Company: DC Marketing, LLC.Markets: New York
Address: 16 Kearney St. Oneonta, New York, 13820
Email: Len@dcmarketing.com
Phone: 607-244-9183
DC marketing is a family owned business which operates 5 digital signs and 3 static billboards in the City of Oneonta, New York. Billboard Insider talked with co-owner Len Carson.
How did you get into the out of home business?
In 2011, friends of mine who are small business owners, were complaining about their market share, and with no advertising experience I suggested they should advertise more. Their response was, “Do you know how much that costs?” I said no, and they went on to explain the cost of print, radio and tv within our market. This response caused me to ask, ” How does a small business afford these advertising mediums when the cost represents a significant portion of their profits?” As entrepreneurs do, I saw an opportunity, but wasn’t sure of the answer until more than 1,000 hours of research later, when my solution was DOOH. So, the next steps were finding a location on I-88 where the highest traffic count in our Oneonta/Cooperstown market is, convincing my wife that investing my retirement on a location with a dilapidated home and 25 +/- trees that needed to be razed and install the first digital billboard on the 120 mile long I-88. Yes, she thought I was crazy, but trusts me and has been fully supportive of our Out of Home business.
Was permitting difficult?
Yes, because we were the first on this Interstate, NYS DOT took almost 8 months to permit the location. We also waited a few months for the new city zoning code to be codified before we submitted our application, but to be perfectly honest, our Planning Board was very receptive and we were approved at the next month’s meeting. NYS DOT has decreased the permit approval time period dramatically since our first application.
Whose digital signs do you use and what have you learned?
We have purchased (3) Formetco digital billboards, (1) Ebsco digital sign and the location we acquired from a competitor in 2019 has a Surefire digital billboard. We met with Matt Leach and Jock Gibb at their Dulth, GA plant prior to purchasing our first board and were extremely impressed with the family atmosphere they have created there. Formetco has treated us with a level of customer service as if we owned 100 digital billboards and they have helped us along the way as our business has grown.
You’ve got a 3′ by 5′ digital in addition to your large digitals. How are small digitals different to operate and sell?
The digital sign has taken more sales effort than the large digital boards, but in the last few months, more downtown businesses are going up and staying up. As for sales in our market, we are very fortunate, most of our sales volume is from the customer calling us, they stay with us and this keeps our boards 85-90% occupied.
What are three priorities for you company in the year ahead.
Continue pursuing programmatic, we partnered with Blip more than two years ago, they have been completely honest about their business model, what we as the SSP should expect and in the last year we have seen a significant uptick in national and local businesses using Blip on our boards. And with their recent partnering with Vistar and Adomni, we look forward to the increase in business from this platform. In January we installed our fourth digital billboard and will continue to expand our presence in digital, both outdoor and indoor with the finalization of permits on several locations we have been working on. Our third priority for 2020 is to connect with more small OOH business owners, as we have been a IBOUSA Market Club member for a few years, we’re hopeful to become eligible soon to attend their conferences. IBOUSA has brought together this siloed group of business owners and created an opportunity to network, but also to be introduced to the up and coming trends in our industry. It’s been refreshing to hear from industry leaders we should collaborate more, after all, our real competition is radio, print and tv!
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