Affordable Signwriting Options for Your Lawn Mowing Vehicle.
Should you have signwriting on your vehicle?
And if so, what is the best option for a small lawn mowing business?
I have a unique take on this because I have owned a few signwriting and lawn-mowing businesses over the years. This post is about how I would sign write a vehicle on a budget and, more importantly, when I would go ahead and do that.
You dont need signwriting from day one.
Although signwriting is important, I do not think it is essential when starting, especially if you are starting on a low budget.
Good equipment is much more important in the early days than having a flash-looking sign-written vehicle. A sign-written vehicle may secure you a few quotes, but doing a high standard of work can also bring in quite a few jobs.
The time to sign write your vehicle would be as soon as you have the available income to do it.
Why sign write your vehicle?
There are a lot of good reasons to have signwriting on your vehicle, such as
It makes you look more professional.
When you arrive at a quote, you will look the part. This will give your business instant credibility and legitimacy in the customer’s eyes.
This will help you secure more quotes and can also help you get a better price for your work.
The customer may feel more secure.
When people arrive at a property to perform a service, the customer and the neighbours will feel a lot better if the vehicle is branded.
This lets everybody know who has arrived before you even get out.
I have known a couple of areas where guys have had issues pulling into driveways with blank white vans. This is not common, but it happens sometimes.
The neighbours will know who to call.
This can also be really helpful in getting new local lawns. The neighbours may also call if you are doing a nice job on the lawns.
We quite often had calls from neighbours next door to customers, and it’s a great way to increase your income without travelling if you can get a couple of lawns next door to each other.
People will see your vehicle when you are travelling.
When you are out and about, people will see your business. This helps people remember your business, and if they remember your name and do a search online, then they bypass the competition.
That is always a good thing.
Budget ways to sign write a vehicle.
The number 1 rule.
If you do not know how to sign write, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SIGN WRITE YOUR OWN VEHICLE.
This is a huge mistake and will end badly. If you pull up at a customer place with a bad DIY signwriting job, they will assume that is the same standard you have for mowing lawns.
You would actually be better off not having any sign-writing at all.
The four choices
There are only really a few affordable signwriting options for your lawn-mowing vehicle.
- Magnets.
- Static-cling on the windows.
- Pre-purchase and apply.
I will go through them all here from least expensive to most expensive.
Magnets.
The best thing about magnets is that you can stick them on and pull them off as you need them. This could be really handy, expressly if you are using your own personal vehicle to start off with.
You can get magnetic car signs at a pretty good rate at a place like vistaprint. They dont charge a lot and ship worldwide. We use them for fridge magnets and are happy with the quality.
If you decide to order from someone online, do make sure that you check that the magnets are, in fact, vehicle-grade material (0.85mm) and not fridge magnet material. (0.20mm)
Some people offer fridge magnet material to save money, and you will lose them within a month or so. They are not designed to stand up to the high winds that moving vehicles face. Affordable Signwriting Options does not mean cheap.
Other issues with magnets
You will need to remove them often to avoid damage to the vehicle. In fact, on the Vistaprint site, it recommends that you remove them and clean the surface every couple of days.
Just be aware that if you leave them on for long extended periods, they may start causing damage.
They can also get stolen.
I haven’t heard of this happening a lot, but I have heard it mentioned a few times. Still, with the magnets being so cheap, you could afford to order a spare in case you ever need it.
Static-cling on the windows.
This is a great idea if you want something easy and affordable. You can get something that is full colour and looks great without spending much cash.
If you do a search online, you will find quite a few suppliers close to you, and they are easy to ship.
I would suggest that, unlike the car magnets, you avoid taking these off and on a lot. We found that they stick a lot better if they are applied to the windows and let alone.
Pre-purchase and apply.
If you have the artwork, you could order your signwriting directly from a sign shop online and apply it yourself. You would need to be fairly confident to do this, but if you keep the signs fairly simple, then it’s not too difficult to apply them.
You can order easy-apply vinyl these days, and a lot of sign shops use it. Just make sure that you ask about it when you order.
We had an online sign shop for over ten years and shipped signwriting all over New Zealand. We included simple instructions, and hardly anyone ever had any issues. And that was before the easy-apply vinyl was even available.
Designing your sign writing.
One of the best places to design your sign writing is a place like Canva.com. You will want to save your images as PNG files before sending them off for print.
If you would like to know the best practices for sign-writing a lawn-mowing vehicle, the following article will help you take your affordable signwriting options to the next level.
