This week, we’ll talk about a particular kind of marketing, yard signs. It’s no mystery that retail and service providers, regardless of their advertising budget, have to advertise their business in order to generate new customers and ultimately create new revenue to succeed. With advertising budgets being at an all time low due to a tough economy, business owners have to look for low cost advertising solutions, and doing so with yard signs is a great solution. They can be effective advertising options for contractors, real estate companies, lawn care services, landscapers, and other service providers and small businesses that service customers at home. The great thing about lawn signs is they help deliver the message and information in a non-threatening and effective way. With lawn signs, you are reaching a customer at a moment when they are feeling least defensive. Whether casually out on the front porch sipping a drink, or out for a stroll with their loved one, seeing a lawn sign has just the right rate of absorption to make its way into their subconscious and settle in until they need you. When people feel relaxed, they are most open to new impressions. This effective medium of advertising doesn’t have to cost you a bundle and will likely give you more return on investment than other expensive advertising. However, you can’t expect to receive new clients by randomly sticking a sign in yards across town. There must be a strategy and system in place to benefit from this type of advertising.
To paint the picture… imagine taking a walk down a beautiful suburban street, lined with oak trees on a warm and breezy night. You are with your loved one, pushing that fancy stroller and child that was born just a few weeks earlier. As you walk down the sidewalk talking about how each others days were, you come across a yard sign planted in a beautiful and recently manicured lawn that’s bold in color, and a sign advertising Joe’s Landscaping and Lawn Care. You quickly think to yourself as you continue walking down the street, “That’s a nice looking yard.”
At this point, you are thinking that the yard sign in that story was effective in attaining new business, which isn’t entirely true. Yes, it may work now and then to place a yard sign at a job you just completed. However, studies have shown that it takes at least three times of someone seeing your advertisement to remember your business. Therefore, how do we effectively get your name out there for people to see and remember you when there are multiple businesses doing the same thing? The answer is to ‘strategically flood the market’. As previously mentioned, one can’t expect to receive new business every time you place a sign in the yard of a client you just performed work for. You must flood the market with your business name to instill into their mind that you are the business of choice.
In order to do this, we suggest the following when it comes to lawn advertising: Approach all of your previously satisfied clients-whether its 10 people or 1,000 people, offering them a chance for their name to be in a raffle to win a prize in exchange for 1-3 months of sign placement in their lawn. The prize can be anything from a gift card to a favorite local restaurant to a year’s worth of free services. You will find that past clients will be happy to help you out with your advertising, especially if you tie something tangible to it. Conservatively speaking, if even 25% of your past clients want to participate in the raffle, that’s 250 signs that will be flooding the market at the same time!
Now remember that same picture I painted earlier with the family walking through the neighborhood and seeing the single yard sign? Imagine the same story, but with your yard sign strategically spaced and placed house after house throughout the entire neighborhood. Which scenario do you think is going to have a stronger impact? Obviously the second one is going to be the most effective.. That family will certainly remember you and instinctively believe you are the person of choice in your field. With a little preparation and persistence you can turn your typical low budget yard advertising into a advertising campaign with a high return on investment.
Written by Account Manager – Chase Beatty
Image courtesy of http://www.signspecialist.com
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