26 Mar How To Design A Billboard Advertisement
It may appear to be a complex task, Especially if you’re new to this form of advertising, so we will show you how to design a billboard advertisement that will increase the probability of achieving an ROI from your campaign.
To help you, we’re going to take you through a few important steps to ensure that you can design a high quality billboard advertisement that captures the attention of your target audience effectively.
Keep Your Message Of The Billboard Advertisement Short And Simple
A passer by will only have 5 to 10 seconds to view your billboard advertisement and absorb it’s message. So one of the most important elements of designing the advert is it should be simple and straight to the point.
Try to resist the urge to cram vast amounts of text and information onto your billboard when designing it. If you keep your message simple, you’ll get a much better response from your campaign.
In many cases, billboards are used to help a consumer get somewhere or suggest what they should be doing. Aim to use no more than 10 words within your advert.
Incorporate Bright Colours Within Your Artwork
Bright colours incorporated within your billboard design will effortlessly attract consumers to your Message. Furthermore, The use of contrasting colours will create an even bigger impact and will aid the retention of your message.
Design A Billboard Advertisement Using Readable Fonts
You must select fonts for your billboard advertisement that’s easy to read from short and long distances. Stay away from fonts with thin strokes or ornate scripts as these will be extremely difficult to read.
Use large, legible typefaces with adequate spacing between letters. This will enhance its readability. Finally, Avoid using all uppercase characters, when words are used with both upper and lower case characters they are much easier to read.
Fancy fonts are great to look at on paper, but completely avoid them on billboards. Remember your message must be readable for both pedestrians as well as cars driving at pace. Sans Serif fonts like Arial, Calibri, Verdana, Tahoma and Helvetica are perfect for billboards. Simple, modern and easily intelligible, they are the perfect typography choice for effective billboard designs.
Billboards Advertisements Are Image Led
The best billboard designs utilise high quality images to tell the story. It’s really important that the images that are being used clearly shows what you’re promoting. A great way to achieve this is to use large images of smaller objects that are high in resolution. This will ensure that they are sharp and bright even at longer distances. Finally, Stay away from complex images that will cause clutter within you advertisement as this will detract attention from your main message.
How To Design A Billboard Advertisement With A Call To Action
Another important element of your design is having a call to action. Too many advertisers ignore this and it actually makes customers perform a profitable action towards your business.
The effectiveness of the advert design is actually tested here when you ask the customer to call, buy, visit you on social media, visit your office or store. As a result, The stronger your advert, the more effective your call-for-action would be.
Below are some examples of effective call to actions:-
Asking people to call your telephone number
Direct People To A Website
Signposting people to your place of business
Direct people to your social media channels
Use of twitter hashtags
Dedicated discount codes
QR (Quick response) codes
A time sensitive sale with an “Offer ends” date
These are just a few examples that have been proven to be successful within billboard advertisement deigns.
Use Consistent Branding
In order for a billboard advertisement to reach it’s full potential, you need to ensure that it’s branded consistently with your other forms of advertising, company vehicles, website, the shop signage etc.
This means designing the ad with the same logo, colour palette and overall brand identity, whilst using similar fonts and messaging.
The design of the billboard and messaging should also clearly reflect your companies core values, as this can help to drive recognition over time and potentially create a foundation of loyal customers.
Remember The 5 Second Rule
The 5-second rule is simple: the viewer should be able to digest all the information that is being displayed on the billboard in within 5 seconds. That can be tricky to do, but the best billboard designs are straight to the point and are easy to understand. Even when driving at speed.
Make Your Advert Memorable
No matter what your design style is, try to get outside of your comfort zone. With all the clutter in and around, you need to do your best to be memorable. One of the main benefits of billboard advertising is recall and your message has to be strong enough to be remembered. Obviously don’t push things too much that could cause offence.
Create A Memorable Slogan
Finally, A memorable slogan should be short, punchy which uses an economy of words. These are essential components that are important when it incorporating a billboard slogan within your design. It’s worth putting in some research and study popular slogans and find out what makes them tick.
Would you like to know more about how to design the perfect billboard advertisement?. Please get in touch on matt@amplifyoutdoor.co.uk / 01202 670687