Try to imagine yourself in the downtown area. When you are living in a city, especially in a big one, you will always find yourself surrounded with enormous buildings and crowded streets with busy people. And if you are a businessman and your target market are these people, can you think of a way to make these people pause for a while and view your advertisement? How can you make these people know your existence without blatantly interrupting their daily routines? This is where digital billboards come into view. With big signage posts across the streets, big enough that even those who are travelling does not need to stop in order to read it, you are certain that people, even those who did not intentional look at your billboard, can still get the message that you sharing. This is why many people wanted to have their own billboards in order to showcase their products and services to the people. This form of advertising has been out in the market for years but is still used by marketers for they are proven effective in alluring people.
Hence, whether you may be starting your own business or you just need more and more billboard designs for your company, you have come to the right place. Check out the next section for the examples of billboard advertising. You might also be interested in the following billboard designs:
Advertising Outdoor Mock-up
Smart Billboard Advertising Mockup PSD Template
Psychological Reasons Why Billboards Are Effective
In today’s society, billboards are not anymore a rare advertising material since we often see billboards everywhere especially in the downtown areas. Undoubted, billboards are among the top preferences of marketers when they got to choose which among the advertising materials they would use. What must be the reason for choosing billboards? You may also see food billboard designs & examples.
Obviously, the primary reason is the magnificent size of billboards. Simple Billboards are innately large, which makes them stand out amidst the heavy traffic and congested streets. Another is that it is available 24 hours a day, unlike in radio and television ads where advertisements where just shown for a few seconds of in just a flash.
Moreover, aside from the reasons mentioned above, there are also psychological reasons why billboards are proven effective and why marketers usually choose to have billboards for their advertisements. The discussions are as follows:
1. Reach Customers on an Unconscious Level
In 2009, the Arbitron National In-Car Study found that 71% of the travelers notice and clearly pay attention to the billboards that they have seen. This has increased to 84% in the study conducted by Arbitron’s Out of Home Advertising. With this numbers, you can observe that billboards are really effective in catching people’s attention, considering that those people are travelers, drivers, bikers, pedestrians, and passersby who are mobile and are not staying in one place. You may also see vertical billboard designs and examples.
But how about the 16% remaining who are not actively paying attention to your billboard? It turns out that even though they are not actually paying attention to your post, their brain is still registering the billboard on an unconscious level. It is said that our brains are like sponges which can absorb information even without us knowing. This is the reason why although they do not intend to look at you billboard, they can still remember what you posted especially in terms of color or some words written on the poster. Their brain is unconsciously storing those information even without the intention of the viewer. You may also like corporate billboard designs and examples.
2. Create Familiarity
Another important thing that a billboard does is creating familiarity to people. Why is familiarity important? For more than 30 years of psychological research, researches found that the mere-exposure effect proves that we respond more favorably to objects that are more familiar to us than those unfamiliar ones. So what would be its impact to your advertisement? Here is the thing. If people constantly see your billboard hanging along the streets, this creates familiarity on their part. The more they are familiar with your brand, the more they will prefer to buy your brand over other brands that are not registered on their book of familiar brands. Hence, a billboard’s role is to create familiarity to the brand to the people around. You may also see fitness billboard examples.
3. Strong Emotional Response
As Maya Angelou said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Although some influential people would say that never make a decision when you are too emotional, it turns out that our emotions play a significant part in decision-making. Research shows that 95% of buying decisions result from feelings, and oftentimes, they are associated with psychological needs such as belongingness, safety, prestige, hungers, among others. You may also check out vertical billboard designs and examples.
Knowing that emotions influence people in making their decisions, marketers create billboards to trigger strong emotional responses to the viewers based on the basic needs of the people through bold imagery and their ability to tell a story. This makes outdoor advertising, particularly billboards, so effective. You might be interested in retro billboard designs and examples.
Advertising Billboards Mock-Ups
Modern Billboards Mock-Ups
Sneaky Psychology of Advertising in General
Advertising, in general, utilizes sneaky psychological effects to create an impact to the people to catch their interest and attention. Because marketers faced a lot of competition in the business world, they have to make psychological research on how to attract the audience. You may also see examples of advertisement design.
Since employing psychological tricks is not anymore new to the business, the way that they carry their tricks is the determining factor on weather or not their ads will be effective in gaining customer confidence. It must be subtle enough that customers will be unconsciously falling into the great abyss of psychological advertising tactics. You may also like restaurant billboard designs and examples.
Knowing these things can help you a lot in your advertisement especially when faced with heavy competition.
1. Buzz Words
Most ads use buzz words and sweet talks to create a strong emotional response to people to respond their offer. These words create associations with the product as well as familiarity. It creates a mark to the subconscious minds of the people, catching their attention and making them interested in the company’s efforts. Examples of these buzz words and sweet talks are as follows:
- Freemium – This is a pricing strategy in which a product or service is offered free of charge as long as it is the basic version; obtaining extra features requires the user to upgrade into premium which needs to be paid. You may also see examples of advertising poster design.
- Gamification – To encourage the users to complete a certain action, they integrate game-related elements. For example, there are some sites that requires you to add your profile picture, birthday, address, etc. and the moment you add them one by one, you can find a progress bar that will move to a certain percentage like from 30% to 60% to 100%. You may also like advertising brochure examples.
