Our security sign experiment

We are always looking for new ways to experiment with marketing and advertising. The internet is a great place, but at times is akin to drinking from a fire hose. One of the most tried and true methods that has endured in the real estate business has been...signs. 

The reason why real estate firms are well known in a community is by their physical sign presence. People like to do business when they know that a business works or has experience in the area. One mistake I think many investors make is that they do not actually have any presence or enduring calling card that they leave on their properties.

When we advertise properties for sale, we like to put a sign out front for the exposure. It's a great way to get neighbor's attention and get them familiar with our brand. It's also why we like to put For Rent signs out front when renting, even though the vast majority of our rental leads come from the internet.

I recently had an idea for a new type of sign that I haven't seen yet. It's a sign for our rental properties that can continue to reinforce our brand awareness in our area for one of our companies. It's a small 6" x 11" security sign that gets staked into the ground.

We have put larger signs on our multifamily properties, but those involve bolting a sign into the side of the property, and just doesn't work for a single family house. That's why a yard sign simply makes sense. It's small, durable, cheap, and noticeable. If one breaks or goes missing then no big deal.

We put out about 70 of these signs on our properties today. It's a relatively small area and we recently went through a rebrand, so I'm sure to some people in Portland will think that we have literally come out of nowhere. But that's exactly the point and only time will tell if this experiment pays off!