Be terrific in the traffic!

Written on the 29 July 2013 by Kellie Williams

Have some fun with your car signage and get noticed

Some businesses spend serious amounts of money having their vehicles sign-written, and in some cases fully vinyl wrapped, but just put the business name, logo and phone number, with absolutely NO information about what they do, or any reason why you should call them!

BORING!

Look at your work vehicles today and ask yourself: If a passer-by didn’t know anything about this business would they:

• Know what our business does?
• Remember the business name, phone number or web address well enough to look it up later?
• See a compelling reason to call the business?
• I’ve seen vehicles with logos on all sides, but the business name doesn’t give the first clue to what the business does or what problems it solves, and there was no tagline or mission statement to give any hints.

Others do have a tagline...but the tagline was “Serving the local community” Umm...serving them by doing WHAT?!

Here’s a thought – if your tagline could apply to any business, not just yours, (even worse, if it could apply to a completely different industry) then it’s POINTLESS. Ditch it immediately and think of something that expresses your USP – Unique Selling Point.

So, is your business missing a massive mobile marketing opportunity to get more business?

Here’s some questions if you’ve got a business vehicle of any description:

• Is it signwritten? If not, why not?
• If yes, does it actually tell people what you do? (Hint: a company name like “ABC Plastering” doesn’t count!)
• Does it give people a compelling reason to call you?  (“Established whenever”, “For all your whatever needs” don’t count!)
• Does it convey professional contact information? (Yet another hint: email addresses like plastering1969@yahoo.com absolutely scream “AMATEUR!” – register a domain name and get a proper email address!)
• One last thing – don’t make any text so small that you need to be too close to the back of the vehicle to read it. Remember, traffic is doing 60+ km/hr  – you do not want them to get 1 metre from your bumper to find out if your business might be worth contacting!

This article was published in Zoom in Business Magazine Issue 13