Dwayne Stoltzfus, the Billboard Department Manager at Christian Aid Ministries talked about the Berlin, Ohio non-profit’s  billboard program at last week’s IBOUSA show.  Here are the highlights of Dwayne’s talk

On The Organization

“Christian Aid Ministries is an Ohio-headquartered nonprofit organization started in 1981.   We want to connect people who want help with people who need help.  We operate 40 different programs.  We distribute food, clothing, medicine and Bibles. We also have a microlending program and are active after disasters.”

The Billboard Program

“Christian Aid Ministries has used billboard advertising for 12 years.  We currently display messages on 600 billboards around the US.  We have seen the value and impact that ooh can have on people.  Our donors like the program.  The billboard budget is $4.4 million this year.  91% of our spending has gone to the major out of home companies and 9% of our spending has gone to independent billboard companies.   400 people per day call our phone number based on the billboards.  We stay away from political topics and hot button messages.  Our goal is to point people to Jesus and the the Bible.  We believe that billboards are a great way to spread God’s word.  400 people a day call the phone number listed on our billboards.”

How does the company select locations?

“We want a good spread all over the US.  We don’t look for directionals.  We like a good read and a good cpm. We stick with static boards.  We tried some digital.  It’s doesn’t make sense CPM wise.  We also like to keep out message in front of people all the time.

We buy 100-200 locations at a time in January under 12 month contracts.  There are copy changes every four months for bulletins and every 28 days for posters,  We’ll have additional campaigns in the spring and summer.  We’re planning now for 2019.

If you have empty space and want to put up our messages we’d be happy to send you a vinyl or two.”

On the importance of measurement

“We need a trustworthy way of measuring audience.  CPM is how we decide what to buy.  CPM is how we promote to our donors.  We struggle when we have to compare DEC with Geopath impressions or some other data.  It makes comparison between locations difficult.”

To learn more contact Jay Stotzfus, Billboard Department Contract Administrator, Christian Aid Ministries, 330-893-2428, jstoltzfus@camoh.org.

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