anyone promoted on bill boards?

It depends on what you are selling. Although, I have never heard of anyone tracking enough sales to a billboard to make it profitable, in any business at any time.

Billboards are a weird beast and IMO are best used for branding. We have had a few local realitors that have made use of them over the years as part of their branding campaigns.

They are quite expensive and outside of branding a good ROI seems rare.

Another positive use is on highways. Resturants and hotels can get a good ROI with a good billboard in the right location.

The third positive use I have seen (though I question the ROI) is to put up a billboard near your competition. For items like cars where people are more likely to shop this helps build customer awareness. But with the cost of billboards I am not sure I would ever recommend this.

The lack of ROI is a huge reason we are seeing so many empty billboards. As a whole billboards don't seem to follow the law of supply and demand. As they have less filled they seem to charge more. Malls seem to do the same thing sadly. And they wonder why malls are dying.

Your welcome. Though I have to say it really wasn't my idea. Two of our competitors do it to us actually.

One is literally across the street. Actually almost looks like a sign for our storage lot. And the other is just across the river in IL. I see it everyday on my drive into work. It's not as close to us but it is clearly designed to grab IL customers on their way to us.

I haven't really spoken with either dealer to know the ROI. But customers have asked me about both so they clearly are noticed. Of course when I was in sales I had no problem giving people directions to the other dealers in the area. Hell I printed out maps for them before.

Some might wonder why but the idea is simple. I had complete confidence that the best value was at our dealership. And I knew they would remember the salesman that helped them out. I sold quite a few be-backs later those same days. If you know your products are the best for your customers you never need to fear the competition in my book.

If you can get signage near your competitors at a good price I suspect it would work well to get bodies in the door. And having read your posts I am quite confident once they are in your door you know how to close them down.

It is IMO a great way to get targeted customers while using mass media. A certain percentage of the people who see the ad will be on their way to your competitor. Kind of like advertsing your Chevy dealer during a TV show about the Corvette Plant in Boiling Green. Surprisingly I have never seen Kubrick, Criswell, or any of the other big national Corvette dealers advertise during those. Though GM rules likely prevent them from advertising nationally.

It can work but it needs to be something a person in a car can take immediate action on. Like "It's hot...you NEED a milkshake and fries. Turn here now."

As people drive by the same spot every day in the hot summer...the craving will begin. Forget about using it for something they can't act on immediately.

One of my friends uses one for a day care his wife runs. Swears by it. I've also heard of some businesses close the boards using them effectively to drive local traffic. The restaurant or hotel with the board across the street.

In the Bay Area they are typically used to further reinforce other methods such as bus, subway and print ads. Geico and Bay Area Safety were both running big campaigns.

There is also a Chinese Opera and some local event promoters that have added billboards to their marketing mix.

Don't think of it in terms of is this the one media method that is going to do it. You need many different methods with the same message. Each reinforces the other.

Never actually saw the ad but she went full blitz on all her marketing. She did postcard mailing, flyers and tons of other stuff. I think they also did TV. They track religiously so she was very happy with the billboard. My take is it reinforced everything else and everything else reinforced it.

Most small businesses look for the one silver bullet rather than using multiple methods (sustained over time) to get the word out.

Most of the billboard advertising I see in my local area is absolutely terrible unless it's for some major corporation doing branding advertising. Too many words that are too small to read when driving in a car.