Advertising On Your Vehicle

[johnkaven76]

How many people ever write down a phone number or make a note of what they see on a window of a car or van?

I don't think I ever have and I've been driving 50 years.

Don't get me wrong, I've spent thousands of dollars getting vehicles turned into billboards, but even then I think you have to have a lot of them and then you are just selling an image.

For years I owned an auto parts business and had as many as 10 pickups and vans on the road constanly making deliveries. They were all painted yellow, had red stripes and numbers on the doors ala' NASCAR. In fact, I had a different number on each door, so they would think there were twice as many trucks.

And painting buses, large trucks, etc. I think is great. They really are rolling billboards.

But a bit of stick-on letters on a car or van does nothing for me.

Now Geeks on Call knows how to do it.

Years ago I worked for the Monroe shock absorber people as a sale rep. I drove a full-sized 4 door sedan, painted blue and yellow with "Shock Absorber Test Car # 1237" painted on the back of the trunk. The side of the car had
"Monro-Matic" from the taillight to the headlight in 20 or 24 inch letters.

I'd get stopped by the state police all the time, because the word got out that I had discount coupons for a set of demo shocks that I could pass out as I wished. I saw a lot of blue lights.

I also got flagged down by people just driving, asking about the products. One time I was sitting in a guy's glassed in office in Norfolk VA and some other guy came up and stuck his head in the door. Said "Hi, remember me? I stopped you out in Danville a couple of months ago and asked about Load-Levelers" Danville being maybe 3 hours from Norfolk.

So, yeah, I agree, get all you can out of your vehicle. But don't play the real estate agent game, trying to advertise and still have a family car. Go for it and let people know you're in business.

One problem with painting up the family sedan. Twice, once on the Blue Ridge and the other on the Colonial Parkways I got stopped by the US Park Rangers and told that "No Commercial Vehicles" signs meant me and the next exit was so many mile down the road.