The ONE Newsletter | Why Why Billboards are a Waste of Money
Sent by Michael Opyd | 11.5.25
ONE LESSON
I was at a real estate event several years ago and was introduced to an agent who was new to the industry. After a few minutes getting to know each other, I asked them about how their business was doing so far. They told me how stressful and frustrating things had been so far, and I could tell my the tone of their voice and the look on their face that they had begun second-guessing their decision to become an agent. Wanting to help, I asked them what they were doing to get clients. They mentioned the same things most new agents do: using social media and asking family and friends to help. Then they surprised me by mentioning their brokerage had made a deal with a marketing company and was offering agents the opportunity to buy advertising space on bus benches and billboards at a discount, and they just decided to take the brokerage up on the offer. They told me what it cost them (let’s just say it wasn’t cheap) and how it was pretty much their whole marketing budget, but they felt confident it would help. About six months later, I ran into an agent I knew who worked at the same brokerage as the agent I was speaking with at the event. I asked how the agent was doing and was told they had left the industry a month or so earlier, after not having any business or making any money.
LESSON LEARNED: Always spend your marketing dollars on what you can track is working or not.
When I was running my brokerage, my partner and I sat down with an advertising company to talk about buying billboard/signage around the office to get our name out more. We met with two salespeople who walked us through everything, including the different sign sizes, locations, and prices. They then told us about how much “traffic” each sign would get (or how many people they estimated would see it each week). After they finished their pitch, I asked them to show me the stats on how many sales their clients were getting from each sign. They looked at each other and told us they were not sure since they couldn’t know exactly if the sale came from the sign or not.
Famed advertiser David Ogilvy (one of the people the show Mad Men was based on) talked about how much he hated billboards because you have no idea if the money being spent generated a sale, since there is no way to track it. If David, who Warren Buffett called a genius, was opposed to billboards, no real estate agent should ever spend money on them. If you cannot track the analytics on the marketing you do, how can you know if it is working?
Instead, focus on things you can track, like emails, postcards, and calls/texts. This way, you can also make adjustments in real time and test to see what works best and double down on it.
If you want to know the best place to market, it’s your database (or sphere). If I were starting over, I would spend every single dollar I had on my database because it is proven to be the best place to generate business from.
ONE TIP
Whatever marketing you do, make sure it is something you can analyze. If you cannot review the data, how do you know if your marketing is working? The answer is, you don’t! If you cannot review data, you cannot test. If you cannot test, you are throwing all of your eggs into one basket, hoping it will work. If it doesn’t, you end up wasting time and money that you cannot get back.
ONE QUOTE
American business theorist and economist, W. Edwards Deming, on the importance of data:
“Without data, you're just another person with an opinion.”
ONE QUESTION
What marketing are you doing that you can’t analyze and don’t know is working?
Look at the marketing you are doing right now. Can you check how effective it is? If the answer is no to anything, stop doing it. In the world we live in, there is no reason to spend money on something you cannot tell is effective or not. Spending on anything that you cannot track or break down, or make adjustments to, or test, is like throwing darts at a dartboard blindfolded using your opposite hand.
If you are a new agent or are not sure where to spend, the most important place to focus on is your database, or the group of people who know you. This is where most, if not all, of your budget should go. If you are paying for bus benches and billboards, you are just wasting a lot of money to make a post on social media when you drive by them.
Catch you next week!
Michael Opyd | Business + Life Guide for New Real Estate Agents
Author of The Education of a Real Estate Agent & The Education of a Real Estate Agent Workbook
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The ONE Newsletter was created to help new real estate agents get the most usable knowledge in the shortest time. Every week, the latest issue is sent to agents who are eager to learn and grow (personally and professionally)! Each email includes One lesson, One tip, One quote, and One question, designed to read in 60 seconds or less!
Books
On Sale Now! 15% Off!
Hi, I’m Michael Opyd. Over the last decade, I have dedicated my life to helping people entering the real estate industry build their business and change their lives. This passion to help comes directly from my challenges building a real estate business with minimal education available to assist me, and seeing how many people are forced to go through what I went through. It is what led me to open up a brokerage specifically designed for new real estate agents, where the education we offered helped them sell and earn two to four times as much as an average first-year agent. As much as I loved the brokerage and our agents, seeing their success drove me to want to help more new agents. So for over two years, I worked until one or two in the morning six days a week, to write my books The Education of a Real Estate Agent and Workbook that help agents learn how to build a successful real estate business while building one at the same time.
