If you are in any business where your employees wear hardhats, you have a perfect and extremely low cost method available to you to quickly assert and strengthen your company brand. Here is how you can use hardhat decals put your company’s message in front of the eyes of everyone your employees come in contact with.

Step 1. Determine your company message and brand. What sets your company apart? How are you different or how would like to be perceived as different from your competitors? If your marketing and advertising just shows you as offering the same services as ‘all the other companies’ out there you are wasting your branding time and money.

You must decide to implement and promote one or more aspects of your business that your customers will see as making you better than other companies of your type. Make your company brand strong by using positive statements that are unique. Don’t fall into the trap of just saying you ‘provide better service’. Find a short succinct bullet point line that says why you provide better service. These short points will work well on your hardhat stickers.

Step 2. Get ideas from whomever you can. Talk to your employees, customers and suppliers. Determine the things your company can or will do that your competitors don’t and make these points into your branding list. These items must be actual items, products or services you provide that your competitors either don’t supply, or that you can show that you significantly outshine them with your practices.

It is important that you have specific items that your customers will remember that set you apart. For example, if your company installs swimming pools, don’t say ‘Highest Quality Materials Always Used’, rather say ‘No Rust Ever – All Stainless Parts’. Make the items specific. If it sounds like you do something that your competitors may not do, that is even better.

Step 3. Incorporate these in your marketing material. Constantly remind yourself, your employees and your potential and current customers of your branding points. One of the least expensive and most effective ways to get your message in front of everyone’s eyes is to use hardhat decals. Even custom made hard hat stickers are very inexpensive. You can put your branding points on every hard hat in your company for pennies each.

Ideally you should be able to break down your message and branding points into 5 or 6 short bullet items that you and your employees can repeat at the drop of the hat. For your hardhat stickers, this may mean a tasteful graphic and just the 5 or 6 main words that identify your brand.

Step 4. Meet with your employees. Explain to them the idea of branding. Tell them how it will help not only the company but the employees themselves as they prosper along with you. Pass out extra hard hat stickers and discuss other appropriate places where they can be used such as on portable equipment and toolboxes. Supply extras that can be used anywhere else you can tastefully get your effective branding message into the sight of others.

Step 5. Rinse and Repeat. Use secondary promotions to tie in more completely with your potential customers. While it is necessary to have your primary advertising and marketing program continually selling your main branding ideas that show how you are better than your competition, you should also constantly look for secondary branding ideas that are current or that arise as situations change.

One current example of this is the environmental ‘green’ movement. Once you have your primary branding program in place, it is easy to come up with a second set of reasons why your company is better and tie it in with a current social movement that the majority of your market agrees with.

Also consider local issues that your customers might have a high interest in and pass the message along to them that you agree and are helping. One example of this would be companies that now are in areas that affected by the Gulf oil spill. You can use this method to tell your potential customers how your company will help them or help your community.

It is important to take advantage of any form of advertising or promotion that will help your company, but using hardhat decals is by far the most cost effective way of getting your message out quickly and at a very low cost.