revenue on the sign. And they are all a win/win for both your client and you.
Create a “combo” advertisement.
Why not split the billboard in half – and have two advertisers instead of one? This automatically reduces the cost to each advertiser by 50%. All you have to do to pull this off is find two advertisers who share a common exit. Then you pitch them each to share one billboard with a common exit number across the bottom. The most successful of these approaches are when you can match two businesses with similar goals who are not competitive, such as a motel and a restaurant. But even two competitive businesses, such as two restaurants or two motels, can profit from getting customers off the highway and then let them choose which one they prefer.
By splitting the advertisement in half, you have reduced the cost to each advertiser by 50%, and that means that they only have to sell half as much merchandise to pay for the billboard. And you have not had to reduce your revenue by a penny. Some of the longest-running billboards in America are these type of “combo” signs – they offer such an outstanding value to advertisers that they renew continually.
Creat a “large-scale combo” advertisement.
Sometimes, you can take the “combo” concept to the next level by combining a large number of advertisers into one common theme. An example is a billboard that I organized in the 1980’s for the merchants of Downtown Denton, Texas. The advertisement promoted tourists to visit Downtown Denton by getting off the highway at a certain exit. To pay for it, I organized the merchants together. Even though the billboard cost $1,000 per month, there were 50 merchants in Downtown Denton, so it cost only $20 per month each – a very, very reasonable sum.
The only downside to this type of structure is the extreme management nightmare of organizing and collecting from this many advertisers at one time. That’s why I choose to let the Downtown Denton billboard disband once the Texas economy strengthened – it was much easier to manage and collect from one advertiser rather than 50. But in an economic depression, like we’re in now, it’s a whole lot more fun to have a sign rented – despite the extra work – than have it sit empty.
Learn the available “coop” programs.
Many billboard salespeople are not even aware of the “coop” programs available by major brands. For example, western wear manufacturers such as Justin and Resistol often will pay a percentage of a billboard that promotes both their product and the western wear store that sells it. And it’s not just western wear. Automotive products such as Amalie and Goodyear also have similar programs, as do many other name brands. You need to learn which brands have these programs in place and then go to stores that sell these goods and see if they would rent a billboard if the brand would pay a percentage of the cost. Some of these programs pay up to 50% of the total cost of the billboard, so it is a great opportunity to cut the cost to the billboard advertiser substantially – while not costing you a penny in revenue.
You have to be careful in these programs to make sure that you follow the instructions that the brand requires to get money for your account. The logo must be of a certain size, and there is substantial paperwork required to make the program official. But the payoff is that the advertiser pays a fraction of the normal cost for the sign – with the brand paying the other portion – and your budget for the billboard is not impacted at all.
Conclusion
Everybody loves a bargain – your advertising clients included. Since all three of these techniques allow you to meet your revenue goals for your billboard, while at the same time allowing the advertiser to cut their cost substantially, you should immediately implement these ideas when you are trying to rent that vacant billboard face.
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