Placement Strategy

Location is Everything

Identify the neighborhoods, churches, schools, strip malls, etc. where families that fit your target market frequent. Income is an important factor - you may generate a lot of leads in high traffic areas but if they can’t afford your service you need to find a new place.

Once you know where your audience is, plan out placements near or at those locations using the common sense guidelines below:

1. High Income Neighbourhoods
If you are targeting a high income neighborhood, be sure to identify the routes leading in and out of the neighbourhoods. Then, locate those common pieces of land where the private and public realms mix. Empty lots are great, carefully manicured lawns tend to be easy targets for removal. Please remember, the higher the area income is, the faster your signs are going to be taken down. This is just the nature of the hustle.
In very high income areas, place very few signs at sparse intervals. In all cases, test, iterate, and learn.

2. Public Property
Depending on the jurisdiction placing signs on public property may be an option (i.e. parks, etc) - but do not oversaturate in any case. Think like a city officer.

3. Private Property
Do not place signs on private property (i.e. private lawns). The definition of private property may be variable in your city, especially as it regards sidewalks. However, private property that is highly valuable and does not draw unwanted attention are big box retailers, malls, etc. These lawns are not monitored by city code enforcement and private security does not have incentives to complain about your signs (they will simply remove them in time).

Tips for Placing Signs Near Retailers and Community Events

Heavy family traffic areas (ex. Outside of Costco on a weekend, busy shopping center, trampoline parks, libraries, fitness centers)
Think of/identify/map out where the big traffic areas are in your community and pepper the signs outside of those hubs
Big Events - placing signs around areas where big events are taking place and there will either be heavy foot traffic or driving traffic (ex. Summer festivals, 10K Runs)

4. Schools
Do not place signs on school property (unless you have permission). However, you can place them strategically near a school. This will vary by location. Start by trying to select an intersection on the way in or out of the school that is 2-3 blocks away from the actual building. Schools do not like to ‘endorse’ tutoring companies and feel that close proximity of our signs does that.

Tops Tips for Placing Signs Near Schools

Stop signs on roads leading into the school
Find out where the parents sit to wait for their kids at the end of the day, these roads typically get really backed up and get a lot of exposure for your signs
Neighborhoods feeding into school radius

5. High Traffic Areas
Make sure high traffic areas are “slow areas” rather than areas where cars go too fast.

When to place them: Weekends (Friday evenings) are the best starting point for placements but progressive placement may help mitigate bylaw officers' ability to remove signs.

Progressive placement? An example to illustrate what we mean by this:

It is back to school in the fall, and your goal is to place 50 signs in the local area. You choose to place 20 signs two weeks into the school season, one week later you place another 20 signs, less than a week later you place your last 10 signs (not necessarily in the same area). This way you can mitigate the attention of bylaw officers as most signs will naturally disappear across time.

6. Angle Placement

It's important that community signs are placed in an orientation where visibility is maximized. Placing signs at 45 degree angle ensures that the sign is visible to direct traffic, as well as traffic perpendicular to the sign.

Placement Cadence

Some locations are very friendly to business signage while others are more stringent as to where and when they can be placed. Below is a basic cadence that can ensure you are in your customers mind across the most important school seasons:

Placement Time	Number signs*
Aug or Sep Drop	50 signs (Private Tutoring)
Oct or Nov Drop	50 signs (Private Tutoring)
Jan Drop	50 signs (Private Tutoring)
Apr or May Drop	50 signs (Private Tutoring)
Jun Drop	50 signs (ACT/SAT/Test Prep or Summer Tutoring, Summer Camps)

*The number signs may vary depending on your territory size. You may be able to place more signs, more often, if your jurisdiction allows it.

A key element for determining the best cadence in your territory is the knowledge of the local school season and customer behaviour.

What do we mean by customer behaviour? It is important to hypothesize or use your experience to make small experiments such as the following:

Let’s assume your school district starts classes in the second week of August. This is the first time you are going to place signs.

When do you place them?

You could test 1 or 2 weeks before class (so you are top of mind as school starts) or you could have them up 1 or 2 weeks after school, once families are more settled and talk about support may have started.

There is really no right or wrong answer to this question, make your best guess and test and track the results. If something did not work quite as expected, iterate and vary your strategy. This is the only way to learn what are the most common customer behaviours in your market.

Pro Tip: Once you have developed your placement muscle you can carry signs in your car at all times and place them on the go. The best location ideas come when you least expect them.

Experimentation & Change are The Only Constants

It may take 2-3 placements to determine the best route per franchised territory. And even then this will not be static, as one time events (i.e. city removing the signs) can always change outcomes.

Table shows how marketing events can vary in ROAS (return of ad spend)

	Location 1	Location 2
January Placement	$5.99	$3.01
March Placement	$0.95	$5.32
Aggregate	$3.47	$4.16

The two locations above made placements in January and March 2021. ‘Location 1’ generated $6 dollars in revenue per dollar spent in the January drop, while the March placement was not as successful. ‘Location 2’ had a lower performance in the January placement, increasing its return to more than $5 dollars in revenue per dollar spent in March. Consider that both locations may have improved these numbers with re-enrollments happening later in the year.

Seasonal Tips

If you live in a northern region where snow stays on the ground for long periods of time, you can place signs on top of strategic snow mounds. Do not place them on roads even if the road is covered with snow.