Rami Putrus has changed the human directional advertising industry, creating something bigger than flipping signs. As Owner/Operator of AArrow Sign Spinners Atlanta and Director of Sales for the East Coast, Rami has over two decades of industry experience. He has collaborated frequently with home builders since the company’s start. In addition to his business successes, Rami has taken sign spinning from a day job to international competition with the World Sign Spinning Championship.

Here is our expert interview with Rami Putrus: 

What inspired you to start a sign spinning company?

A group of us grew up in Southern California and had weekend jobs as human directionals. The boss didn’t like it when we did “tricks” with the sign, so we started AArrow in 2002 out of our freshman dorm room.   

Tell us more about AArrow Sign Spinners.

AArow Sign Spinners turned sign spinning into a cost-effective advertising form and an extreme sport, complete with a World Sign Spinning Championship. We have recruited, hired and trained over 5,000 professional sign spinners across 25 U.S. cities and 10 other countries.

How did you begin your collaboration with home builders?

Working in the homebuilding industry since 2005, some of our first clients, like DR Horton, KB Homes, Pulte and Lennar, still use Sign Spinners for dozens of projects nationwide. We value the relationships we have built over the last two decades and always go above and beyond for our home builder clients. I took the MIRM Certification classes to meet marketing decision makers in the building industry. After that, I joined the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association in 2012 and served on the board of the SMC from 2014-2017. 

What makes sign spinning an effective marketing strategy for home builders?

Sign spinning grabs attention with dynamic movements and enhances brand recall through memorability. It builds local brand awareness by engaging with communities and creates an interactive experience, sparking conversations. Spinning is also cost-effective compared to traditional advertising methods and versatile in deployment for maximum exposure. 

How do you tailor services to meet home builder needs?

We customize messages to highlight home features, target high-traffic locations and ensure branding consistency. Most importantly, we engage with communities. 

Share a home builder success story.

Lennar Homes Atlanta is my greatest success story. We started spinning for them when they entered Atlanta in 2011, and we have provided them, on average, 7 to 12 Sign Spinners per weekend for 13 years now! We had a gap of no spinning in 2020 and 2021 during COVID, but we have picked up where we started. The volume and duration of sign spinning speaks for itself in terms of its impact and sales. 

How do you recruit and train sign spinners?

We focus on finding the right people for our team and the job. Spinstructors in each city work with each sign spinner one-on-one, teaching them how to advertise effectively using some of the tricks. We audit their performance on a scale of 1 to 100, emphasizing appearance, attitude and energy. These scores are used to give our spinners raises and bonuses. We also have private training videos available to our spinners through our AArrow App and a very engaged community of sign spinners who love challenging each other online. 

What measures are in place to track the effectiveness of sign-spinning campaigns?

We have spent the last five years developing an in-house AArrow App that ensures that our spinners are in the right location at the right time. If, for any reason, they need to leave the location where they are advertising, it automatically clocks them out, ensuring our clients never overpay. We offer traffic count estimates to help calculate and maximize ROI, and clients can easily compare sales and other metrics to days and times when they don’t have sign spinners.  

How has your business model evolved to adapt to changes in the real estate market or advertising trends?

When we first started advertising for the homebuilding industry, sales office walk-ins were all that mattered. In addition to increasing foot traffic for our clients, we can direct people to their websites and social media. Since everyone already has their phone at a red light, this is an easy way to engage members of the target market who may not have the time to tour model homes today but are now subscribed to the builder’s marketing list. 

How has the role of traditional advertising methods, like sign spinning, changed in the digital age?

I think we all get a little tired of pop-ups and pressing skip on videos these days.  There is something refreshingly human about sign spinning that allows us to connect with the target market using good old-fashioned eye contact and a smile. With a sign spinner, you don’t have to guess who saw your ad, so you don’t waste money on clicks from non-potential customers. Using sign spinning combined with digital advertising allows home builders to connect with customers with the highest probability of converting.   

What emerging trends in real estate marketing are exciting or promising?

The ability to take a virtual home tour has increased our service’s effectiveness and improved the homebuying experience. By doing some tricks at the red light, our sign spinners can get potential customers to initiate a tour without ever leaving the car. 

How do you see the role of sign spinners evolving in the future within the real estate industry?

Our service continues to improve as smartphones and video tours advance. Now, we can direct potential customers to take virtual tours before entering the sales office. This increases the total number of potential customers and helps customers find the right home for them. It also saves sales agents time and helps them sell more homes faster, allowing our clients to build and sell communities more efficiently.   

What is the most rewarding part of running your sign spinner company?

We founded AArrow to create exciting job opportunities for sign spinners and cost-effective advertising solutions for our clients. For over 22 years, we have been able to do both while growing AArrow into a global company, which has challenged our team personally and professionally. We still have a lot of fun with the business and have enjoyed passing on the joy of sign spinning to future generations. 

For more information on AArrow Sign Spinners and Rami Putrus, click here. 

Stay up to date with the latest in the home building industry through our Expert Series collection of blogs at www.DenimMarketing.com/blog.

Looking for a marketing company that is the perfect fit for your home building company? Call us at 770-383-3360 or reach out to us online today.

A special thanks to Rami Putrus for taking time to chat with us!