I can't believe it has been a month since my last post, but then again, in that month I have moved, had a conference and had another child (ok, not me but my wife did). Needless to say, it has been busy. Plus our annual conference is 10 days away.
Anyway...
My move has given me the distinct pleasure of sitting/driving on I-66 in Virginia at rush hour. This has given me the opportunity to see many commercial vehicles on my commute. I am shocked at how many of them (vans, trucks, trailers, etc) have the company name and phone number, and that is it. No description. No website. I have also seen many with a tagline or description, but no website listed.
I don't know about you, but the first thing I do when checking out a business is go to their website. I googled a few of these companies to see if maybe they just didn't have a website (shame on them), but most did. (There were a few that didn't, and I will be calling them to offer my freelance web design services.) So if you have a website, why wouldn't you put your URL on your trucks?
I honestly can't think of a good reason, except cost of painting your truck. But in this day and age, isn't your URL more important to shout to the world than your phone number?
Yes, in the car, someone might dial that number directly from their cell right then and there. But more likely, they are going to scramble looking for a pen to write it down and call later. But a URL they can probably just remember (if you have a good one).
Looking at this from an association point-of-view, you should ask yourself, "Are we advertising ourselves the right way?" Can people find you/the information they need? Is there the right call to action? Have we made it easy for people to act? Now might be the time to take a look to see if you are on the right track. If you aren't, people might just be glancing at your truck on I-66 and forgetting all about it because what they were looking for wasn't there.
Anyway...
My move has given me the distinct pleasure of sitting/driving on I-66 in Virginia at rush hour. This has given me the opportunity to see many commercial vehicles on my commute. I am shocked at how many of them (vans, trucks, trailers, etc) have the company name and phone number, and that is it. No description. No website. I have also seen many with a tagline or description, but no website listed.
I don't know about you, but the first thing I do when checking out a business is go to their website. I googled a few of these companies to see if maybe they just didn't have a website (shame on them), but most did. (There were a few that didn't, and I will be calling them to offer my freelance web design services.) So if you have a website, why wouldn't you put your URL on your trucks?
I honestly can't think of a good reason, except cost of painting your truck. But in this day and age, isn't your URL more important to shout to the world than your phone number?
Yes, in the car, someone might dial that number directly from their cell right then and there. But more likely, they are going to scramble looking for a pen to write it down and call later. But a URL they can probably just remember (if you have a good one).
Looking at this from an association point-of-view, you should ask yourself, "Are we advertising ourselves the right way?" Can people find you/the information they need? Is there the right call to action? Have we made it easy for people to act? Now might be the time to take a look to see if you are on the right track. If you aren't, people might just be glancing at your truck on I-66 and forgetting all about it because what they were looking for wasn't there.
Comments
But then I'm a believer that URLs (or twitter ids, etc.), should be on the bottom of email signatures as well. After all, you've probably worked hard to make your site/profile into exactly want you want so why not tell everyone about it?
Thanks again. Congrats on your new baby.