- Growth hacking – This refers to bootstrap marketing that uses free marketing methods like social media, SEO, and content marketing to have an increase in the traffic for their sites and to attain business growth.
- Millennials – There is always a misconception regarding the term millennial. A lot of people would associate millennials as those children born in the 1990s up to this year. But the truth this, millennials are those children born between the 1980s and 2000s. However, the point is not about who are the millennials, but instead, it is about the fact that most discussions nowadays revolve on how to work or deal with them or how to appeal them. Hence, the word “millennials” often create a buzz in the advertising world. You may also check out examples of advertisement design.
- Mobile optimization – Mobile optimization nowadays is an absolute necessity since almost all people (some are becoming dependent on it) are living with mobile devices 24/7. With this, website and products are designed to have mobile options for an easy access to the users. You might be interested in examples of advertising banner design.
There are a lot more words that often catch the attention of most people such as easy, best, new, save, proven, love discover, grow, guarantee, you, and a lot more! Utilize these words to maximize the impact of your ads.
2. Risk Reversal Approach
Offering free trials would also guarantee the customers that your product or service is satisfying. They would be assured with the quality you are offering. People would usually grab the opportunity of having a free trial in your product. Sometimes, because people saw that you are offering a free trial, they would not bother trying it anymore and proceed to directly buying your product since, at the back of their minds, they have the assurance that other people might have already tried them. Aside from that, a free trial also exhibits the fact the the company is not afraid to show to the public the sample of what they are offering. They are confident about their product as well as its benefits. You may also see examples of banner design.
3. Testimonials
Testimonials are also proven very effective since people would rely on the reactions and opinions of other people who have tried your product. It is also a proof that many are patronizing your product. Most especially, when an influential person or a celebrity will give their testimony, many people would believe that buying your product is a very great deal that they must not let pass. Once they know that many people and even those who have already created their name in the industry relied and got satisfied on your product, they, too, will try out your product to know if it also works for them. You may also like examples of banner ads.
Street Billboard Mock-Up
Urban Horizontal Advertising Billboard Mock-Up
4. Promos
It is always true that people are looking for great deals. They wanted that they can get more than what they paid. Hence, many companies are offering promos to engage customers into buying their products or availing their services. There are a lot of promos that are offered by many business companies such as as follows:
- Percentage discount
- Dollar discount
- Buy one get one
- But one get more
- Free gifts
- Free samples
- Giveaways
- Customer loyalty programs
Although these promos usually entails that a company is sacrificing a portion of their income, this is a way to entice customers to come into their stores. When those customers are already inside the premises, there is a greater probability that they will not only but the discounted products but also look into and buy other products that are even on sale or with a discount. In this way, there will be an increase on the sales of the company. You may also check out tips for designing effective banner ads.
5. Constraint-Limited Offers
This is a marketing strategy where you are creating a constraint so that people would take an action immediately and respond to your offer. Constraints may take one of the two or both:
- Limited-time constraint – This means that you are limiting the time that you are offering the product for a discout or the products on sale. The powerful words that you can incorporate are as follows: ends today, until today, last day, until midnight, etc. People will get frantic upon knowing that there is a deadline to your offer, hence compelling them to buy your product. You might be interested in vertical banner designs and examples.
- Limited-quantity constraint – If people will know that the product you are offering is for only a limited supply, they would rush in to get your product before anyone else will own them. People are innately competitive especially when it comes to getting the things they want. Hence, this is a great strategy to make people take a quick action to your offer. You may also see pop-up banner designs & examples.
6. Highlighting Benefits
Mostly, people are not after your product; they are after for the benefits that they get when they will purchase your product. Thus, highlighting the benefits can really appeal to the customers. Just make sure that your benefits are also the solution to their needs and problems. You have to meet what they need in order for you to satisfy the customers for this will also result to loyalty of the customer. You may also like printable banner examples.
1960s Winston Cigarettes Big Yellow Billboard
Outdoor Advertising Mock-Up
Billboard Outdoor Advertising Mock-Up
Variative Billboard Sign Mock-Ups
Photorealistic Giant Advertising Billboard Mockups
Urban Flyer Poster Billboard Mock-Up
Takeaway
In the world of business, marketing your product is the key to increase company popularity which can lead to increased sales, hitting the goals of the business entity. A combination of marketing strategies must be used in order to come up with a novel strategy on how to catch people’s attention. Advertising tools are utilized to reach a wide coverage of potential customers. Among the most preferred advertising materials are billboards.
In the above section, presented are the psychological reasons why billboards are effective. The reasons are as follows: billboards reach customers on a unconscious level, create familiarity, and create strong emotional response. Not only in billboards, in general, there are sneaky psychology tactics which are used in advertising. These includes buzz words, risk reversal approach, testimonials, promos, constraint-limited offers, highlighting the benefits, and social selling. You may also check out billboard mock-up designs and examples.
Because these things are very subtle, people cannot quickly distinguish if they have already fallen into the trap or they made a great deal in their purchase, and marketers would seize this opportunity to promote their services while the person they are talking to is at this stage. You might be interested in vector billboard designs and examples.
Lastly, never forget to scroll back to the examples of billboard advertising above.