When you’re tackling marketing in business, you’ll probably hear one clear message time and again – digital is best for reaching wide audiences. To some extent, this is certainly true – brands that aren’t online these days will inevitably fall behind their competitors. But this outlook also excludes one of the most important forms of marketing for ROI, even in 2025 – out-of-house (OOH) billboards.
Well-designed billboards in prime locations still have the highest potential ROIs of even the most tech-heavy marketing drives. They’re bold, intriguing, and have the potential to reach the widest audience you can imagine.
But what if the performance of your current billboards aren’t up to scratch? As much as a great billboard can build your brand, a bad one can undeniably damage your prospects. That’s why we’re going to consider the fatal billboard mistakes you might be making right now, and a few simple changes that could transform how well this marketing method works for you.
Step 1: Understanding What’s Wrong With Your Current Billboards
Let’s say that you understand the potential returns that billboards offer. You may have even seen how brands like Cadburys and Nike are marching into the headlines for their billboard designs. Despite that, your own billboards are performing below the level you would like, and at this point, it’s got you tearing your hair out.
Luckily, you’re not alone. In an age where digital seems like it’s king, a surprising amount of brands are struggling to find their footing with physical marketing. Luckily, there tend to be pretty obvious reasons for faltering billboard performances, such as
- Mixed messages: It’s not unusual for brands to cram far-reaching billboard marketing with every logo, message, and product picture under the sun. Why give them one thing when they can have it all, after all? Well, for a pretty obvious reason, actually. When your billboards are overloaded with conflicting messages and imagery, it’s an instant turnoff for consumers who are probably only sparing your billboard a passing glance.
- Wrong location: You’ll also struggle if your billboard is in a position that’s simply never going to work for your target audience. Remote billboard locations are pretty much always a bad idea, while positioning a billboard targeted towards older audiences in a bustling city center is another example of marketing that may well miss its mark.
- Billboards in a silo: Many brands also make the fatal mistake of building billboards that operate in a silo. Unfortunately, even the best design and tag line won’t win you sales amongst modern audiences if you don’t also include a clear CTA (e.g. ‘pop in store or visit us online today’), and campaigns that are fully linked to your socials or marketing efforts elsewhere.
- No idea about performance: Billboards can also be tricky to perfect because many brands simply don’t arm themselves with the tools to measure OOH performance. And, if you don’t know which sales are stemming from your billboards, it’s all too easy to overspend or underspend on this marketing priority.
Step 2: Knowing How to Pull Improved Billboards Out of the Bag
Now you know what not to do across your billboards, it’s time to explore what successful billboard marketing actually looks like. Luckily, most of these improvements involve basically just reversing the mistakes you’ve made until now, but let’s go into those improvements in a little more detail.
# 1 – Research What Works
There are some amazing examples of successful billboards on our streets right now and, to some extent, creating buzz around your own billboard simply means researching what works. From reading guides about successful OOH advertising to researching big-hitting billboards like the 3D illusion we saw from Prime Video in Piccadilly Circus this year, the more you know about what consumers are loving, the better you’ll be able to lean into those interests.
# 2 – Keep it Simple
In a lot of ways, creating a billboard for your brand is like getting on stage and finally being able to shout about what you do. It’s only natural that you’ll feel excited and want to tell your audience absolutely everything. But, if you take one thing away from this article, let it be this – you need to keep billboard design simple. From Wonderbra’s ‘Hello Boys’ to the good old ‘Should’ve Gone to Specsavers’, successful brand billboards work because they’re concise, stripped back, and send one memorable, relevant message right into the heart of audience interests. So lose all of those product images in place of one big-hitter. Or, do away with product photography altogether and use a stark block colour alongside a tagline to remember.
# 3 – Strategise Your Locations
Billboard location matters more than you might think, especially if you’re seeking local business success. Billboards in your local area, or simply in a location that’s sure to appeal to your audience, are guaranteed to bring a better ROI and brand reputation overall. Let’s say you’re a local sportswear brand. Billboards in your town centre, around hubs like gyms, local parks, or other fitness hotspots are far more likely to perform well. So, think about your audience, your industry, and your niche angle before settling on the best location.
# 4 – Go Digital
Nowadays, a billboard isn’t worth its salt if it isn’t digitised to some extent. In fact, some of the best-performing billboards of recent years, including Cadbury’s AI-powered ads, have been fully digitised. The ability for audiences to quite literally insert themselves into digital ads, as seen from the ‘My Cadbury Era’ campaign, is an especially effective way to enhance engagement and boost loyalty. Meanwhile, even simple steps towards digital billboards, such as incorporating QR codes and social handles, ensures a full, multi-platform approach to billboard sales that are more effective and more trackable than ever before.
Billboards have the power to build one of the biggest audiences you’ll ever know from a single piece of advertising. Simply do away with dud designs and enjoy billboard success using these top pointers! UtdPlug
