Jul27
Take the Billboard Challenge
The stretch of highway from my college town to the freeway is strewn with billboards. Officially designated as outdoor advertising, this traditional marketing tool is enjoyed by some and reviled by others. But there’s much that can be learned from billboard advertising.
Consider this billboard that greets everyone who’s driving into our fair city. It’s a perfect use of the medium. In just eleven words the advertiser—a local fair trade retail store—accomplishes these three critical objectives:
- Most importantly, they offer an attractive benefit in doing business with them: Discover the world.
- They tell me who they are: Many Hands Trading, with graphics that reinforce their hip, new-age brand.
- And then they tell me what my next step should be: To visit them at 3rd and Madison in Downtown Corvallis (which is only a few short miles from this billboard’s location).
Most billboards on this stretch of road do exactly the opposite. They cram their rented rectangle with words and pictures and phone numbers and addresses and anything else they can think of.
And no one pays attention. Why?
For one simple reason: when you’re traveling down the road at 60 miles-an-hour, you can’t read endless lines of text and process a confusing array of graphics. Billboard advertising is not the only place this is true. Most people are traveling through life at 60 miles-an-hour (or more!) and don’t have time for a complex description of what you do or a technical explanation of your business model.
When it comes to marketing today, less is more.
I’ve come to believe that crafting an effective marketing message is a lot like sculpting. There’s a block of content you have that describes your business, but it’s way too much for anyone to see what you’re really about. So you cut away at the block. And cut away. And cut away until the very core of what you do is left.
So here’s an exercise, or what I call the billboard challenge:
- In 100 words or less, describe your business to a total total stranger.
- Now edit that description to 50 words.
- Now edit it to 25 words.
- Now select the 10-12 words that are the most descriptive, most compelling summary of your business.
This exercise may take you days—or even weeks—but what you’ll have at the end is a message that’s clear, concise, and, most importantly, a message that will be heard. This now is your starting point: content that cuts through the clutter and initiates a conversation, content that will ultimately draw people into doing business with you.
I would love read your results from completing this exercise. Please post them here!
