Photography Business Window Decals

I have been looking around to find the best quality for the lowest price on a vinyl car decal to promote my photography business on the rear window of my car.

Can anyone recommend any sites that will allow you to upload your own custom design from Illustrator?(vector based)

So far I have checked out a booth in my local mall and got an estimate for $80 for a 25" x 25" sticker which I believe is too high.

I also found this site:

http://www.carstickers​.com/Create_A_Custom_D​ecal.php

which is $27 for a 25" x 25" decal. I think that is more reasonable.

Also, does anyone know a good size for the rear window?
My design is a square format with a logo and contact information.

Thanks!

Don't you have sign stores in your town?
they take any format and print it out cheap

I know this is not what you are asking, but I would be very hesitant to advertise my business on my car. First it screams "Hey! I have cameras in here!". Even if you take in your gear EVERYWHERE, not fun dealing with a smashed window. Also, no matter how careful you drive, someone is always bound to think you did something to them on the road and it is your fault. Guess what they see? A wonderful logo representing you.

With that said, thesignchef.com has been very good for me.

The pricing really depends on a couple of things... number of colors used and format provided will make the most difference. If you are wanting a 1-2 color decal it can be cut with a simple plotter, however if you are using a logo that has gradients and a much larger number of colors it has to be printed which is much more expensive hardware. The format provided may not be as much of an issue if it's a printed decal, but plotters require a vectorized file for cutting; if you provide a fairly low quality jpeg logo and want it plotted, it can be more work to convert it to a clean vector file.

I've owned a vinyl plotter for almost 10 years; well I upgraded a few years ago.

bigjon0107 wrote in post #16151546
I know this is not what you are asking, but I would be very hesitant to advertise my business on my car. First it screams "Hey! I have cameras in here!". Even if you take in your gear EVERYWHERE, not fun dealing with a smashed window. Also, no matter how careful you drive, someone is always bound to think you did something to them on the road and it is your fault. Guess what they see? A wonderful logo representing you.

With that said, thesignchef.com has been very good for me.

Definitely good points here; there are plenty of people who have gear stolen out of their vehicles even when they don't have signage.

As you can read above, I have a vinyl plotter... but you won't find a decal/sticker on my car

Even without decals promoting "I'm a photographer!" I've known a wedding photographer get stuff stolen out of his vehicle sometime during the wedding day. However, in the case I'm thinking of, I believe he was too lazy to lock his doors.

Quality of decals vary greatly (I ran a small sign shop for a few years). Cheap places online most likely use calendared vinyl which realistically outdoors is going to last 3-5 years tops. More expensive vinyls are more robust, and will stay looking great 10+ years. Local guys use better stuff, they have to live with the quality of their work and its their reputation.

That said, for the price difference you could put on new decals every few years.

Someone can steal my gear if they need it that bad, I'm insured and b&h ships overnight.....

Marketing is every bit as important as your photography, having your vehicle done up right is a big help in marketing.

Not only to agree with bigjon0107, but I can tell you that car sign advertising really doesn't work.

What it does do is result in phone calls relating to your driving habits. One of our vehicles (my wife and I own a florist) has signage, but only because we deliver to people's homes, and seeing the delivery van plastered with our signage, the little old ladies will open the door. In 5 years, we have had 1 sale that specifically stated they called us because they saw the van (we have a really easy phone number to remember).

I also was a home inspector in a previous life, and there were 4 of us that owned the company. We never once had a customer tell us they saw the trucks or called because of them. We did have one guy that was a horrible driver (very aggressive), and we got tons of phone calls about that. I wouldn't be surprised if that actually hurt our business to some degree.

And as bigjon0107 said, you've just put out a flashing sign that says "I have valuable photographic equipment in here that you can sell on ebay or craigslist and make a ton!"

The ROI on vehicle signage just isn't there.

If you do want vehicle signage though another route to go is to do it via magnets that you can remove whenever you don't want them visable.

KirkS518 wrote in post #16153750
Not only to agree with bigjon0107, but I can tell you that car sign advertising really doesn't work.

You missed on the "for us" at the end of the sentence.

Funnily enough it works for me. I've answered as to why it does on several other threads on POTN already.

A lot of the negativity that comes towards it along with other marketing techniques often comes from others who have tried and failed in their approach therefore dismiss it outright. I saw a similar approach to Facebook marketing from another poster on here just the other day. "I can't do it therefore no-one can" which ignores the possibility that others are actually doing it which disproves the argument.

