I have put up 100 digital displays in the last 15 years and I have learned a whole lot about how to do it successfully. More often than not, I had to learn the hard way.
Here are 10 things to consider.
1. Don’t go cheap on your display. You may want to save some money shopping different manufacturers for the best display price, but don’t forget to consider power consumption, display life, and downtime (credits and repairs). All of these can make the cost of ownership much more than you expect. You can end up stepping over a dollar trying to pick up a nickel.
2. Right-hand reads at a traffic light almost always have the best occupancy. I’m not hating on left-hand reads or saying not to build them. I’m just saying that selling a RHR seems easier.
3. I have never done well with a digital on an interstate. Maybe it’s the size of the markets I have been in (maybe it’s me?), but the typical interstate directional buyers don’t seem to want digital.
4. Keep track of all the extra parts you have on a sign. There is nothing worse than having a tech go to a sign just to find out you don’t have that power supply or extra module to make the repair. (Full disclosure – we don’t have all of our sign parts inventoried so…do as I say, not as I do)
5. I do my best to make sure my land leases on digital displays are under 10% of revenue. You will have to replace that LED in about a decade so the lease needs to be a lower percentage of revenue than if it was just a steel structure with a 50+ year life.
6. I have been surprised by how long some of the displays have been lasting these days. I have one up now that is 12 years old and still looks pretty darn good. FYI… it wasn’t one of the cheaper ones.
7. But… if a display faces south, you can bet on it needing to be replaced about 1-2 years earlier than the one facing north (even if it wasn’t one of the cheap ones).
8. Putting a digital up to justify doing a deal with an expensive lease is probably not going to work out as great as you think. It can work out, but it had better be a pretty awesome site – as one lease guy I used to know would call it “a windshield cracker of a site”. Of course, every site he tried to sell me was one of those…
9. I find that in billboards and in life if you keep your expectations low, chances are you won’t be disappointed. So, before I order a sign, I set my new site projections at 80% of rate card with a 70% occupancy. If the numbers work at that amount of revenue, I say go for it.
10. Advertisers often seem to get excited on the front end about all the functionality of digital (dynamic/conditional content, day parting, Etc.) but unfortunately, they rarely actually elect to use it. The good news is that we’ve found that advertisers who change their digital copy on a regular basis tend to renew their agreements.
What’s one thing you’ve learned about building digital signs? Email davewestburg@billboardinsider.com or use the form below. We’ll share the results with our readers.
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