Advertising a property development: banners, sales boards, sales office

Banners on the site hoarding: a visualisation instead of a fence

The site hoarding is the longest and cheapest advertising space a developer has. People walk past every day for two years. Instead of a dusty grey fence, it is better to hang a run of banners with a visualisation of the building, the development name, a phone number and a web address.

Example: a hoarding 100 m long and 2 m high is 200 m² of banner. With a 510 g coated banner at the 100+ m² rate it comes to approx. €7 net/m², i.e. approx. €1,400 net for the whole stretch. If the fence is see-through (mesh, panels) and the site is visible behind it, choose a blockout banner with a black back – approx. €9 net/m² at this quantity, approx. €1,800 net for 200 m². The black back stops the visualisation showing through against the sun.

A few things from practice:

• split the run into 3–5 m modules – easier to hang, and easier to replace a damaged section after a run-in with a concrete mixer,
• eyelets every 50 cm are included; on windy stretches we add them every 25 cm or suggest mesh,
• the phone number and web address must be readable from the other side of the street – letters at least 15–20 cm high,
• do not lay out the visualisation so that the entrance gate cuts the building in half.

Fixing is covered in our guide how to hang a banner on a fence.

Large format on scaffolding and mesh banners

As the building rises, the street-facing scaffolding offers space for advertising visible from several hundred metres. A solid banner is not used here – wind at height turns it into a sail. The standard is mesh, which lets part of the wind through (roughly 40% less wind load than a solid banner).

Example: a 15 × 12 m mesh is 180 m². 370 g reinforced mesh with pole pockets included costs approx. €10 net/m² at this quantity, i.e. approx. €1,800 net for printing. We print up to 3.2 m wide without joins, and larger formats are welded from strips. Installation at height is done by our crews from a cherry picker up to 18 m (from approx. €230 net per day of cherry picker work with operator) – more in our guide mesh banner or PVC banner.

Advertising on scaffolding requires the consent of the scaffolding owner and the contractor, and in many cities local advertising rules apply. Check this with the local authority before ordering the print – we will adapt the size and fixing method.

Sales board and welcome sign

A sales board is something different from the mandatory construction site information board. The latter has content prescribed by regulations, and we describe it in our guide construction site information board. A sales board is advertising: a visualisation, the name, apartments for sale, a phone number, a QR code to the offer.

We most often make it from Dibond on a galvanised frame – durable, does not ripple, survives two or three seasons outdoors:

• 200 × 100 cm Dibond board on a frame: from approx. €165 net,
• 300 × 200 cm board with legs: from approx. €350 net,
• larger formats and freestanding structures are quoted individually.

A welcome sign is a board at the entrance to the estate or on the main access road, leading to the sales office. 2–4 feather flags by the office, and flags along the access road on weekend open days, are also often useful.

Sales office: container, backdrops, scale model

A sales office on site is often a container. The cheapest way to stop it looking like a site hut is to wrap it in printed vinyl (monomeric vinyl approx. €6–12 net/m², and on the windows One Way Vision film approx. €10–18 net/m² – graphics outside, a view out from inside). Over the entrance it is worth putting a sign or light box, so the office is visible in autumn after 4 pm too.

Inside, these work well:

• a backdrop or fabric frame with interior visualisations and the estate plan,
• a large site plan showing the phases and available units (ideally on a board where sold markers can be stuck on),
• roller banners for open days and property fairs – from approx. €55 net,
• a scale model of the building or estate – we make it with 3D printing and CNC-routed elements; the price depends on scale and detail; more in our guide architectural and display models.

If the development has an office in the city centre rather than on site, the same set plus shop window graphics applies.

Brochures, unit sheets and visualisations

Clients leave the office with something in hand. Usually there are two kinds of print:

1. Development brochure – location, specification, visualisations. A 6-page DL leaflet, 1,000 pcs, costs approx. €90 net; a 4-page A5 leaflet, 1,000 pcs – approx. €90 net. For a fuller offer a catalogue or brochure is made.
2. Unit sheets – one A4 sheet per apartment: floor plan, area, floor, orientation. We print them digitally in small runs, so after a price change or further sales only the current sheets are reprinted.

Visualisations are usually supplied by the developer's architect or 3D studio. For large format printing we need full-resolution files – a screenshot from a presentation or website will be blurry on a 10 m banner. Our design studio will lay out banners, boards and brochures from the materials supplied.

Changing messages at each build phase

There is no need to reprint everything each time. A Dibond board can take a new slogan strip, feather flags and roller banners have replaceable graphics, and the hoarding banner run can be replaced module by module. On large developments we plan the next changes with the developer in advance, so the new message appears exactly on the day the phase starts. More about the sector on the developer and sales office page.