Small and medium size business (SME) advertising can be some of the most challenging in the industry. Especially in today’s digital-centric society many ideas simply get lost in the mix. Advertising and marketing a small company is always a challenge because of the host of ways it can be done, all with much smaller budgets that large corporations contend with. So advertising a SME is not so much about how, as to where and what. Designing a great brand and message that the consuming public understands and connects with on a restricted budget requires you to be creative and focused. One way to generate interest and lasting impressions, when done right, is a vehicle wrap that has increasing rewards and decreasing costs.
Develop a Plan
Even a small local business needs an over-arching guiding plan to ensure that your business stays focused on finding solutions that provide results. With the multitude of options for advertising, realizing you cannot possibly do them all is the first step in narrowing down your choices. Traditional media includes TV, Radio, Newspapers, local magazines, classified ads, industry publications and digital marketing includes SEM, SEO, website development and social media. With all these choices how do you decide what is right for your business?
Consider the ROI
Small businesses are great at running a business and providing a unique product or service. Yet, sometimes when it comes to advertising it seems like a shotgun approach is used to decide on advertising budgeting and where to put those dollars. Take a minute to develop a plan to measure the ROI or return on investment on your advertising and track it. You can use this easy calculator to help you out. If you are not sold yet, consider the latest statistics on cost per impression comparisons for car wraps from the Outdoor Advertising Association of America:
- One car wrap can generate between 30-70,000 impressions per day
- A 30 second TV ad costs $17.78 per thousand impressions (CPM)
- A 1/3rd page newspaper ad costs $22.95 CPM.
- Car wraps cost on average $0.77 per impression
This whopping ROI is simply too good to ignore and give up, especially given its creative ability to also build brand recognition and top-of-mind presence among consumers.
Quality Wraps
Now that you have decided a car wrap may be right for your business there are lots of options and not all of them good ones. Ensure to put thought into the design of your car wrap and have it produced by a quality and experienced ad printing agency. Every type of advertising medium has different nuances in order to capture the audience’s attention effectively and with the most effect on brand recognition. Vehicle wraps only provide about 2 ½ seconds for consumers to recognize and store your message. Here are some of the top tips to maximize the capability of that very short window:
- KISS – keep it simple silly. This cannot be stressed enough; ensuring that your brand and logo is prominently displayed and eye-catching is the most important aspect of car wraps.
- Avoid lists – writing a to-do or grocery list of items on your vehicle will be ignored or misconstrued in the very short time a consumer sees it. Instead of recognizing your brand with a product or service they will recognize their problem without realizing you are the solution.
- Short and sweet – any advertising copy should include at most a short tagline, a phone number and possibly a website address. An alternative to a website address could include the use of a QR code.
- Clarity – if the name of your business does not provide evidence of your products or services the tagline should. Yet keeping it concise can be a challenge.
- Provide graphics – and avoid cheesy, busy, cluttered or nondescript photos.
The message of the day is “simple and clear” will provide a more powerful impact statement on your customers than cluttered, busy, textual or confused messages. Car wraps have an amazing ROI and fit easily within most SME’s budgets, providing for a constant visual reminder of your brand. Be top-of-mind when your clients try to remember your brand.
