Handwritten vs. Printed Bandit Signs?

[Joshua Carvalho]

I've heard repeatedly that Handwritten bandit signs are more effective than Printed signs. Is this really true? Handwritten signs just seem so tacky and unprofessional to me, but if that's what really works then I'll do it. I'm about to order 100 signs tonight and need help making a final decision. Thanks!

[Dev Horn]

Originally posted by @Derrick Strope:

We have a few of the 'we buy houses' bandit signs in my city that are handwritten and beginning to smear from all the generous amounts of rain we have here in Seattle.  I think they look terrible and personally, I wouldn't feel that I an individual who couldn't kick out 20+ bucks for a printed sign has the capital to purchase my home.

Of course I have no statistics to back that up, just my thoughts on it. :)

I get that you shouldn't appear too fancy when attempting to attract an average joe to your business but I have never heard of any other successful business that uses hand scrawled messages on a cheap sign to promote themselves.  I'm sure many have done well off of them - It's just sad to me.

Just be sure to check your city laws on signage before throwing them up if you haven't already.

 I could not agree MORE with Derrick here!  Join me in clicking the little VOTE link in the upper right on his post above.  I also can't back up his assertions with data, but doesn't what he said above make sense to you as a "consumer"?

"I wouldn't feel that I an individual who couldn't kick out 20+ bucks for a printed sign has the capital to purchase my home."  BINGO!

Others will argue that the hand-written signs worked for them.  What we don't know is if they had used printed signs, would their results have been better, worse, or the same.

P.S. One of our licensees in West Virginia did a hand-written vs. printed shoot-out in their market (same # of each with different ph #s) and the printed signs generated more calls and higher ROI.  The higher pull of the printed signs may have been the result of the our branding (logo), which appeared only on the printed signs, of course.  (So we can't say they were better just because they were printed.)