The Day a Plastic Business Sign Saved the Day

By blujam On August 27, 2010 Under Uncategorized

I’m writing this as I patiently wait around at a local tire and car service shop in Charleston, SC. After a bout of poor luck last night, I found myself with a flat tire in desparate need of replacement. But my story is not about luck or the accident itself, but rather it is about how I found myself at this particular car shop , bright and early on a Monday morning.

Now I don’t know a lot about cars. I’m not incredibly aware of what car shops are around me or what a good price is in terms of any vehicle service. But one day on my lunch break, while sitting in stand still rush hour traffic, I happened to notice a small, simple Coroplast plastic sign right up on the edge of the road. The sign read “Oil Changes For $19.” I didn’t need an oil change at that particular moment, but this sounded like a pretty good price, and with this being a service I regularly have done to my car, it caught my attention. So I glanced around the area and noticed a little shop right there along the busy street, with a large business sign advertising their business name and listing the car services they offer. I had never noticed this shop before! It was almost as if their primary large business sign was getting lost in a sea of all the others on that street. But that Coroplast sign directly beside the street stood out as un-ordinary, striking curiosity. I decided right then that when time came for my next oil change, this was where I would take my little Honda.

A few months later…

When my tire went flat yesterday evening, it dawned on me that I knew nothing about the car shops in Charleston, and had no idea where to bring my car to get my tire fixed. But then something sparked my mind. I recalled that plastic sign advertising oil changes, and remembered that their business sign declared their experience in tire services. Now it was about that time for an oil change, so in lieu of extensive research and in attempts to multi-task, I decided to take my car to that particular shop, without even calling around for tire prices and recommendations.

So you see, all this company did was took a simple extra step beyond the standard lone business sign, to catch passerbys’ attention. And what better strategy than to promote a service that patrons utilize usually around 5 times each year! With that single sign, they not only acquired my oil changing business, but my more costly tire business too!

And the greatest thing for that car shop is that their Coroplast plastic sign cost so little! Coroplast is made up of a corrugated plastic sign material that looks like plastic cardboard. They are light weight, and are extremely easy to display, as wire stakes are available that simply insert into the flutes of the plastic and can then be staked into the ground. And Coroplast is definitely one of the most inexpensive sign materials in the industry!

Now there’s quite the party out here at the car shop this sun-shining morning. There was a line around the front of the store, waiting for the doors to open early this morning. There was hardly even a place for me to park! I wonder if all these other patrons saw their Coroplast plastic sign…?