#54: Is Your Billboard a Complete Waste of Money?

The StoryBrand Podcast

StoryBrand.com

Business, Marketing

4.8 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 January 2026

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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Most business owners waste thousands on billboards that never bring in a single lead. Why? Because they try to be clever instead of clear. When your brand isn't a household name, confusing messaging on a massive sign just becomes expensive noise on the side of the road. No one's pulling over to decode your inside jokes or admire your witty wordplay. If your billboard doesn't solve a problem in 7 words or less, it's not advertising, it's art. And art doesn't convert. So why do so many companies still get this wrong?

In this episode, Donald Miller takes you through a hilarious, no-holds-barred review of real billboards from across the country. From duct tape ads to funeral home puns, Don breaks down exactly what works, what flops, and why "cute and clever" usually kills your ROI. If you want your marketing to actually make money—whether it's on a billboard, website header, or tagline—this episode will sharpen your instincts and make you rethink every word you publish.

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Learn how to make your marketing and messaging work using a proven framework in the updated book, Building a StoryBrand 2.0. Order it now on Amazon or wherever you buy books!

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to The Story Brand podcast based on Donald Miller's best-selling book,
0:06.0	Building a Story Brand.
0:07.6	The Story Brand framework is made up of seven key elements.
0:11.8	All of them anchored in one powerful idea.
0:14.5	Your customer is the hero, and you are their guide.
0:18.1	Each week on the podcast, you'll get exactly what you need to craft clear messaging that connects with more customers and grows your business.
0:25.5	Now let's dive in with your hosts, Donald Miller and Kyle Reed.
0:33.7	Hey friends, welcome to the Building and Storybrand podcast this week.
0:36.4	I've got to tell you, this episode is very visual. If you're watching on YouTube, you know why. It's because I'm going to reference a screen right in front of me. Today we're going to look at billboards from all over the country, Billboard messages. In my opinion, the two places people screw up messaging most. One, billboards, two, best man speeches at weddings.
0:58.9	Those are the two worst places that I see people screwing up the messaging. We will do best man
1:05.0	speeches at weddings another time. They're actually quite comical and they're always, always awful.
1:09.7	There's nothing that lets me down more than going to a wedding and the best man speech is actually good.
1:16.3	I'm not here for that.
1:17.4	I'm here for you to really mess up your future in front of a group of people by telling inside jokes and things that aren't funny.
1:24.4	But today we're not going to talk about that.
1:25.9	We're talking about billboards.
1:28.5	Anecdotally, I would say that 90%, nine out of 10 billboards that you see on the side of the road
1:37.5	are complete waste of money. Complete waste of money. Another 5% are money well spent on branding. That is,
1:49.4	brands that are a household name, people know what they are. And so you're just getting the
1:53.2	Coca-Cola colors and image up. That's an effective billboard. And then only 5% of small business, local business billboards work. 95% of those
2:07.1	billboards do not work. And today I want to talk about why. And as you know, I'm a huge
2:12.6	proponent of sound bites. You've got to get your sound bites down, your repeatable, memorable
	...

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