Case Study

Building a Modern Digital Presence for Minnesota's Billboard Market Leader

IndustryOut of Home Advertising / Digital & Static Billboards

EngagementWebsite Rebuild, SEO & Ongoing Management

Client SinceAugust 2025 · Active

MarketsMinnesota & Western Wisconsin · 1,000+ Faces

The Challenge

Franklin Outdoor Advertising has been a fixture in Minnesota’s outdoor advertising landscape for more than 50 years. Operating from their headquarters in Clearwater, MN, the company serves advertisers across Minnesota and Western Wisconsin with a network of more than 1,000 fully illuminated billboards, including Rotary Bulletins, Poster Panels, Digital Displays, and Permanent Highway Bulletins, spanning major highways and high traffic corridors throughout the region.

Franklin also operates a sister division, Franklin Graphics, an in house print, design, and vinyl production shop that supports the billboard plant and serves local businesses with large format printing, vehicle graphics, banners, and custom signage. It is a full service operation built over decades of local trust and market knowledge.

But the company’s digital presence had not kept pace with the scale of what was happening on the ground. The existing website was a static directory, functional for listing inventory but not built to convert advertisers, communicate the brand’s depth, or compete in search for the queries that matter: businesses in Minnesota looking for billboard advertising, local advertisers evaluating their options, and regional clients who needed to understand what Franklin offered before picking up the phone.

Dan Franklin, CEO, engaged Graviss Marketing to rebuild the digital front door for a company that had earned its reputation in the market and deserved a website that reflected it.

The Approach

Graviss Marketing was engaged as Franklin Outdoor’s outsourced digital marketing partner, responsible for the full website rebuild and ongoing management of the company’s digital presence.

Custom Website Rebuild

A full rebuild of the Franklin Outdoor website on WordPress, modern, mobile responsive, and structured around how both advertisers and prospects actually navigate an OOH operator's site. The new platform organizes Franklin's inventory across Minnesota and Western Wisconsin, provides clear pathways for advertisers to find locations, request quotes, and start campaigns, and gives proper treatment to the company's full range of services including digital billboards, rotary programs, mobile billboards, and the Franklin Graphics division.

Billboard Inventory Search Functionality

A searchable, interactive billboard inventory map allowing prospects and advertisers to explore Franklin's 1,000+ locations by market, format, and placement. This feature turns the website from a brochure into a working sales tool, letting advertisers self serve their research before ever speaking to a rep.

SEO and Market Specific Pages

Foundational and ongoing SEO work targeting the market specific queries that drive OOH advertiser intent, such as billboard advertising in Minneapolis, digital billboards in St. Cloud, and outdoor advertising in Western Wisconsin, across Franklin's footprint. Each major market is supported by dedicated landing page content structured to rank and convert.

Ongoing Management

Beyond the initial build, Graviss Marketing manages Franklin Outdoor's digital presence on an ongoing basis, including hosting, security, WordPress updates, content edits, SEO optimization, and performance monitoring. As the company grows, expands inventory, and adds new markets, the website evolves with it.

Franklin Graphics Integration (In Progress)

An e commerce ordering page for Franklin Graphics is currently in development, adding an online ordering workflow that allows Franklin's existing client base to submit print orders, upload artwork, and manage large format production requests directly through the website.

“Graviss Marketing was great to work with on our website update. They listened to exactly what we needed, brought their own knowledge and expertise to the table, and delivered everything we hoped for, and then some. We came away with a website that's genuinely driving sales.”
Dan Franklin, CEO, Franklin Outdoor Advertising

Ongoing Partnership

Franklin Outdoor Advertising is an active Graviss Marketing client. The website is live, managed, and optimized on a continuous basis. Graviss Marketing is credited as the site’s management partner in the website footer, a visible marker of a partnership built on performance and trust.

The Outcome

Franklin Outdoor Advertising now operates with a digital presence that matches the scale and depth of the company it represents. The rebuilt website organizes 1,000+ billboard locations in a searchable, advertiser friendly format, communicates the full breadth of Franklin’s capabilities, and serves as a credible front door for both new advertisers evaluating options and established clients looking for quick access to inventory information.

SEO work continues to build organic visibility across the high intent, market specific queries that drive billboard advertising decisions in Minnesota and Western Wisconsin. The site is structured to generate inbound interest and turn prospects into conversations, without requiring a rep to be in the room first.

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