I’m going to be real with you, the real estate industry is unintentionally designed for you to fail. Why? Because, most of the education offered by brokerages (and coaches) is for veteran agents, since they are the ones who make them more money. Unfortunately, this forces anyone new to try and figure things out on their own. An almost impossible task. So much so that 75% of the agents don’t even make it past their first year!
I wrote my books to help change this and provide people with a real opportunity to succeed in this challenging career. To provide everyone entering the industry with the knowledge that the industry unfortunately doesn't offer.
When you finish The Education of a Real Estate Agent Workbook, you will:
✅ Complete the important items that only 25% of agents who succeed complete
✅ Know exactly what to say to yourself to overcome every challenge that comes your way
✅ Not only vividly see everything you want in business and life, but also how to achieve all of it
✅ Thoroughly understand what your current financial situation is and how to use whatever available money you have to its fullest potential and drive your business forward
✅ Know the exact questions you need to ask a team leader and brokerage when interviewing, so you don’t destroy your career by joining the wrong one
✅ Quickly build the most important part of your business and put an easy-to-follow, actionable plan in place to create a sales-generating engine
✅ Avoid all of the common mistakes newer agents make when working with buyers and sellers so you can start closing transactions and generate income quicker
✅ Know how to identify your ideal client and convince them to use you over every other agent in your market
✅ Build your complete brand and know how to promote it like a professional marketing agency
✅ Understand how to maximize every minute of your day to become a sales machine, while also enjoying your life!
…And this is only a fraction of what you will learn!
Please, pick up my workbook and let me help you avoid the pains and frustrations agents feel when entering the real estate industry so you can build your business quickly!
NOTE: There is a 25% discount if you purchase the workbook and book together
Shipping is always free!
On Sale Now! 15% Off!
“This book needs to be in the hands of every person entering this great industry!”
— Jennifer - 1st Year real estate agent in Chicago
Hi, I’m Michael Opyd. Over the last decade, I have dedicated my life to helping people entering the real estate industry build their business and change their lives. This passion to help comes directly from my challenges building a real estate business with minimal education available to assist me, and seeing how many people are forced to go through what I went through. It is what led me to open up a brokerage specifically designed for new real estate agents, where the education we offered helped them sell and earn two to four times as much as an average first-year agent. As much as I loved the brokerage and our agents, seeing their success drove me to want to help more new agents. So for over two years, I worked until one or two in the morning six days a week, to write my books The Education of a Real Estate Agent and Workbook that help agents learn how to build a successful real estate business while building one at the same time.
I’m going to be real with you, the real estate industry is unintentionally designed for you to fail. Why? Because, most of the education offered by brokerages (and coaches) is for veteran agents, since they are the ones who make them more money. Unfortunately, this forces anyone new to try and figure things out on their own. An almost impossible task. So much so that 75% of the agents don’t even make it past their first year!
I wrote my books to help change this and provide people with a real opportunity to succeed in this challenging career. To provide everyone entering the industry with the knowledge that the industry unfortunately doesn't offer.
When you finish The Education of a Real Estate Agent, you’ll understand:
✅ How to create unbreakable mental strength so you can destroy any challenge that comes your way
✅ How to turn your goals into reality
✅ How to avoid the mistakes 99% of agents make when joining a team and brokerage, so you can make sure to join the right one to help you grow and excel
✅ How you can quickly build and easily use the one element of a real estate business that all successful agents are obsessed with
✅ How to separate yourself and get consumers to choose you over all of the other agents in your market
✅ How to generate business everywhere and anywhere, you are so you never run out of clients to serve
✅ A simple but very effective lead conversion strategy proven to convert your leads at a level far above what an agent typically does
✅ How to build your brand so people will remember and trust it
✅ The social media strategies that influencers use to create views and followers
✅ The tools you can use to build and grow your business that have been tested and proven to work
…And this is only a fraction of what you will learn!
Please, pick up my book and let me help you avoid the pains and frustrations agents feel when entering the real estate industry so you can build your business quickly!
NOTE: There is a 25% discount if you purchase the book and workbook together!
Shipping is always free!