Posted on June 18, 2010 by Torrey

Bandit signs can be a great marketing strategy if used correctly.  I began to use bandit signs just last year and I will admit, my first experience was not a pleasant one.  I ordered 100 signs and put out 25 every other weekend.  I did get a nice amount of calls, approximately 10/week.  But this wasn’t my idea of great marketing.  It wasn’t until my mentor, Jason Rodriguez, broke it down to me where I was making my mistakes.  The funny thing is, I never considered to do an analysis on my bandit sign marketing strategy to see how I can improve it.  Until then my attitude was “bandit signs don’t really work in my area”.  But as my mentor made me see and understand this business is a numbers game.  So you must play the numbers and you’ll win!

At this point I ordered 100 fresh new signs and stakes.  I shied away from the yellow signs and went with the blue-on-white.  I also made some adjustments in my message and included, “Cash in 48 hrs”.  I knew that this would definitely get the eye of many motivated sellers.  Once my signs came in, I watch the weather report to be sure that the following weekend wasn’t a rainy one.  I prepped my signs by putting the stakes in them.  That Friday evening, my help and I went out to put the signs up.  I was driving and my trained assistants, Brandon and Jay, put the signs out.  When I would pull up to a corner of a busy intersection, they would hop out of the truck and put signs on the corners.  I usually put signs at all four of the corners at busy intersections though some may only need 2 in the directions of the flow of traffic.

Bandit signs are not placed directly on the corner of an intersection.  This is a No-No!  You should place your signs approximately 10 – 20 feet from the corner of an intersection.  This way when the traffic is stopped, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th car can read the sign while they are waiting at the light or stop sign.

Normally people don’t write down your number when they see the sign initially.  Just like with direct mail, people respond to the 3rd or 4th sign the see. As I was telling you about my first experience with bandit signs, it wasn’t so great.  The reason why is I only put out 25 signs.  This wasn’t enough to generate me a deal based on the research I’ve done in my area through trial and error.  But when I got my new signs and put up all 100 in one evening, the response was totally outrageous!!  I mean, the first week I got well over 60 calls.  The calls continued for 2-3 weeks.  By the end, I had received well over 100 calls.  This resulted in 4 contracts and 2 closed deals.  Profit from these two (2) deals, $8,200 ($5,200 check and $3,000 check).  That’s $8,200 from 1 month worth of work.  Imagine how much marketing can be done with $8K!

You must first research your market and see what area or zip investors are buying properties.  Once you have a target area, you want to flood it with bandit signs.  If you don’t get any complaints on your bandit signs, then you don’t have enough signs out.  I usually get 1 or 2 calls from people complaining about my signs.  The more the better.  Generally 100 signs will generate at least 1 deal.  Some areas may take more and others may take less.

I had something happen to me that was a first last month.  In the video below, I put up two signs while making a video of how to put up bandit signs.  I only put out 2 signs because they were the only ones I had.  Anyway I got a call from those signs and got a deal.  I put it under contract and called only 1 investor.  We scheduled a time to look at the property and he put it under contract.  That one deal I put in about 1 hr of work and made $3,500.  This rarely happens, but I was really flattered.  You don’t want to chance putting out too few signs.  Go ahead, put the work in, put out 100 signs  and get that deal!

In the video below, I show you how to put bandit signs up.  Enjoy…

Tags: bandit signs, How To real estate, marketing, real estate, wholesale

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