Arnold Outdoor founder John Arnold has learned a lot in a 21 year career in the Out of Home business. Last week he talked about hiring, permits and easements. This week he talks about digital billboards.
Digital billboards.
I have 3 and was just permitted for the 4th. It’s a very small town. The population is 5,000. I was trying to buy another piece of property in that town to put up a 12’ by 24’ billboard. My realtor texted me and said I’m running late. I get to her office and was waiting and noticed a flyer for a property on main street and Oak. I walk out ot the eds of the road and the property is half a block away. I walk down there and look at it and it is 25’ by 140’. It’s two blocks from the main intersection in town. It’s just big enough to put a digital billboard on. When the realtor arrived she said are you ready to draw up an offer and I said I’ve changed my mind and the property that I want to make an offer on and it’s contingent on getting a digital billboard permit. The city council said yes you can put up a billboard but it needs to be less than 100 square feet. I went back to them and said if I donate a slot on a billboard will you let me put up a digital billboard. They said yes but it has to be under 100 square feet. So I’m working with Formetco on putting up a 7’ by 14 digital which is 98 square feet.
Digital billboards in small markets
If you do your homework they can be very effective and quite productive. The first digital billboard that I put up is in a town of 6,000-7,000 people. I put up a 10’ by 20’ digital. I got my money back on that sign in 1 year. What happened in that town is that the local newspaper was going out of business. I got the local newspaper and went around to the advertisers. We rented out the Chamber building and we catered lunch and we had the guys from Watchfire come in and make a presentation and we had a table at the back and at the end of the meeting we had 18-19 advertisers sign up. When we kicked it off we had 22 advertisers on the sign. They were only paying us $250/month but we eventually had over 30 advertisers. I commend Watchfire for putting out a quality product that I can rely on. My other digital is with Formetco. I commend them. I have very few operational problems. We have some great products out there.
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