Share this:

This month I’ve been doing a lot of driving around town trying to drum up business. And I couldn’t help but notice how bad our local billboards are. Granted the billboard companies are just putting up what their clients give them. The fact of the matter is that most small businesses are not informed when it comes to design. So much that I’ve decided to make this week’s post about why most billboards are bad. -Enjoy

1. Less is More

The one thing that all of these horrible billboards have is common is that they’re way too busy. No lie, I saw a billboard with all of this on it: picture, business name, logo, motto, phone number, address, and website. This is way too much information! You do realized that by the time I’m looking at the second thing, I’m already passing the billboard by. Unless the person parks and just stares at the billboard up close, they are never going to see this information. Don’t waste your money! Informative designs belong on your website or in a magazine.

All of that information should not be on the billboard.

So why is everyone doing this? Doesn’t it seem like common sense that if someone is driving 55 mph that they’re not going to have time to see all of that information? Well billboards are not cheap. They cost so much money that business owners want to get their money’s worth. So they think adding more information will make a bang for their buck. However, the exact opposite happens when you do this. The more you put on the billboard, the smaller each thing has to be in order for it to fit. The smaller the things are, the harder it’s going to be for someone to see it. You want few things so they can be as big as possible. If it’s big, more people are going to see it. That’s why less is more.

2. Have a Goal

What is the purpose of the billboard? What are you trying to get out of it? If you don’t have a clear goal in mind, your billboard will not be successful.

Phone Number
Address
Website

You can’t put all of this information on the billboard. If you do, it’s going to be really small and no one is going to able to see it or remember it. So what is your goal? If the goal is to have more people visit your website and shop online, then you should have the website really big on the billboard. Rather than including the phone number and address which would only be getting in the way of your goal which is to increase your online traffic.

Example: If you have a Facebook page for your business, that means you can put your phone number, website and address on the About page. You don’t have to put it on the billboard. So you could make your billboard goal “Get more likes on Facebook”. How do you do this? You put your company name or logo really big and then you include the Facebook icon on the corner. That or “Like us on Facebook”. That’s only two things on your billboard needs and I guarantee that would work much better than putting all of your information on it. If you use the Facebook icon, that’s one less thing a driver has to read and more time spent on what you want them to remember.

3. Look at “Got Milk?”

The “Got Milk?” ads are probably the best examples that I can think of. They had “Got Milk?”, a picture of someone famous with a milk mustache and that was it! Two words, one picture, and you know what I still remember those ads. They had a clear goal, “Get people to drink milk”. All of these other billboards don’t know what they want. That’s why they put so much stuff on them. Those busy designs get lost in the city and don’t stand out. They’re forgettable. You want a billboard that’s memorable.

4. Summary

If you don’t feel comfortable spending a lot of money and only putting out a little bit of information on a billboard, then don’t do it because that’s how billboards work. If you don’t have a good logo either, that’s probably another reason why you don’t feel like what you have is enough. If that’s the case, then you definitely need to read How to Make a Great Logo.