Conventional marketing involves a lot of printed materials: flyers, posters, newspaper advertisements, tarpaulins, banners, promotional merchandise, billboards and such. Once printed, they are meant to be handed out, posted on walls, or positioned in strategic locations for the purpose of gaining exposure to as many consumers as possible. This has long been one of the many marketing strategies employed by companies because it helps them cast a wide net, so to speak — by placing them where a lot of people can see them regularly, people can become more aware of their offerings and more familiar with their brand.

One particular marketing medium that is ultimately designed to stand out and turn consumers’ heads is the billboard. An example of this are motorists who are exposed to giant billboards standing right along the major freeways that they pass through every single work day. New ones can always create buzz about the featured brand, but after a few days, people no longer pay any attention to it. Thanks to today’s technological advances, however, billboards are getting an impressive facelift — and scoring countless new customers for business everywhere in the process.

Digital Billboards

Digital billboards are quickly gaining popularity as a highly effective — not to mention cost-effective — advertising tool for businesses across different industries. Infused with the right amount of creativity, usefulness and timing, these innovations are proving to be more attractive and engaging to today’s consumers — individuals who are constantly logged onto the Internet using smartphones, tablets, or laptops, and are more likely to sit through a 30-second video than skim a lengthy article on a printed page. With compelling content, strategic positioning and engaging graphic styling, these digital materials can work better at bringing more customers straight to a company’s storefront, office, or website.

What exactly makes digital billboard advertising an unparalleled marketing tool for businesses? Here are a few solid reasons:

Greater visibility – Compared to static printed billboards, digital billboards can display slideshows of stunning images or videos that can inform and entertain at the same time. These are much more interesting to view than a single image or a block of text and some headlines. They are also highly visible at night.

Deeper market reach – The engaging displays make billboards attractive to consumers of all ages and from different sectors. Children who play games on their parents’ tablet PCs, teenagers who update their social media accounts on their smartphones, professional adults who spend hours on their laptops every day for work and leisure are more inclined to check out and be receptive to the information presented on digital displays of all kinds because the format is familiar and readily available.

Lower production costs and quicker set-up – Traditional billboards need to be printed out, checked, shipped, and installed on the chosen location. All these can be considerably costly, and in addition, you will be the sole advertiser on the board for the duration of the period you indicated, meaning you pay a premium for the space. For digital advertising, you only need to finish the creative and provide the file to be distributed to billboards in more than one location. You can also share the space with other advertisers (whose ads will run in rotation with yours), so you pay lower fees for the space.

Targeted displays – You don’t have to display only a single ad. Restaurants, for example, can display their breakfast specials in the morning, then switch to a display of their lunch and dinner specialties as the day goes on. This concept of timing and targeting audiences can help customers relate better to your content.