• Website link of the Week

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Coca-Cola spends millions of dollars every month on advertising. Some say they shouldn’t have to because their product is so well known in the marketplace. Yet their sales figures reveal that even a slight reduction in their amount of advertising will have an immediate downward effect on sales.

The reality of business is that your customers don’t go around thinking about you and your company all day long. It would be nice to think that they do but they don’t. The only time they think of you is when they have a need for your products or services, or when you interrupt their thought patterns to remind them of your existence. Any time other than this, it is the same as if you never existed.

So in addition to regular newsletters, sales calls, and media advertising, it is important to make use of every advertising and marketing medium available.

One of those mediums is your fleet of company vehicles. The average car has between 4 and 6 square metres of panel area that can be utilised for corporate advertising. And of course, the bigger the vehicle, the more space available. Vans in particular provide a fantastic opportunity to advertise to the world who you are and what you do.

Many company’s do a great job in telling the world who they are by signwriting their vehicles with varying combinations of company name, address, telephone number and advertising slogan. The problem with such livery is that it assumes that the reader of the advertising knows what you do. I often follow vehicles that are clean and tidy and the vehicles are tastefully sign-written, but I have no idea as to what they do in terms of products supplied or services provided. Existing customers obviously know what they do; however as far as potential customers go, the advertising is a complete waste of money. So be sure to include in your advertising what it is that you do.

Another important aspect of vehicle sign-writing is to make sure that the style of advertising used is in keeping with your overall corporate image. However, my observation is that most companies can be far more creative and daring than what they currently are. Readymix Concrete sure demonstrated this when they decided to paint all their concrete mixer trucks pink. Now pink is not a colour generally associated with construction sites and blue collar workers, but it sure made their vehicles stand out from the pack.

I am reminded of the words of Robert Goizueta, former CEO, Coca-Cola who said,

So give yourself permission to be a little outlandish when it comes to sign-writing your company vehicles. Your sales figures will be glad you did.

Until next week, many happy customer returns!

Graham Harvey APS

Watch out for Graham’s new book Seducing the Vigilante Customer – winning strategies to guarantee the return of happy customers and healthy profits, available in all good book stores in early February.

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