{"id":4885,"date":"2008-10-11T10:22:16","date_gmt":"2008-10-11T17:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=4885"},"modified":"2008-10-11T10:24:17","modified_gmt":"2008-10-11T17:24:17","slug":"boringly-functional-artwork-in-the-service-of-marketing-homes-if-people-cant-figure-out-what-youre-selling-they-wont-buy-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/4885\/boringly-functional-artwork-in-the-service-of-marketing-homes-if-people-cant-figure-out-what-youre-selling-they-wont-buy-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Boringly functional artwork in the service of marketing homes: If people can’t figure out what you’re selling, they won’t buy it"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

I wrote about the back side of that card last week<\/a>. It’s the Open House invitation for 56 West Willetta Street in Downtown Phoenix<\/a>, a home we listed for sale yesterday. This is a full-bore Bloodhound launch, but the card itself is kinda boring, wouldn’t you say?<\/p>\n

That’s not an accident. I could wish I were more talented as a graphic designer, but I’m a firm believer that, if something is so cool looking that no one knows what it is, you’ve wasted your money. As radical as our real estate signs are, they still look like real estate signs. And the most profoundly valuable graphic element on our signs was suggested by marketing-provocateur Richard Riccelli<\/a>: The snipe in the upper left hand corner that says “For sale.” In the uncivil war between obvious and obtuse, obtuse wins all the glamorous awards and obvious wins all the money.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to our directionals. I’ve been writing about custom directional signs for more than a year<\/a>. In that time, we’ve gone through many designs, and we’ve never done the same thing twice. For this house, I think I’ve finally hit on something I like and will use again:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Could not possibly be more obvious, yes?<\/p>\n

That “Buy me” call to action is swiped from Redfin.com<\/a>. Their signs do nothing for me otherwise, but those two words are the essence of good copywriting, in my opinion.<\/p>\n

In our own small way, we launch a house in the same we someone else might launch a new car or a new kind of dishwasher or a new magazine. Those business-card-sized Open House cards<\/a> will be distributed to 6,000 homes. We’ll get a 1% or at most 2% response on that effort — extremely direct mail — but the chances are excellent that the ultimate buyer will be among the parties who come to the first open house.<\/p>\n

And: The signs, the directionals, the web site, everything else we do to market our listings<\/a> — these techniques sell houses. This is not rocket science. Drawing more attention — and more-positive attention — to a house will make it sell faster and Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote about the back side of that card last week. It’s the Open House invitation for 56 West Willetta Street in Downtown Phoenix, a home we listed for sale yesterday. This is a full-bore Bloodhound launch, but the card itself is kinda boring, wouldn’t you say? That’s not an accident. I could wish I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5,19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-marketing","7":"category-real-estate","8":"category-technology","10":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":390,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/390\/blogoff-post-13-little-white-signs-are-tin-eared-real-estate-marketing\/","url_meta":{"origin":4885,"position":0},"title":"Blogoff Post #13: Little white signs are tin-eared real estate marketing . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 26, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"This is one of my favorites from my Arizona Republic column:You're driving through a neighborhood, and there it is. Not the \"For Sale\" sign, the rider - the little white plastic sign slung beneath. There, for all the world to see, is the ultimate testament to tin-eared real-estate marketing: A\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":167,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/167\/time-of-the-signs-times-two\/","url_meta":{"origin":4885,"position":1},"title":"Time of the signs times two . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Here are a couple of demos of custom signs for listings. These aren't built to size (24x36\"), they're just scale models (~27%) so that I can see how things work together. Our normal riser will sit atop these, with a rider with the price hanging below. The whole Bloodhound sign\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6189,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/6189\/mariana-wagners-custom-real-estate-signs-are-slicker-than-a-colorado-springs-sidewalk-in-december\/","url_meta":{"origin":4885,"position":2},"title":"Mariana Wagner’s custom real estate signs are slicker than a Colorado Springs sidewalk in December","author":"Greg Swann","date":"December 20, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Look at these custom yard signs from Mariana Wagner's iTeam real estate brokerage in Colorado Springs, Colorado: Mariana reflects: \"Not exactly how yours is set up, as our wind and freezing temps make the hanging sign a disaster, but these rock. (We have installed a 1-800# on the bottom of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3370,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3370\/listing-real-estate-the-bloodhound-way-custom-yard-signs-in-english-and-spanish\/","url_meta":{"origin":4885,"position":3},"title":"Listing real estate the Bloodhound way: Custom yard signs in English and Spanish","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3278,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3278\/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-its-the-text-on-the-sign-that-stops-traffi\/","url_meta":{"origin":4885,"position":4},"title":"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","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 26, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":165,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/165\/signs-of-competitive-advantage\/","url_meta":{"origin":4885,"position":5},"title":"Signs of competitive advantage . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 2, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I've written about our signs before. Counting the custom rider and the rental for the post, a configuration like that shown to the right costs about $275. The post rental is per house, of course, as is the cost of the rider. The top and middle signs are re-usable, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4886,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4885\/revisions\/4886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}