Transcription
Most people think organic signage strategies are dead and archaic. I'm here to tell you that it's completely false. And in my own business this year, between November and December, we did $888,000 in revenue. Show me the money! And about 30% came from the signage strategy that I'm going to talk about in this video right [Music] now.
The things we talk about in this video are not going to be unique in terms of things you've never heard of before, but you need to focus on the execution of these things. People have done yard signs before. People have done A-frames before. People have done truck wraps before. But when you implement them with a strategy that actually works, that's how you can separate it.
So in this video, we're going to talk about the three main signage things that you need to implement in your home service or blue-collar business that will help you turn one job into two and two jobs into four, without dumping a ton of money into Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and Angie and everywhere else you try to dump money in.
We're going to cover organic yard signs, public-facing without your brand. Branded yard sign strategy that you can actually use with your current customers. And the way you execute on the branded yard signs matters, so stick around for that.
The second thing we're going to talk about is the A-frame strategy. The way you execute on this one is extremely important, and the way you can actually generate leads from this is unmatched from any other signage or organic marketing strategy.
And the third thing we're going to cover in this video is the gift card reciprocation strategy that is incredibly underutilized in the home service trades that will absolutely become a money printer in your business if you implement it properly.
So let's start with yard signs. The first thing you want to do with yard signs is understand that yard signs are a volume game. Every time someone tells me yard signs don't work, my follow-up question is, "How many did you put out?" And most of the time, the answer is less than 50. We need more juice. We need more heat.
If you put out 50 signs, 25 of them are going to get stolen off the rip. You have to consistently drip them. When we do signage strategies and public-facing yard signs, we do 50 a week. These are the ones that you put on stop signs, around street corners, entrance and exits of gas stations, entrance and exits of supermarkets. But the key is you want to use a forwarding number and just have your generic service on it because you don't want the Kens to call and report you or give you a one-star.
So what you do is you use a Google Voice forwarding number and then you plaster these all over your town. Now, some cities have different ordinances than others. Some will give you a slap on the wrist. Some will even attempt to give you a ticket. So do your homework in your area first. But if you utilize it properly, if you plaster these, these will just generate cheap phone calls in your business. But you want to KISS this thing: Keep It Simple, Stupid. The sign has to have a Google Voice forwarding number and your service you're advertising on it. Nothing else. These are the ones that are going in the public.
So what we do is we drip 10 to 15 a day going from Wednesday to Saturday. So Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, and bonus points if you do it Saturday, that way you can get all the weekend calls from them when people are doing work around their house. So again, service, phone number, that's it. It is just a pure phone call generator.
When they call the forwarding number, you answer with the acronym of the name of your business to make sure that it's not the neighborhood Karen freaking out at you. So, for example, when I was running them for my junk removal company, our name was Slam Dunking Junk. I would answer the phone, "SDJ Junk, how can I help you?" when the forwarding number would ring. That way, if it was a neighborhood Karen and she was freaking out about us littering signs, I would just politely say, "Okay, yeah, we'll come grab them," and then just move on with my day. Karen, please. Once you know it's an actual customer and they say, "Hey, I want to get a quote on window cleaning, I want to get a quote on plumbing, whatever your sign is," then you can follow through with your process.
But again, the proof is in the volume on these, and the math on these really makes sense. If you do a good amount of volume, you can get them with the vendor I use for about $3.50 to $4 a sign with the stakes. Let's say you put out 100 of those in the course of two weeks, that's a $350 marketing expense. If our average ticket for junk removal is $300, I only have to close three jobs to make that a 3X return on ad spend. So if you put out 100 of these, I guarantee you you will close more than three jobs, but you have to stay consistent with it.
So again, this is the public-facing yard sign strategy. The more effective one is the branded yard sign strategy in existing customers' yards. But the way you execute on this is the sauce. When you're just closing out a job and you're finishing it out with the customer, that's when you pitch the discount promo for you putting a sign out in their yard. You want to make these signs look pretty and not be an eyesore. This sign is a little bit more ugly and it's meant to grab attention fast with the passersby in the vehicles. This one is meant to not be as much of an eyesore because it's going in your customer yards with their permission. Thus, you can make it a little bit more pretty and put your brand on it because you're getting permission to do it.
And the way you execute on this is when you're closing out the invoice, you say, "Hey, do you want an additional $10 off? $15 off? Whatever promo you want to do?" Deal, deal, deal. Customer typically says yes. You say, "Cool. All I want you to do is let me put this sign in your yard until the next time you mow your lawn or your landscapers come." We get about a 60% take rate on that with customers because you're a small business owner, typically they're excited to help you out.
Why these ones are so effective is: one, it has your brand on it. Two, they probably saw you doing the work, meaning the neighbors saw you doing the work already. They've seen your vehicle when you were at their house, whatever else. And then this is left there for at least a week, maybe even more, until they mow their lawn next. What happens is you get the dog walker traffic, you get the soccer mom taking the kids back and forth from school, you get all of that traffic blasting impressions on your branded sign, and the customers typically are completely okay with doing that. We generated a ton of business from this sign alone.
The sign you're seeing right here, notice it's not an eyesore. It's elegant, it's pretty, pretty. It matches our colors and it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb in people's yards. It has pretty writing on it. It's clear what we do and why we do it. And then we have a QR code and a direct call to action with our phone number. That sign made us so much money this year because it's playing off of social proof. If the neighbors used you and let you put out a sign, they clearly liked you and the work that you did. That's what's going to be so powerful for you converting the customer. These two yard sign strategies alone will help you crush.
