That's a wrap

Ryan Brewer’s landscape box trucks, wrapped with his company’s logo and photos of the services he provides, are more than just vehicles to move crews and equipment. “For us, it’s a mobile billboard. As we travel to and from jobs, we are constantly advertising,” he says.

Brewer serves as operations manager at Terrascape, a landscape company based in Murfreesboro, Tenn., that specializes in blower installation of mulch, rock and soil. In September of 2013, Brewer spent $4,000 to have one of Terrascape’s trucks emblazoned with photos of piles of compost, soil and other materials, as well as a picture of Brewer himself performing a blower installation. The colorful graphic, designed by Terrascape’s advertising agency, wraps around all sides of the truck and includes the company’s phone number and website address.

Shortly after the first truck wrap was complete, calls to Terrascape tripled and sales increased by 10 percent. A second truck design was installed in February of this year, and Brewer says he has plans to wrap another truck with graphics and a photo showing the company’s blower rock installation service.

“It has definitely boosted our residential sales and increased our name recognition with our commercial customers in our market. People understand more of what we do just by seeing the graphic on the truck,” Brewer says.
 

Beyond the truck magnet.

Up until this year, Stickle Landscape Management had operated its business out of a pickup truck and landscape trailer. The trailer had the company’s logo and contact information printed on it, but that was the extent of the graphic design. “Most companies around here only have white pickup trucks with magnets on the side,” says Cody Stickle, owner of the one-crew operation based in Hampton, Va. “I just wanted to be different, in a good way.”

In February, Stickle purchased a box truck and had it wrapped in green with the company logo, contact information, a list of services and the company’s tagline: “Maintaining God’s Creation.” The design, that he created himself on his computer using Corel Paint Shop software also features a Bible verse written across the back doors of the truck. Matthew 5:16 reads: “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in Heaven.”

Stickle says he included the Bible verse to inspire his employees as they unloaded the truck at each jobsite. But he says he also wanted to communicate the company’s values to his customers. “It is our mission to glorify God by providing friendly, professional service for our clients. Our truck wrap was designed as an image to represent this statement to our employees, vendors and awesome clients,” Stickle says.

At first, he didn’t consider that the Bible verse might be considered controversial.

“Some people were telling us that we eliminated half of our market,” Stickle says. “However, I looked at it like we’re … being true to who we are.”

Just two days after putting the newly designed truck into service, a potential customer walked up to the truck on a jobsite and asked for a business card. Within a month and a half, Stickle had picked up 15 to 20 new customers.

His expectation was that the design might attract that many new clients in a year. “It cost us approximately $3,000. Those 15 customers definitely made up for the cost,” Stickle says.
 

Oh, baby!

Cameron Murray is president of EMC Enterprises, a full-service landscape maintenance, design and install company based in Raleigh, N.C., since 2001. The company had always used trailers with the company logo and contact information printed on the sides, but in 2006, Murray decided he wanted to reach a very targeted customer base: stay-at-home moms in high-end residential neighborhoods around Raleigh.

“We wanted to brand ourselves in a way no other landscape company had ever done, that I’m aware of, at that time,” Murray says.

By the following year, the company launched a comprehensive marketing campaign featuring the smiling face of a baby and the tagline: “Hey Baby! What a Great Lawn Company!” The campaign was rolled out in three stages that used the “baby” branding on a box truck wrap, (at a cost of approximately $6,000), and advertising postcards and printed brochures.

“First we would hit select neighborhoods with mailers incorporating the baby and our services. Next we would service those accounts/neighborhoods with the baby-branded truck, and we would also deliver brochures to neighbors with the same baby on them advertising our services as well,” Murray says.

The campaign was a success.

“We are known throughout the market by not only our customers/potential customers, but by suppliers and competitors as well. We get noticed,” Murray says.

But more than that, it’s had a positive impact on the bottom line.

“It’s hard to measure sales from the truck because it was part of a greater marketing effort, but I’d say the first year we started the campaign we doubled our sales and each year since we have tried to maintain a 20-25 percent growth rate,” Murray says. “Our customers love it, they can easily identify us and show us off to their neighbors!”

Brewer, Stickle and Murray agree that including truck wraps as a part of their company’s marketing has made a significant, positive impact on their businesses.

“We have several compliments from the wraps,” Brewer says. “It has been an excellent marketing tool for our business.”

The author is a freelance writer based in Mount Vernon, Wash.