How Local Businesses Can Win with Billboard Advertising

Why OOH works for local businesses

Let’s start with a quick definition: Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising (aka billboard advertising) refers to any advertising that reaches people while they are outside of their homes: think billboards, transit ads, airport displays, transit shelters and more. OOH is unskippable, contextually relevant, and provides creative flexibility, making it a powerful tool for capturing attention in the real world. And I’m not saying this because of my current role as SVP of Marketing at Clear Channel Outdoor. I’ve been a small business owner myself. About 15 years ago, I opened two fitness franchise locations for women. My business partner and I explored a range of media options to generate awareness around the grand openings, drive foot traffic into the retail locations for customer sign-ups, and generate buzz for ongoing promotions. Among the media channels we tested, OOH stood out. The medium’s scale and visibility gave us unmatched presence in the market, with 100% share of voice during the launch period.

For local businesses, OOH becomes more than just media, it becomes a physical extension of your brand within your community. It also provides local businesses a correlation with larger brands who have a permanent out-of-home presence, indirectly elevating the status and size of your business in consumers’ minds. As a former fitness franchise owner, strategically placed billboards helped me attract new members and establish my brand in a crowded local market where there were six gyms within a two-mile radius. With 24/7 presence (via printed billboards) we built visibility and trust right where our customers lived, worked, and shopped. Today, OOH remains a proven way for local businesses to grow their presence, earn trust, and compete in crowded markets.

Consumers notice billboard advertising. Studies conducted for the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA) found that:

OOH earns attention, not interruptions.

Put your business on the map (literally)

OOH lets you position your brand where it matters most: near your store, across your service areas, or on high-traffic roadways and intersections. I experienced this first-hand. Customers would come into my fitness centers and when asked how they knew about us, many would tell us they were driving on near-by service roads and saw our ad. There were lots of options available to us. We happened to choose bulletins, given our simple messaging around grand openings and promotional savings. With various types of inventory including bulletins, posters, and transit shelters within walking or driving distance of physical locations, you have many options to select the right inventory for you.

This is especially beneficial for:

Reach the right people at the right time

At Clear Channel Outdoor (CCO), we help local businesses find OOH placements based on your goals. Whether it’s targeting by neighborhood, zip code, or proximity to competitors, we match your brand with locations that maximize reach and relevance. By leveraging our RADARView audience planning solution, we can recommend boards that are more likely to reach specific behavioral or demographic audiences. This strategic planning solution is especially valuable for small businesses with limited budgets or narrow service zones, ensuring every dollar works harder. This type of planning and measurement wasn’t available to me when I was a small business owner. Had it been, I’m confident that I could have invested more precisely, focusing only on the placements that drove the greatest return for my business -- aligning every dollar with the audiences most likely to convert.

Build long-term local brand recognition

One of the biggest strengths of OOH is its ability to drive recall, even when customers aren’t ready to act immediately. Frequency is a strength in out-of-home advertising: seeing the same message repeatedly in a real-world setting fosters familiarity, and familiarity builds trust; whereas in other media, frequency is often seen as a challenge, leading to ad fatigue or audience annoyance. The more often your audience sees your OOH message, the more likely they are to remember and choose your business later. Don’t be surprised if new customers tell you, “I see your billboard ad every day on my way to work.”

Promote local events and store offers

OOH was ideal for my grand openings, for seasonal promotions, and in-store events. It can have the same impact for you. In fact, according to the OAAA & Morning Consult:

Use messaging that provides directions or creates a sense of urgency for people to visit, like:

This creates context that can convert nearby passersby into walk-in customers.

Measuring the impact of a local OOH campaign: Rita’s Italian Ice

Billboards don’t just establish your brand as part of the local community, they also drive measurable results. Here’s a real-life recent example: CCO helped Rita’s Italian Ice increase store traffic using a targeted OOH campaign across the Philadelphia DMA. CCO helped to identify a mix of printed and digital OOH displays within a half-mile radius of Rita’s retail locations, and utilized RADARView to select inventory that would reach families with children and ice-cream lovers across the market. The resulting campaign drove a 48% lift in store visits, with over half of those visits occurring within 24 hours of someone seeing the billboard ad. Check out the full case study here to learn more.

Final thoughts

OOH campaigns help local businesses become fixtures in the communities they serve. I experienced this myself. Billboards didn’t just advertise my business. They rooted it in the community and helped it grow. Billboards drive visits and prompt other consumer actions. They reinforce your brand where it matters most: on the streets of your city. Whether you’re just launching, promoting, or growing your business, OOH ads are a smart, scalable solution that works.

^{Source: OAAA, Morning Consult, 2023; OAAA, The Harris Poll, 2022; Cuebiq, June 2024}