Signs of the Times

Members of the ISP-Marketing list discuss some very, very cheap ways of advertising that are also surprisingly effective—where they're legal.

[January 8, 2003]

On the ISP-Marketing list in December, CC posted a proposal:

"I propose another roll call of techniques and results. Here's a start. We're a brand-new WISP with a limited, soon to be expanded service area. Not everyone in the POP can get service because hills and trees and other obstructions block the signal for some inside the coverage area.

• Door hangers on houses with line of sight established by a tech driving slowly up and down in the neighborhood. Results: good. Cost/benefit: Pretty fair. High investment of time. You need a trustworthy tech to do this. Medium investment of money in having these designed and printed/die-cut.
  
  
• Realtor-type signs with our phone number and URL, stuck in the median beside roads where we know the houses can get signal. Result: excellent. Cost/benefit: Excellent. Low investment of time. One sign = 5 to 20 door hangers. Design took longer than it should due to inexperience on my part. Cost about $7.75/sign, a couple of minutes to attach the stake, less than a minute to hop out of the car and pound it into the ground.
  
  
• Newspaper ad in the suburban small town's local weekly. Results: bad. Only a few calls, and none of them in the coverage area. Cost/benefit: Awful. Live and learn. Investment of time: negligible. Just had to design the ad (we hired a guy—OK, that cost, but not our time) and fax it to the paper. Investment of money: More than it was worth.
  
  
• Word of mouth. We are giving a free month to any customer who recommends us to someone who subsequently signs up and stays with us for at least a month. No results yet. No investment of time at all on our part except informing the customer about this when they sign up to encourage them to tell their neighbors. Free, therefore, it's excellent no matter what.

How I can tell: I ask everyone who calls in wanting a subscription how they found out about us. At a guess it's 40 percent door hangers, 60 percent roadside sign."

[MA wrote] "We have found that the senior centers are good. I also find that my local newspaper, right hand side page lower quarter is good.

But there is a trick to it (at least, I think there is).

1) It requires a commitment of at least 6 to 9 months before a decent return kicks in (decent defined as money in has paid for itself and residual cashflow pays advertsing and leaves some extra for another area to target)

2) Start with a small 2 x 2, then expand gradually. until you have the 1/8 bottom of the page."

[JN cautioned] "About those realtor signs. Are you sure this is legal? I know in my city it is not and you are subject to fines of $500 per sign. Not even garage sales are allowed to place such signs... though the city tends to let those slide. The only legal signs I know of are election signs."

[CC said] "No trouble as yet. Supposedly inside the city limits in question they're OK from Friday night to Sunday afternoon."

[BH recommended] "This brings up a very interesting point. Some cities, counties, and even specific developments may have restrictions not only on the Realtor-type signs but also door hangers and flyers. There are two schools of thought: (a) check first to find out what is legal; (b) do it and see if it upsets anyone. Most follow the "b" methodology.

Don't recall if you said, but perhaps when a residental customer signs up, you could put a realtor-like sign in their yard saying something like 'WISP name, phone number, providing high-speed Internet access to this home. Make your home next.'

Sure, there may not be room for all of that, but you get the point. The new customer becomes an automatic endorser of your service, and their neighbors will quickly see that high-speed service is available and possibly either talk to the new customer or call you. Either way, you have the potential to win yet another customer."

[MA replied] "People, please check. I'll tell you about my experience. In September there was a "knight ride" in my town. For those that don't know, that's a white supremacy group that delivers propaganda to your door. In my neck of the woods, we don't like stuff like that. So I got on my bicycle (trusty 12 speed) my night vision goggles, my camera, and my video camera, and cell phone. I started biking around the area, found them, recorded them doing it for about 10 minutes, then I biked up to them, took their picture (FLASH FLASH FLASH) biked away, watched them get to their car, snuck up, and flash, flash.

Then I got home carefully, called the cops, waited for the police car to arrive, and gave them everything. Now they are being prosecuted for placing stuff in my mail box..

Realtors in my neck of the woods are desperate for homes to list. They can not do anything besides mail you—no door hangers or pamphlets. They can go door to door. If they try to hang a door item, you only have to go to the town, hand it over to them, sign a piece of paper, and the realtor gets a warning/fine.

Even in elections, the sings are required to be small or they get fined. Don't get me wrong, the town is rather tough on the rules but everyone enjoys the fact that we have space and piece and quiet."

[BH responded] "Wow, tough neighborhood. Obviously choice "a" is the nice and correct way."

—End