The strategy is the A-frame strategy. The A-frame is how you yell respectfully to all of the neighbors while you're doing the current work that they can come bother you for an estimate. This is unbelievable because most people just think that they want their phone to ring from ads, referrals, everything else, and they don't capitalize on the best way that you can generate leads for your business, and that is while you're doing the work.
The reason this A-frame is so effective is outside of your branded vehicle, if you have one or not, the A-frame is maybe $90, and it explicitly invites them to come bother you for a quote. If you look at ours, for example, our A-frame is very clear. It's branded the way that we want our brand to look, and we keep ours a little funny. You don't have to have yours funny, but this works really well for us because our holiday lighting business is a little zany, and so we have it say, "Elves at Work, Custom Holiday Lights," our phone number, and then we have a QR code that says, "Book your estimate here." And this clearly invites the neighbors to come talk to you.
So the way we execute on this is all of my crews, when they start a job, part of their SOP checklist, their standard operating procedures, is they get out of the vehicle, they grab this A-frame, and where the truck is parked on the curb, they take the A-frame and they move it about two feet into the street so it doesn't stop traffic, but it at least grabs attention and slows traffic down a little bit, and it looks like you're doing it for a safety reason. What you're actually doing it for is to get the soccer mom to slow down her car a little bit, get her eyeballs glued to your brand, and then in her mind, she goes, "Oh, the Smiths are getting window cleaning done. That's pretty neat." And then there's your brand getting another eyeball hit again, costing you no money.
So a lot of the time, what you'll see is you'll see someone driving by while you're doing the work, and you'll watch them do this with their phone and scan your QR code on the A-frame. Again, if you're running paid ads, if you're doing anything else like that, you're paying, you know, $10 to $20 to $30 a lead if you get one or two leads from this a day. Think about how much that saves you in market costs to generate these new jobs for free.
So at minimum, you get one A-frame sign and you put it in the road where your truck is parked, and it's just another separate thing that can really drive traffic. Bonus points if you get a second one and you put it at the entrance of the neighborhood before you drive in. So you pull into the neighborhood where you're doing the work, and then you put that A-frame right at the entrance of it, and then you put the second one at your vehicle. So then when you're done working, you're driving out, you grab the A-frame, load up, and then when you're driving out of the neighborhood, you grab the second A-frame, and you're good to go. So now you've gamified two or three brand touch points for no money.
And then the last thing we do is a gift card campaign. And the way the gift card campaign works is when we finish a job, we leave these gift cards at the completed job's doorstep or give them to the customer when they're closing out. And they're gift cards to our business for them to give to their neighbors and friends. The key with this is you want to make it look like a Best Buy gift card. You want to make it feel like a Best Buy gift card. And then you give them a little carrot to give these to the neighbors.
So what we do is we put a little blank space on the back and it says "Gifted by," and then we write the customer's name who just got the job done for. So then their name is on the back. So let's say we just did a job for Tim Smith. We write "Gifted by Tim Smith" on the back, and we give him two gift cards to give to his neighbors, friends, and family. We tell Tim, "Tim, your name is on the back. Every time your neighbors, friends, or family redeem these gift cards, it's tracked in our system that you were the person that gave them this gift card. We'll send you a $25 gift card to Chick-fil-A, a $50 gift card to a steakhouse, something like that."
So now what happens is Tim has a carrot to give these out more than just being a good Samaritan. There's something in it for Tim to give the gift cards out. A gift card? Yeah.
What happens when you execute on all three of these things properly is you're giving your business more at-bats to turn one job into two, two jobs into four, four jobs into eight. The problem that a lot of you guys have is you've done one, two, or three of these things sporadically and haven't built it into your systems. There's plenty of times where we give the gift cards out and they don't generate a call. There's plenty of times where we put a yard sign out and it gets pulled the same day. There's plenty of times where we put the A-frame out and it doesn't generate a call.
But when you build it into your daily systems of your business, you give yourself that many more opportunities. And so maybe you only get two calls or three calls a week from yard signs. Maybe you only get one call a week from the A-frame. And maybe you only get two calls a week from these gift cards. But what happens when you add all of that up? That is a lot more calls a week to your business, completely free.
And so you don't get amazing results if you only do this when you're in the mood. You get amazing results when you do this every single time because these are the things that will separate you when you build this into your systems. Take it from me, this is one of the main things we implemented this year that exploded our sales. We broke every record this year in both businesses, and it's largely due to this strategy.
You have to get off of the paid ad hamster wheel. You can't just rely on Angie, Thumbtack, Google Ads, Google LSAs, and Facebook Ads to solve all of your problems. You will stay on the paid ad hamster wheel and you will wonder why you're not profitable. You have to get good at generating referrals and generating organic business, and this is an unbelievable place to start for pretty cheap.
This strategy is just a few of the many things we implement in my business that completely, completely changed the game for us. There's a lot more stuff we do. And the Home Service Accelerator program actually has you come in and we implement all of the processes and systems that have worked for me in my business, as well as 200 other people in the last nine months. If you want to get more information on how to join the accelerator program, I'll put a link to book a call with us below, and we're happy to chat with you about your business, see if it makes sense, and if it does, we'll invite you in and we can go from there.
And if you want more free, applicable, no BS content like this, feel free to subscribe to this YouTube channel. And you can also find me on Instagram at @steve-hunsaker. I post a reel or two a day there that's just quick-hitting, implementable steps that you can do in your business that have worked for me that might also help you.