Vehicular Marketing

A few weeks ago I had an experience on the road that highlights the need for organizations to train their employees & for small business owners to become acutely aware of the practice of humane driving.

In a nutshell, I was on my way to what turned out to be a very painful medical experience. It was early in the morning & it was raining. I was anxious, hungry & frightened. I was in a new neighborhood & so wasn’t familiar with the streets. In addition, long stretches of road were almost forest-like with no addresses visible from the road.

When the address suddenly popped up, it was already too late for me to turn into the driveway, so I drove just past the address & pulled into the parking lot of a very well known company (of which I am a current customer!!) to make a U-turn & drive back a block.

As I did this, one of the company’s trucks was headed into the lot behind me. What happened next blew my mind, irritated the bleep out of me & made my already horrible morning even worse.

Choosing not to give me the three seconds of time I needed to turn around, the driver honked this obnoxious horn causing me to hit my head on the roof of my car of out sheer fright, then yelled an unpublishable obscenity out his open window & then topped it all off by showing me his disdain with a hand gesture out the window – you know which one I mean. This was the worst PR imaginable for this company & completely undermines their TV commercial, great website, etc. So, I figure that hand gesture could cost this company a loss of marketing dollars somewhere in the $100,000 - $200,000 range.

Huh?!?!

OK, so once my heart resuscitated, I blew it off. Clearly this guy was a jerk & it certainly was not personal. But it did tick me off that this very guy could be the next one to come do the service in my home & that he certainly expects ME to be polite to HIM.

Over the following few weeks, I began to notice more & more of this behavior by drivers “on the clock” using a company branded vehicle. Even worse, business owners themselves who drive vans or pickup trucks with their lettering all over it are doing the same thing!

I happen to have several construction clients right now who drive similarly branded vehicles & because I am doing their marketing I know firsthand how tough it is for this & similar industries right now. Why, in any sane world, would you cut people off on the road, drive recklessly or aggressively while you are trying to market your services? Don’t you think that people notice these things? Do you really believe that person to whom you just gave the international high sign is going to call you & invite you into their home & then PAY you to do work for them?

For larger companies with branded fleet vehicles – the same message goes out to you. Except – because there are so many more of your trucks on the road, your marketing liability is much greater. As was the investment made to paint/letter/brand your trucks or vans. Again, why in any sane world would you allow your drivers to act like this on the road?

Do you even know how your drivers behave on the road? If you don’t your business may be suffering & you will NEVER know why. Perhaps you have the best website, polite receptionist, efficient scheduling & pretty good pricing but business is down. Maybe this could be the reason?

Don’t you care that the $5,000+ per truck signage & branding you invested in is EXACTLY the reason for your downfall?

From experience with a home repair service client, I know that there are GPS tracking systems (VERY, VERY expensive) that companies invest in to put into their trucks so they can track drivers on the road to give customers estimated times of arrival (or know how long their drivers took for lunch). But that’s not enough. In fact, that could be the very root of the problem itself. If all you care about is time, then your drivers WILL likely behave badly on the road in an effort to “beat the clock.”

So please, for the safety of all of us & for the best investment you can make in your branded vehicles, train your drivers (or yourself!) to become the person that puts their hand out the window to graciously wave someone in ahead of them during a traffic merge as THIS is the gesture that may make your phone ring with a grateful person at the other end who happened to notice & called to do business with you because of your good neighbor attitude. In fact, they may think to themselves, “Gee this nice person is someone I’d trust to be in my home.”

After all, isn’t that the reason you branded your vehicle in the first place?

Safe driving & happy marketing.

Randye Spina
www.myaffordablemarketing.com

If marketing isn't an investment - then what is??

Just the other day after responding to [yet another] proposal to the same company within a year, I received word back from them that it was [yet again] not going to happen. This time the reason was because "we are investing all of our profits back into the business". Hmmm...I thought. Well, if this company doesn't consider marketing an investment, then clearly they will not give it the priority attention it deserves - even if I [yet again] offered them [yet another] "deal".

The lessons here I think are:

1. If a company rejects your proposal twice, don't set yourself up for another rejection. There are other agendas at work here & they may be using it to seek other proposals & it could possible be used against you (tho I cannot say for sure this was the case here);

2. Run quickly from any company that actually comes out & tells you they don't have money. No matter how much you discount, that's a giant red flag that you may get burned.

3. Most importantly, no matter how money you invest in technology, operations, etc. the ONLY way you will EVER bring money in the door is through MARKETING. No matter which marketing solutions you choose (web site, advertising, sales,, promotions, public relations, etc.) you MUST do something to get new revenue in the door & there is simply no other way to do it than to implement some kind of a marketing plan that is right for you busines.

Remember, you don't need million dollar marketing budgets, just million dollar ideas implemented sensibly.

Affordable, accessible marketing for all!

Visit www.myaffordablemarketing.com/solutions for more affordable marketing options.