Using car graphics like all forms of marketing has to fit into your overall marketing strategy. When executed well with consistent recognisable branding it can make a difference (and a worthwhile one at that).

memoriesoftomorrow wrote in post #16154574
You missed on the "for us" at the end of the sentence.

Funnily enough it works for me. I've answered as to why it does on several other threads on POTN already.

A lot of the negativity that comes towards it along with other marketing techniques often comes from others who have tried and failed in their approach therefore dismiss it outright. I saw a similar approach to Facebook marketing from another poster on here just the other day. "I can't do it therefore no-one can" which ignores the possibility that others are actually doing it which disproves the argument.

Using car graphics like all forms of marketing has to fit into your overall marketing strategy. When executed well with consistent recognisable branding it can make a difference (and a worthwhile one at that).

Fair enough on the 'for us'.

It's not absolute negativity for car decals as a whole, but it depends on the type of business as to whether or not it would be a successful marketing campaign.

I don't think the average consumer is going to say to themselves - "Hmm. I need a good photographer for my upcoming event. The guy has decals on his car, so he must be good! I'll call him." I really think there is a stigma attached to vehicle advertising, and you'll never find the cream of the crop doing it in almost any business. To me, it says "I'm new in the business, and this was a cheap way to advertise", or I sell May-Kay. I find the more successful the company, the more subdued the vehicle signage is. I'm not talking about the huge FedEx/Mayflower/WalMar​t types of companies, as they are just keeping themselves in the forefront of the consumer's mind, not develop the company.

The flip-side to all that I'm saying is that I don't think I've ever seen a tog on vehicle advertising. So it may work incredibly well, as it would be newer. I just know it isn't someone I would call for my wedding.

Good vinyl for a medium sized car or SUV should be around $200 (your market maybe different) which isn't to much to spend to try it for a year or so. But the first time (and hopefully this doesn't happen) someone decides to see if you keep gear in the vehicle, it'll be a lot more then what you may see in business obtained. It takes a lot of weddings to make enough profit to buy a new L lens.

GeminiZ wrote in post #16151407
I have been looking around to find the best quality for the lowest price on a vinyl car decal to promote my photography business on the rear window of my car.

Wraps, if done properly, can make for great advertising, just follow a few basic rules.

Your company name and phone number must be large high contrast and easy to read from a distance.

And always proof before printing, nothing screams amateur louder than misspelled words and inverted images.

Re the theft risk, there's no requirement that you have the wrap or decal on your car. Pay someone to be your roving billboard. Anyone remember the Herbal Essence cars? They paid owners of Beetles $50/month for having their car dolled up to look like a shampoo bottle.

I saw a very nice decal on a photographer's SUV rear window. White letters, nice design, new vehicle. If you do one, have the good sense to pay someone with design skills to create the artwork for you.

bigjon0107 wrote in post #16151546
I know this is not what you are asking, but I would be very hesitant to advertise my business on my car. First it screams "Hey! I have cameras in here!". Even if you take in your gear EVERYWHERE, not fun dealing with a smashed window. Also, no matter how careful you drive, someone is always bound to think you did something to them on the road and it is your fault. Guess what they see? A wonderful logo representing you.

I've had both the magnetic door sized signs and also ones in my rear windows. When we were using those I made a point of asking how they heard of us and amazingly there were several that mentioned the signage on vehicles. I know that I have made note of several companies that I had an interest in while driving and saw their back window. They weren't necessarily photography companies but a service that I knew I would be looking for in the near future. I simply do a voice memo in my phone so as to not trying to write while driving. We never had any vehicles broken into and our home and office remained safe as well. Certainly it does alert people to the fact that you potentially have camera gear in your car. I refuse to let the criminals win and had vehicles that were not exactly the easiest to break in to and had an alarm system on it that could be heard for blocks. I always make sure that my insurance is up to date and that I have the serials numbers of everything stored in a safe place that can be accessed from anywhere. I have been driving with good camera gear in my vehicles for several decades so I guess I should consider myself lucky but the percentage of vehicles that do get broken in to would probably be statistically low.

Sometimes it is hard to gauge the ROI on some marketing initiatives. From the sounds of it you are looking to spend something less than 80.00 so what harm can an expenditure of this little hurt you. There is always other ways of drawing attention to your company but this one works for some while others dislike it. I know of one photographer has purchased advertising on those tent things that taxi's carry around on their roofs for advertising. I don't know the person so I can't say what his success is from that. Doing nothing is not an option and I fully support doing things outside of the internet.