Anyone do CPA with bandit signs?

I have real estate friends who swear by them, that's why I'm intrigued. I also called an insurance guy in my area who's used them for years. I just need to figure out the right offer and go for it. If I can get 1 or 2 $9 leads per month off of a $2 sign, then that's something to scale up from there with more signs, more areas and other offers.

We'll see.

Hey DaveJ1963,

It's actually really funny that you posted this today because about 2 hours ago, I was at a red light and I looked over to my right and I saw a little sign with a metal stand stuck in the ground. It read something like this, "Need auto insurance? Call this number and leave your name and email address and we will contact you with further information."

I thought to myself, "That's actually a REALLY clever idea." The morality/ethics of the strategy is in question a little bit, but if you really are HELPING the person, I think it's a great idea. If you are just emailing them a link to an offer that's going to trick them into paying a monthly fee or something, then maybe not the best idea. But I like the creativity behind the idea! Hope it works for you though!

Best of Luck,

CPABrainstormer

I'm in St. Louis, so knock yourself out, it won't effect me.

I know this is an old thread, but here are some other thoughts about this idea....

I have a friend that owns a huge home security business down south. 4 months ago they started putting out 100 bandit signs a week - outside the city limits primarily. They sell between 15 to 30 systems a month from these signs. They do lose signs, that is not the point - the point is they make sales.

I just struck an agreement with a security company here in my town. I will place signs each Friday night and pick them up Sunday night. The calls will go thru my Google Voice account to their phone. That way there is some oversight. I will make $100 per install.

We are going to start with about 20 signs a weekend at key intersections. Based on traffic counts provided by the local city website, I predict that 20 signs will yeild about 60-70,000 cars seeing the signs per day.

I will let you all know how this turns out! Stay tuned....

I don't want to put a damper on this because it is something I am thinking about trying myself.

If you Google "bandit signs" you will find that many real estate people already use these ... or have used them in the past. I'm not talking about the "For Sale" signs in front of houses. I mean signs that you see near intersections and along the sides of highways that say things like "We Buy Houses" and give a phone number to call. These are put there by real estate investors who are trying to flip houses for a quick profit, or gain new prospects, etc.

What the real estate people all say is that these signs are often very effective ... but also risky. That's because every county and every city in the country has laws against putting signs in the right-of-way (or in the median strip) of public roads. Just because you see other people's signs in those places (especially during political season!), doesn't mean the laws don't exist. Some jurisdictions are more diligent about enforcing the laws than others are, but it's hard to know ahead of time which ones are which.

Most of the time (as I gather from reading what the real estate folks say), the county or city code enforcers will just remove your signs. If enough people read your sign and go to your CPA offer to make this just a cost of doing business, this might not be so bad. But in most places they can fine you if they want to. Sometimes it's a flat hundred bucks, say. Sometimes it's $100 per sign. In some places it's more. I read one real estate guy say he was fined $20,000 once, but since he had managed to make like $100,000 profit on one of the deals he secured via the signs, he could afford it.

How do the "sign Nazis" (as some of the real estate guys prefer to call them) find the sign owner in order to fine him? They call the number on the sign, pretend to be interested in selling or buying house, set up a meeting, and then whip out the citation. As CPA marketers we wouldn't put phone numbers on our signs, but we would put URLs, and all of a URL's contact info (registrant's name/address/phone) can be found through a WHOIS search.

Now in all honesty I don't think most of us would have any problem putting a few small signs here and there, except having the signs disappear after a few days. I may try this myself this weekend, so again, I'm not attempting to dissuade anyone else from giving it a shot. I just wanted to insert that the cost of your signs isn't all you risk losing, however small the actual risk of being fined.

I would sure love to hear from warriors who have actually used such signs, though, and could tell us 1) how effective they were in getting people to the CPA offers, and 2) whether or not they caused any problems with the local "sign Nazis."

I was getting ready to start a SIGN campaign and called my local Code Enforcement Office to make sure it is ok. Well, it's NOT ok and if you put signs out at intersections you can be fined, etc., etc.

I can almost bet that the laws are similiar to other counties/states. You really need to check.

You really don't want to risk getting fined.

Not sure what state Steve is in and if, in fact, he is doing this sign campaign and making tons of money per month.

My guess, he's not doing it at all.

Just my 2 cents worth,

John

Why not get a trac phone, forward the number to Google voicemail with recorded message directing people to your offer/landing page. This way you won't get caught.
Work from home
Data Entry
xxx-xxx-xxxx
Simple and very affective.

Test for yourself.

Much success,
Frank