Billboards are all about finding the right location to target your demographic. However, what happens when the primary language spoken by your demographic isn’t English? You adjust. If your existing outdoor advertising campaign consists of billboards only in English, it may be time to translate them in order to widen your reach by making a Spanish billboard. Putting up a Spanish version of your billboard is a great strategy for reaching even more people. Not only that, but it shows the versatility of your brand.

Design tips for designing a billboard in Spanish

The secret to a good billboard, whether in English, Spanish, Chinese or another language is an eye-catching image and a small bit of copy. Ideally, your billboard advertising message won’t be longer than seven words. This is really a firm guideline for advertisers to follow if they want a good return on their billboard ad. It’s pretty much all a person can safely read while driving by, so more than that gets lost. Copy can be a tagline or a short message. It can be a specific call to action or just help build brand awareness. Even though short, this copy can go a long way.

Pictures on billboards are really worth 1,000 words

If you think of a billboard more as telling a visual story than delivering a line of ad copy, you’ll end up in the best mindset to select your image or graphic. Use a visual that explains your brand in some way. It can be as obvious as a giant bug for an exterminator or diamond rings for a jeweler.  It can also get a little silly, but still be relevant like this billboard from Resurgens.

Size matters too 

Whatever you design will have to look good blown up to Spanish billboard size. This is especially important when considering what font to use on your billboard. Make sure it’s easy to read when it’s really big. You also want to size your logo appropriately to stand out on the billboard. It needs to be big enough to be seen by all the people in the cars whizzing by, and shouldn’t compete with the other elements on your billboard. You don’t want to put all this time into designing a billboard only to have passers-by unable to see who’s actually doing the advertising.

Create contrast in your Spanish Billboard color scheme

Color is the last element to pay close attention to when designing a billboard. High-contrast combinations have been shown to make more of an impact in grabbing people’s attention. You can use a combination of light and dark shades within the same color palette or go for the old standby of black and white. The best test for your colors is to look at your design from a distance as you’re making it. Slide away from your computer. Can you read the ad? Even scaled down a bad color combination is obvious.

Some colors that feel contrasty are also still hard to read. Check out some combinations suggested by Design Wizard. As you scroll through, some combinations are more pleasing to the eye. For example, Sailor Blue and Mint have a nice, easy-to-read contrast, but Cherry Tomato and Rapture Rose feel a little blurry and muddied.

Pull it all together

Getting each of these elements — copy length, picture or graphic choice and color combination — pulled together and checked in actual billboard size will help ensure that your Spanish billboard ad will succeed as an outdoor advertising piece. Next, you need to check your messaging.

Check and recheck your translation

According to Business Insider, the wrong translation can really mess things up for businesses taking their established English campaign into another language. The American Dairy Association’s well-known campaign,” Got Milk?” accidentally became, “Are You Lactating?” thanks to a translation snafu in Mexico. An improper conversion from English to Spanish made Volkswagen’s,” Drivers wanted” tagline translate to, “Chauffeurs wanted.” 

One little slip and you’ve essentially ruined an ad campaign and wasted money creating a Spanish billboard you can’t use. For this reason, it’s imperative to check and re-check your billboard for accuracy when working in a language you’re not fluent in speaking. You can run your ad copy through an online translator like iTranslate or Google Translate, but asking someone who speaks the language on a regular basis to check your copy is a safer way to go. They’ll know if there is any current slang that will impact the meaning of your ad as well as being able to check it for an accurate translation.

Ensure your Spanish billboard is reaching the right consumers

Branching out into another language to enhance the reach of your outdoor advertising campaign is a great strategy if you have the right audience to read your ad. In order to locate where the best billboards are for Spanish ads, you need to work with an outdoor advertising agency that understands the local area. They’ll know what parts of town to focus your search for the best billboard location. Once that’s accomplished, the right agency can work with you to properly design a billboard in Spanish to ensure accurate copy and maximum impact.

With multiple decades of experience in outdoor advertising in Atlanta, Effortless Outdoor Media shares their design tips and tricks with clients in order to create Spanish billboards that get noticed. Their awareness of billboard locations throughout the Atlanta area means they know where you’ll find the most visible billboards in the appropriate areas of town to reach your marketing goals.

For the best Spanish billboard and outdoor advertisement prices, placement and service contact us now at info@effortlessoutdoormedia.com and we will respond within 24 hours or less. We are the best billboard company in Atlanta.