Listing real estate the Bloodhound way: The marketing power of a custom yard sign is not the color, not the photography, not even that it is custom-made — it’s the text on the sign that stops traffic

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

We’ve been making custom yard signs for two years now, but that represents the third generation of our sign philosophy. The second generation featured a huge picture of Odysseus the TV Spokesmodel Bloodhound, and that was a real traffic stopper when it was new. The first generation sported a huge rendition of our corporate logo, which we moved, in smaller form, to the riser on top of the post for the second and third generation signs.

What BloodhoundRealty.com signs have always had in common, going back to 2003, is that paragraph of small text in the middle of the sign. With our custom signs, we can rhapsodize each house, but we knew from the very beginning that that paragraph of text would stop traffic, and that this would win attention for our homes that we could not achieve with an ordinary real estate sign.

We knew back then that we wanted custom signs, we just couldn’t do it then. (Richard Riccelli suggested that we mount a metal frame on our signs so that we could swap in other text.) We knew then, as we we know now, that good marketing sells houses — but that exceptional marketing would set us apart from the Realtors we compete against with our sellers and with their neighbors.

Here’s how to understand the Bloodhound marketing strategy: Everything we do goes into selling the house — into inducing the behaviors necessary for the home to be sold. And selling houses the way we do accomplishes the objective of selling everything we do to those homeowners who are paying attention. In that respect, all of our marketing is integrated — all one thing.

This is adapted from a comment I posted earlier today.

What matters most about custom yard signs is not the color, not the photography, not even that they are custom-made for the house. What makes them sell is that paragraph of text in the middle of the sign. As you could easily predict, there is a philosophy behind everything we do, including our custom signs:

Forever and always, Realtors have treated their yard signs like billboards. After all, the traffic is driving by, so all you can hope to do is let people know this home is for sale, right? Well, maybe. Writing a billboard that sells is a monstrous job precisely because your prospect is inherently isolated from any possible point of sale. Is that true of a potential home buyer? More significantly, isn’t the information on a Realtor’s sign at war with the billboard idea? Who takes down a phone number from a billboard? And who can read all those riders without stopping?

And why would you want to encourage people not to stop?

The purpose of a Realtor’s sign should be to get people to stop and look at and buy the house. If the entire point of the exercise is to promote a fleeting visual awareness that some particular house is for sale, with no action sought or expected, then the effort is entirely wasted. On the other hand, if a Realtor’s yard sign is not really a billboard, but is instead, in fact, an advertisement — then what?

Our signs are our answer. Those custom photographs will attract attention. On the rider, we’re advertising the price in no uncertain terms. Real Estate has always been a business of secrets — “I have access to information that you can’t have without paying me first” — but our practice is to be completely transparent. And yet, if you ignore that paragraph of text on the middle sign, we’re not hugely different from a normal Realtor’s sign: Who we are and how to contact us.

But it is that paragraph of advertising that makes all the difference. No one can read that while driving by — and that’s the point. That paragraph is there to get people to stop. To read the sign. To read the flyer. To write down the address of the web site. Most especially to look at the home. And, ultimately, to call us to buy the home.

The purpose of Bloodhound’s yard signs is to get people to stop, to look at and to buy the home. The purpose is advertising, not announcement. We think ordinary Realtor’s signs are a form of Sales Call Reluctance — passively absolving customers from buying the product. Our signs, by contrast, are very aggressive: If you want to know what we have to say, you’re going to have to stop. When you do, we’re going to keep presenting until you either relent or run away. We’re going to call for your action in every way we can, and we’re going to call for you to act with us. All of this is done by passive devices — the sign, the flyers and the house itself — but the objective is always action, and now, not later.

For the folks paying attention to our marketing ideas, I entreat you to pay attention to everything I’m talking about. Marketing isn’t a matter of tools or techniques, it’s a matter of aims and intentions — and results. If you miss out of what we’re trying to do with a particular marketing idea, you’re missing out on the value of that idea.

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