Digital license plates are here, and they’ve brought a variety of advantages for your commercial fleet. Replacing basic metal tags with high-tech digital surfaces allows these plates to be more versatile about what they display — this means it’s simple to update a plate’s registration status, or to change the printed message on the plate alongside the number.

You shouldn’t overlook the value these custom messages can add. They can deliver different information, from marketing and promotional info to registration compliance warnings, or even theft alerts. Using this feature is a way to get maximum return on investment from your digital license plate purchase.

How Does Custom Messaging Work on Digital License Plates?

Custom banner messages are a very simple concept — they’re small lines of text that appear beneath the registration number on a digital license plate. On a metal license plate, this is where you might find a state motto or another piece of information. Digital license plates can show these standard messages, but they can also go beyond them.

You can set a custom message for a digital license plate within an easy-to-use fleet management interface. When you click through the information on each of your digital tags, you can gain a quick view of exactly what’s displayed on that plate at the moment, including custom messages. From there, it’s a simple, one-click process to change that material.

Whether you want to set a specific custom message for the whole fleet, for only some vehicles or just for one, you can make the change in a click, and the results will immediately become visible. This flexible, one-touch control means you’re free to switch up your messaging as much as you wish.

The ability to make frequent changes may prove especially helpful if you fully commit to using your license plates as a mini billboard for your brand.

How Can Digital License Plates Promote Your Brand?

How much could you do with a little extra marketing space? This is the question directly posed by digital license plates. That extra line of text below the plate number is available to display anything from a company motto to a topical reminder or even a shout-out to a third party.

This messaging could serve several valuable purposes, including:

• Brand visibility: The simplest use of a custom message on your license plates is to display your own company’s name, motto, web address or social media handle. This is just an extra reminder for drivers who see your vehicles in traffic to keep your company top of mind or tell them how to reach you.

• Limited-time promotion: Since it’s so easy to change the message on a digital license plate, you don’t have to limit yourself to evergreen information. Running a limited-time sale? Have a fun seasonal greeting to share? You can display those on your license plates, then switch them out as soon as they lose their relevance.

• Partnership or sponsorship: If you’re eager to promote one of your business’s partnerships, it’s just as easy to put another brand’s name on your digital license plates as your own. You could also sell the rights to have a third-party message displayed. That paid promotional opportunity can be especially enticing if you operate hundreds of vehicles.
• Social activism and community engagement: Custom messages can go beyond business and show off your company’s commitment to good causes and integration into its community. The license plates can display the name of a local charity or other group you’re partnered with or simply want to promote.

By providing extra space for any message you want to display at the moment, digital license plates let you customize your fleet of vehicles more than ever before. Even if you’re primarily switching to digital tags for benefits such as easy registration and integrated telematics, you’ll be glad to have this extra ROI opportunity.

What’s the Impact of Alerts and Other Custom License Plate Messages?

Custom marketing and promotional messages aren’t the only info you can convey via digital license plates. You can also set alerts, warnings and important updates that will help keep your vehicles compliant — or even help recover them after a theft.

Valuable non-promotional uses of custom digital license plate messages include:

• Registration renewal warnings: The ease of renewing registration is one of the primary advantages of digital license plates, and a major reason to pick these tags for your fleet. Due to custom messaging capabilities, they can also display special warnings when a vehicle has a lapsed registration, offering a reminder not to drive that vehicle until you file for renewal.

• Maintenance notifications: As with registration, it’s important to keep track of the maintenance status of every vehicle in your fleet and not drive vehicles that are due for service. It’s easy to mark these vehicles via custom license plate messages, so drivers know they have to take action.
• Theft recovery functionality: A “STOLEN” message on a vehicle license plate sends a clear message that law enforcement personnel should investigate. Due to the sensitive nature of this recovery-assistance feature, it’s only unlocked by reporting the vehicle stolen, rather than at the simple push of a button.

These messaging capabilities take advantage of the simple fact that a digital license plate is adaptable, while a standard metal tag isn’t. While they’re not needed every day, they’re extremely valuable when the situation demands.

How Do You Get Started with Digital License Plates?

Four states — California, Arizona, Michigan and Texas — have approved digital license plates for fleet use. You can immediately adopt digital tags for your vehicles in those states, claiming the benefits of custom messaging, easy renewal, onboard telematics and more. The sooner you install the technology, the faster you can begin drawing value from it.

If not all your vehicles are in approved states, you can use Reviver’s industry-leading digital license plates alongside metal plates, manually entering vehicle information into the RFleet fleet management system to oversee every vehicle on the same platform. If you plan to keep your current fleet management platform, it’s simple to add digital plates through API integration.