A trailer is a motorless vehicle powered by another vehicle. It differs from a railroad car in that it operates on the open road. Many service businesses use trailers for transporting necessary equipment, food items or miscellaneous goods out for delivery.
In this blog we’ll show how trailers of all sizes serve as the ideal medium for promotional graphics that can carry great benefits for your business. Finally, we’ll offer a fictional trailer wrap ad campaign to help illustrate how your trailer is a blank canvas just waiting to be utilized.
What Makes a Trailer Ideal for Wrapping?
The shape of a trailer allows for easy decoration. A typical trailer is boxy with flat sides, making it much easier to adorn with commercial graphics than the curved, aerodynamic contours of a sedan or SUV. These wraps are essential to getting the public familiar with your brand.
Have a hitch but don’t own a trailer? A billboard trailer can also be attached to your ride and used for promotions (more about that later).
Two Scenario of Fleet wraps
If you think your landscaping, catering, moving or truck rental firm can get by without a trailer wrap, consider the following two scenarios:
Scenario A: You’re expecting workers to arrive to perform a service or deliver an important package. A truck pulls up to your home or business with a plain white trailer perhaps one that is slightly dirty from being out on the road all week. The driver and other workers are wearing a hodgepodge of old, stained t-shirts and worn jeans with nothing to identify them as employees of the company you hired. They begin to unload the truck and move items onto your property without first greeting or even acknowledging your presence much less checking that they have the correct address.
Scenario B: You look out your window and see a clean, professionally decorated trailer with the name, logo, address and a list of rates from the firm you hired. After the driver verifies via text message that it is the correct location, workers begin to exit the truck smartly dressed in clean, matching clothes including embroidered shirts and baseball hats featuring the company logo and begin diligently unloading lawn care equipment or moving boxes.
- Which scene inspires confidence and allows you to be immediately happy with your decision?
- Which one causes you to begin to doubt your choice and makes the company appear a little shady?
Punch Above Your Weight using vehicle wraps
Putting aside the issue of properly announcing your presence to a customer, think about how your vehicle looks while it’s out on the road. Most commercial vehicles spend at least a few hours driving around their respective service areas. Why not take advantage of free, mobile advertising space?
Cross-country freight and truck-rental firms such as Old Dominion and U-Haul became household names in no small part due to their iconic trailer graphics. As a “little guy” you deserve the same kind of start in order to fulfill your potential as a successful business.
Just because your business is newer or not as large as its regional or national competitors doesn’t mean it can’t punch above its weight. The ability to create high quality graphics is increasingly within reach of even the smallest start up.
By using the latest printing technology, flawless installation and the ability to outfit your entire fleet Gogi Signs can help to level the playing field.
Even if you’re a franchisee or manager of a larger firm’s location doesn’t mean you don’t also require the latest, most up to date vehicle wraps for your trucks and vans. In some cases your franchise agreement will actually require you to update the trailers yourself.
How Trailer Wraps can be use for Multi-Purpose ?
In addition to looking good, trailer wraps provide protection for your valuable capital investments. They protect your trailer exteriors from the damaging effects of UV radiation, acid rain, as well as the inevitable scratches, scrapes and road gravel damage that happen every day.
By remaining protected with a vinyl vehicle wrap that’s easy to clean, maintain and relatively inexpensive to replace, your trailer can spend more time on the road working for you. In addition to spending less on new paint jobs, you can also expect a better resale value. Unlike with paint, trailer wraps are easy to remove without damaging the valuable vehicle exterior underneath. That means that a new or updated wrap is easy to install anytime.
In addition to promoting your brand with a cool logo, you can also include slogans or catchy ad copy in addition to a pricelist, menu or images of popular products in action. By displaying set rates, contact information and other valuable text, you allow your work vehicles to do more than just transport people and haul products or equipment. Now your trailer can help benefit your business plan whenever it’s driven, parked, or otherwise out and about.
Wrap Now or Forever Hold Your Peace
The first step to advertising your services or promoting your brand is obviously to get noticed. Blank, non descript trucks and trailers are a dime dozen and will rarely be remembered. A trailer is by definition a conspicuous, physical extension of a motor vehicle making it difficult to ignore by other drivers and pedestrians. Why not use it to inform, entertain and ultimately generate more revenue for your business?
Every singly person that sees a trailer wrap will remember it. It’s the vehicular equivalent of a 7-foot-tall person wearing a sandwich board strapped to their body. People tend to take notice when a large, moving sign passes by.
Short, Sweet, Impressive and Informative designs
Those few, fleeting moments you do have an audience’s attention are vital to getting your message across. That’s why your design should be short and sweet but impressive. You should take advantage of colors, images, as well as the appropriate-sized text and don’t forget that awesome logo!
The most important information such as what you sell, the name of your business and the extent of your service area should be large. Answers to “buying questions” such as your prices, phone number and website should be readable but somewhat smaller. This prevents the public from being overloaded with too much information.
The acronym SSII (or double-S double-I) which stands for Short, Sweet, Impressive and Informative is an easy way to shorthand the best, most well-rounded ads. It’s also helpful that these descriptors are listed in order of importance.
Even many award-winning ads can’t include all four. Most advertisers will choose the first three if there’s no time for being informative. It all depends on the overall strategy.
Rules Are Meant to be Broken
Short ads that give little in the way of actual substance are normally part of a larger ad campaign that will slowly reveal more details over a period of time. Opening up a new pizza place? Driving a billboard trailer around town which says the following could be used:
I Love Pizza
It gets people’s attention, doesn’t it? We used the same phrase in the title of this article to help illustrate that point.
Imagine driving that around for a couple weeks and building up the public’s interest. Once people’s appetites are properly whet, you give a date and then finally a location, along with the name and other details of your business. Fortunately, with trailer wraps from Gogi Signs, it’s always easy and affordable to update, change or swap out an existing graphic.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, advertising is an art. Look at your trailer as a blank canvas you can speak to the public with. Be creative. Decide on a plan. Carry it out. If a trailer graphic idea is engaging, entertaining and gets people talking, it will most likely work to win you both new business and return customers. The benefits should be obvious.
Contact Gogi Signs Today
In order to learn more about using trailer wraps to help grow your business, contact Gogi Signs by calling, emailing team@gogisigns.com or filling out this form for a free quote today.
