MSI Blog

I was driving just north of Miami last week when I saw something interesting--a billboard for a hospital with a live, digital readout of the current wait time in their ER. While I can't imagine anyone making a decision to go to an ER in a moment of need based on a billboard they happen to see, I do see great value in this approach.

As long as the billboard is truly working in real time and doesn't always say there is a 15 minute wait, as it did that morning (and assuming the wait time is always relatively short), this message is much more powerful that simply having a billboard that says, "Short wait times," or something similar. The message is developed in the minds of the billboard's readers over time so when they do have an emergency, this hospital is the only place to consider going.

What if a restaurant billboard had the same thing right before the offramp to which it is located? What about a mortgage broker who has the real-time average timeframe of mortgages completed that month, or a real estate agent who marks how many homes she has sold that quarter? The opportunities are limitless. How can this idea apply to your business?

Here's to your marketing success!

Bryan Waldon Pope