Have You Tried a Wrap Lately?

If the title of this week's column gets you thinking of tortillas that are used to make sandwiches, we aren’t on the same page. The wraps I’m talking about are made of vinyl, and are installed by professionals on your HVACR vehicles. Are you wrapping your vehicles? Many businesses are doing this, and it's paying off.

What Can a Wrap Do for Your Business?
We've all known for a long time that rolling billboards (vehicles) are one of a business’s most effective marketing devices. Your trucks go all over town and reach potential customers where they live. So why spend the money to wrap a truck or a car when you already have logos on them?

Vehicle wraps are one of the most cost effective advertising or marketing (depending on how you use it) methods available to businesses today. Estimates show that depending on your location, your wrap can gain up to 70,000 views per day. A vehicle wrap is one of the most cost effective ways to get your message across to potential customers and it has added benefits of protecting your vehicle’s factory finish making it more valuable for trade-in or resale.

One thing marketers always say is to be consistent. With vehicle wraps you want to go big and you want to go colorful. Color attracts attention and people will take notice. You want your design to be big and you want to include only one way to contact your company. People are only going to have three or four seconds to view and register what your wrap says, so use your best or most memorable contact method. Use one that is easy to remember.

It's important to find a designer that specializes in creating vehicle wraps, because a vehicle wrap is a three-dimensional finished product a designer has to remember many details when creating your design. It is important to have your design, installed professional. Learning to install a wrap on a vehicle takes years of training to do it properly.

SEE THIS ARTICLE FOR EXAMPLES OF GREAT WRAPS: bit.ly/TruckWrapsCB

A properly installed wrap can last up to five years and it pays for itself repeatedly in terms of the number of views and cost per thousand, which is a measure that marketers use to compare various advertising rates. Vehicle wraps can run as low as $.15 per thousand compared to $10 per thousand for TV commercial and $3.55 per thousand for radio advertising. Some wrap installation businesses can finance your installation to ease the burden of doing a fleet.

Good for Leased Vehicles, Too
When you think about wrapping your vehicles, you can wrap not only vehicles that you own but also vehicles that you lease because wrapping a vehicle does not damage the finish and the wrap is removable. Which vehicles should you wrap? You should wrap any vehicle that you use during the performance of work for your business. You can wrap cars, mini-vans, trucks, and vans; essentially, you can wrap any vehicle. If you have invested in lettering and logoing your service vehicles, you don’t need to undue that. Leave service trucks alone because they sit for long periods of time in front of the various jobs to which they are deployed therefore people have time to read what is on them.

If you use a car to run sales appointments, or you have a vehicle that you use as a parts runner, these are excellent candidates to wrap. These types of vehicles typically are on the move throughout the day and you can make a splash with them. Remember bright colors make a big impact but you will want to stay within your company’s branding color pallet to remain consistent. Don’t violate your own standards for the sake of creating a colorful wrap.

Your ultimate goal is to create a colorful rolling branding billboard that succinctly tells drivers what your company does and it tells them the best way to contact you, because you don’t have much time to do anything else. Look online for your local vehicle wrap center to find out what services that it offers. Check with your fellow business owners to see whom they use for their vehicle wraps. Many companies offer this service but look for the ones that specialize in it for great results.