So I’ve been advertising around my Rural city of Valley center Ca with 2’x2’ road signs. all of them were posted up on major intersections where plenty of other signs are posted with out being removed. Im just curious. How do i avoid driving down the street to find my signs were thrown 10’ , 30’, or even 50’ away from where I posed them up? i found one cut to pieces . any suggestions?
and if your the guy that’s doing this… Please stop. there is plenty of windows to clean for us all to make a living.
It has nothing to do with you, these guys are trying to eliminate their competition. Where I live the bandit signs on street corners are considered low end hacks, weekend warriors, fly-by-night, etc… Set your signs on the properties you’ve washed if you get permission from the homeowner.
If I was going to place yard type signs, I would only do it at homes I have serviced.
I have looked into having some made, but IMO, I think they are quite expensive. Does anyone get returns on using them? Seriously, has anyone ever called you and said “I saw your yard sign”?
I think they could be an excellent avenue to get traffic for your website or get people to sign up to an e-mail/SMS list IF you used the right message. One new insurance agent in my area simply had yard signs all over that said “Who is Austin Smith?” with a short URL/SMS text to number.
I think something along the lines of “Want a free gift certificate?” could work well in our business. Use a short URL or SMS number to market our business and give them a gift card for 10-20 bucks off their service.
[MENTION=37601]freemind[/MENTION], yes, we’ve gotten an excellent return on our yard signs. Last year one lady let us leave our sign up in her yard for a few months. Her home is in a very visible, attractive spot, and the home itself draws attention due to it’s unique architecture. We pulled in several thousand in new business from that one sign (and yes, people did/do say, “I saw your sign in…”)
Absolutely! I literally had a customer call last night and say “I saw your yard sign and was calling to find out how much”. People call about my signs all the time. Especially for houses that I power wash. If a customers house was bad enough I will get multiple calls just from that neighborhood , nevermind random cars driving by.
One $10 sign can get you multiple jobs. If I’m in the area I will come back and get them, if not I forget about it. I only leave them in areas that I think are prime houses. I would never put a sign up in a dead end. I always put them up while I’m working.
I like your idea but the reality is it probably wouldnt work very well. You need the sign to be clear and right to the point. Big letters “WINDOW CLEANING” phone number a little bit smaller underneath. If you want to put a url on there use much smaller letters at the bottom of the sign. People dont have that much time to read while they are driving by, to it needs to deliver the message immediately. If they are interested they will slow down and take the number. If people are walking by they might pull your url. I used to use signs with my logo and phone number that I designed using vista print but not one call in over a year. Then I read on here about the message needing to be quick to the point and I ordered some from signs from [MENTION=6510]Tim4[/MENTION] at sign2day.com. When my order came in I put one in my front yard and actually got a call in the first hour or two. Here is the sign Tim made me. I use the same design for window cleaning and house washing. How many other forms of advertising can reach thousands of people and is reusable? Its not really that expensive if you really think about
I’ve had one call from 4 signs , all but one was removed. The only one was the liquor store I service. And that one call got me 4 jobs. It was straight to the point.
“Window cleaning”
$50.00
760xxx-xXxX
Super simple and straight to the point. It’s the special I’m doing. For super cheap. That’s only the out side of bottom story but any size.
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I had a really nice yard sign made about 7 years ago. Cost me around $100. I am not sure what it was made out of, but it was heavy duty. I would place it in my clients yard(close to the road) while I cleaned their windows. I also had a waterproof business card holder placed on both sides and the words “Take One” above each card holder. The sign was close to the road so anyone walking or driving by could get my business card.
This sign worked extremely well
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Prime places here, have association rules about yard signs. So, the upper crust will not allow a yard sign anyway. Lots of place you COULD put them here though.
Unless you are tracking response, how do you know exactly HOW well they are working for you? Yes, 10 bucks for a sign is cheap. How many a year are you buying? How many leads/closed quotes does it return?
As far as the marketing I suggested, it’s all good. Good ideas that are out of the norm or comfort zones are usually denounced. Had I not known exactly how well this marketing worked for the insurance agent, I’d have thought it was silly too. But then, I am the type that LIKES being wrong about my assumptions. The numbers just don’t lie. This newby insurance agent created a marketing buzz that created more buzz than ANY other marketing in my area has ever seen. Too bad he couldn’t have kept up his momentum. His marketing was a one hit wonder. Still, an incredible and bold marketing strategy.
[MENTION=37601]freemind[/MENTION], I’m terrible about tracking (shame on me…:o), and I failed to implement any with the signs. But a surprising % of customers tell me up front how they found me, and I usually try and ask those who don’t. So I know the signs are a big hit. There were certain areas that simply didn’t generate any calls- and that honestly doesn’t surprise me. So I focus on putting them up in lower speed zones, where there’s a good amount of traffic, and on an attractive property.
Most people are bad about tracking leads, and I have been at times too.
I make notations on my quote notes, and lead source is one of them. I don’t know how many here actually use a form, but for me, it has eliminated a lot of things I sometimes forget. This way I collect all info I need.
I digress… It’s great the yard signs are working for you. Myself, and I am sure for others, I don’t have time to go back a week or two later to retrieve yard signs. They are too expensive to have thrown away, especially if each one isn’t getting you at least ONE job. Ten buck a job lead is an ok price, depending on your average ticket. But like you said, there will just be places that placing one is a total waste. We won’t likely know that until we have already committed.
I looked it up. You can do a search on google “heavy duty black angle iron frame”(similar to the signs you see Real Estate companies use). The frame of the sign was 3/4" with a powder coat finish. The sign itself was a baked enamel aluminum that slides into the frame. The sign graphics were vinyl lettered on both sides. The two ends of the frame were pointed so I could easily push it into the ground.
This was such a great looking sign. I had the same problem as mentioned earlier…I could not put it up in every yard. Some neighborhoods would not allow any advertising signs. Oh well. It worked in the areas I could put it up.
Since Oct 13 of last year I have received 40 signs. $504 worth. I estimate about $3000 last fall just in gutter cleaning. I have barely used them this year but have kept better track (not perfect), $1762. I still have 30 signs left, so really I you can consider that I spent about $126 so far
Im not saying that its silly or dumb, great ideas. The greatest marketing idea hasnt been done yet, could be anything. But being straight to the point so that a person driving by has enough time to know what you are selling and who to call. Maybe just a q code and nothing else would work. Maybe the people that need their windows cleaned will never see your message because they dont want to play games figuring things out on their own. But on the other hand maybe you will inspire people that would have never thought about having their glass cleaned. Never really know I guess.
