These signs don’t exist yet; they won’t be finished until Friday at the earliest.
This is the first time we’ve done this, custom signs with one side in English, one side in Spanish. The flyer is done in both languages, also, one on each side of the sheet. I may echo some of the copy on the web site in Spanish, also.
Just because we can, we’re using four unique photos on each side of the sign. The sign printer is digging this stuff beyond all measure. We came to them two years ago with these ideas, and, so far, no one else has even bothered to ask them what we’re doing. Meanwhile, we keep coming up with new things to try. I want for them to enter our work in sign-makers’ competitions.
Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate marketing, real estate photography
Barry Bevis says:
Greg, I love the idea of Spanish! And putting different photos on each side is Brilliant… I’ll do that next time for sure!
I’ve made some changes too- I started using the street name or subdivision name in the URL rather than the address…For example I would have used http://www.HomeOnWestBeryl.com for your listing above
It hasn’t happened yet but I hope to capture another listing in the same subdivision or street and reuse the URL.
You can see my two most recent here
http://picasaweb.google.com/BevisRealty/UpdatedCustomSigns
The rider has price, SF and bed/bath info….
July 17, 2008 — 4:54 am
Teri Lussier says:
Greg-
The photos change, does the copy change?
Do you translate, or does someone else?
Barry-
Those are beautiful signs. I love the black background.
July 17, 2008 — 5:36 am
Greg Swann says:
> The photos change, does the copy change?
It’s a pretty literal translation.
> Do you translate, or does someone else?
We hired it out. I can understand a lot of Spanish by translating it into Latin, but I can’t speak or write it — un muy poquito. It’s a perennial “next year” objective that I never seem to get to. Learning Spanish well enough to translate for real estate is a four-year job. The NAR is forever pimping the idea, but fiduciary and translation are two ideas that should only be used together by an expert.
July 17, 2008 — 6:26 am
Greg Swann says:
> And putting different photos on each side is Brilliant…
That idea wasn’t mine. Patrick Mahony did that first, I just thought it rocked. We’ll do them that way from now, even if both sides of the sign are in English. It’s maybe 30 minutes of extra time, and $0 of extra cost at the sign printer.
> I started using the street name or subdivision name in the URL rather than the address…
I’ve argued against that idea, but each man to his own saints.
When the signs go up, we build a Custom Yard Signs page into every web site. You don’t get a medal for jumping on a grenade, you get a medal for jumping on a grenade while the general is watching. If you don’t tell people that what you’re doing is exceptional, many of them won’t know.
July 17, 2008 — 6:41 am
Brad Rachielles says:
Greg, Well done. Clearly leading the pack …. again.
I can understand the desire to have the “For Sale” in english on both sides of the sign for street trafic attention getting, but is there a reason (other than graphics changes in that part of the sign) that you are not using the Spanish translation as a sub-tag under the “For Sale” corner? I suppose that the same thought should be carried to the Bloodhound Realty rider.
July 17, 2008 — 8:53 am
Barry Cunningham says:
Greg i don’t know if you covered this but what are the dimensions? Also how big is the font?
This is simply amazing!! As you know here in South Florida we have the huge bi-lingual population as well.
As a marketing guy..I’m ashamed that I never have thought of this…simply amazing..more design info please.
July 17, 2008 — 1:23 pm
Greg Swann says:
The top sign sits above the cross-bar on the post. It’s 24×9″. A normal Realtor’s sign is 18×12″, the same 216 square inches.
The big sign is 24×36″.
The price rider is 24×7.5″.
There’s usually an Open House rider beneath that, 24×9″.
Sometimes we do things differently, but we’re usually right at 1,476 square inches of signage, 6.833 times the size of a normal Realtor’s sign. Full color and unique to the property, with that paragraph of text in the middle to induce cars to stop and look at the house.
Type: In the Spanish version of the big sign you’re looking at here, the headline is 180 point, the body copy is 48 point (I like to be around 60 point for this, to be readable from car distances), the URL is 144 point, and the phone number is 234 point. In the price rider, the price is 534 point type. I work in one-sixth scale in QuarkXPress for the Macintosh, with hugely oversampled photos saved as CMYK PhotoShop EPS files. The Quark pages are saved as EPS files, then imported into PhotoShop at 600% scale at 300 DPI. Those are saved as CMYK TIFF files, about half-a-gigabyte each on disk. The sign printer eats those TIFF files like baby-food.
July 17, 2008 — 1:50 pm
Ted Mackel says:
Great Signs!!! I just started doing this and have a new listing that I will try it on again. My signs are metal so I am thinking about this next sign to be put on a magnet that is 24″x 30″ that will just stick to my regular yard sign.
http://homebuysblog.com/2008/06/29/video-blog-new-yard-sign-for-greater-exposure/
July 17, 2008 — 2:27 pm