One of the greatest myths in vehicle marketing today is for people to prominently display their phone numbers on the side of their vehicles thinking people will ring them as they drive their billboard around town. In fact very little business is achieved by having traditional telephone numbers on the side of their vehicles …
Why and How Can We Use Phone Numbers On Vehicles to Derive Business?
Most small business owners and for that matter medium business owners rush to plaster their vehicle with sign writing with very little thought on what the role of the sign written vehicle will be.
For most businesses the vehicle is simply a tool to identify that you are working in your area and what it should be is a tool to reinforce your brand as well be able to derive physical business. Many people invest thousands of dollars on vehicle sign writing only to find that they do very little physical business from the vehicle.
How many vehicles do you see as you drive around your city or town?
If it is like mine, literally thousands or if you are from somewhere like London, LA or New York, you may even be in the millions. How many phone numbers from those vehicles do you remember?
Here is a simple exercise, whilst you are driving pay attention to the number of vehicles that actually have phone numbers on them. Try to remember those numbers and see just how much work it takes to remember them.
The core role of sign writing on vehicles is simply brand recognition. That is to train the Reticular Activating System in your customers mind so that when they are looking for your product or service, their brain will remember your brand and call you.
Well here is the secret with phone numbers. For phone numbers to work on your vehicle the phone numbers must be incorporated into your brand for people to remember them. The interesting part about this is that large corporations and marketing organisations have known this for years and have slowly been securing a range of numbers to ensure brand continuity.
Let take an example …
In Australia, a well known eatery, Red Rooster has successfully over a number of years utilised a brand focused phone number to help get clients to purchase their chicken meals for major catering events like Birthdays, Christmas etc. What they have done to ensure their phone is memorable is by incorporating a 1800 or 1300 number with their brand.
For example, if you want Red Rooster to cater for your party you simply call – 1300 Rooster rather than 1300 7667837. They use the 1300 Rooster phone number in all of their on-vehicle advertising as well as in their television, radio and paper adverts, as well as on their billboards.
So the question is why?
It has been shown in studies around the world that human beings can generally memorise upto 9 numbers at a time however to achieve this you will find that you generally have to practise the number numerous times and commit it to memory. However, when you are driving or in a stressed situation it is harder to store this information and quite often you may need to go past a vehicle upto 27 times before you will know the number off by heart.
However, when you associate a number like a 1300 or 1800 number which we have already been programmed to know as a freecall number and incorporate it with your brand, customers will find that it is much easier to remember the number.
Personally, I have found that even a simple 1800 number like 1800 66 00 00 is far more difficult for our customers to remember whilst they drive past our vehicles than something like 1800 DogBathing or 1300 Justin (for example Justin does lawn mowing). The key in the last example would be for Justin’s Lawn Mowing Service, to brand their vehicle with their Justin’s Lawn Mowing Logos and then have their phone number like 1300 Justins on the side of the vehicle for people to call. The other key element to remember with the phone number is that it should be similar to the companies web address. For example Justin’s Lawn Mowing Service might have a web address –http://www.JustinsLawnMowing.com" target=new> http://www.1300Justins.com." target=new> http://www.RedRooster.com.au." target=new>