How to create a marketing strategy for rental businesses

To create an effective marketing strategy, you first need to understand your product market fit. This means knowing how to set yourself apart from the competition. Even if you’re not selling a physical product, but instead are renting them out for some hours or regularly, you’re still trying to sell your service. To do this successfully, ask yourself the following questions:

• What are you selling? 
• For which problem of your customers are you trying to find a solution?
• Why is this product unique?
• How does your product or service stand out from the competition?

READ: ”How to create a business plan for rental business”

In the rental industry, profitability depends a great deal on appropriate pricing. With new rental services and subscriptions being introduced all the time, this is an era of change for the rental business model – especially considering that reuse and circular models are becoming more popular. As such, it’s crucial to select prices that make sense for both your industry and target market. Below, you will find a list of options to help you choose the best prices for your products.

• How much are customers, both private and business, willing to pay for the product? What value does renting the product provide for the user? Is it a product of high interest or low interest?
• Compare your prices with your competitors. How much does it cost to rent the products from other companies? How much would it cost to buy the product outright instead of renting? This can also affect customer willingness to pay.
• You need to find a balance when setting the price of your product. If you set it too low, you won’t make as much money. If you set it too high, you won’t get as many customers. Make sure to take into account expenses like shipping costs and maintenance of the product when setting the price.
• Take into account the time of year, holidays, and product availability when considering your prices. How does customer demand differ throughout the year? Are some seasons busier than others? You may need to adjust pricing based on these factors.
• You can increase your profits by offering discounts for longer rental periods. This will encourage customers to extend their rentals, and you’ll make more money from each one.
• Offering membership to your customers is a great way to secure rental properties over long periods. Membership can lower the price for customers by having them commit to a longer period.
• Offering your service at a discounted rate during periods of low demand can help increase business.

Planning the process of your rental service is an important step of your marketing strategy. Ask yourself these questions: 

• How do you want your product delivered to the customer? Select the distribution model that works best for your rental business. You can offer pick-up in-store or at your warehouse, a self-service solution, or home delivery (with partnerships).
• Is it an ongoing service? Do you benefit most from offering a subscription service or a rental-based service?
• Would customers rather have an ongoing service, or would they prefer a subscription-based or rental service? What will generate the most revenue for you?
• How will you support their success with your product? Some examples are FAQs, blogs, video tutorials, etc.

Creating an excellent website is key to increasing your sales, and creating a great customer experience should be one of your top priorities. Customers touch base with businesses in many ways, so it’s beneficial to track and enhance these interactions to build a positive customer experience.

Rental businesses with happy customers tend to get more business through repeat visits and recommendations. Good customer service is key to maintaining a positive image for your brand; treat people well from the moment they find you in a search engine or social media, all the way until they’ve received your product and are satisfied. This can be difficult during busy times, but a good booking system and inventory management system will help radically.

Always keep your unique selling points at the forefront when you are marketing your rental business. A great strategy is to talk about the problem you’re solving for your customers, why your service is unique, and how your product or service stands out from the competition.

You need to have a consistent message no matter which channels or formats you use for marketing. If your potential customers see mixed messages about what you’re selling and what your brand stands for, they’ll get confused. Your website and all the other marketing activities you’re doing are one of the many ways you can show your potential customers how your product or service will benefit them. It’s crucial to be consistent with this because it allows people to understand why you’re the only company that provides what they need.

To succeed in marketing your rental business, you need to make sure that your promo and marketing efforts are targeting the right audience. It doesn’t matter how great your message is if it’s not being seen by the people who will appreciate it. How will you make sure your rental service is seen by your ideal customer? How do you plan on promoting your business? No matter how great your message is, it needs to be in the right place for people to see it. Depending on your company and target audience, this might mean creating blog posts or running paid ads on social media. Whichever route you choose, make sure it’s the most appropriate one for your content. Always ask yourself: How can you encourage your customers to keep coming back and renting your products?

Here are some of the most popular channels for rental businesses:

• Social media
• Paid ads
• Search engines
• Blog
• Email marketing
• Newsletter

Social media and paid ads

To make the wisest decisions on where to allocate your marketing efforts, research what social media platforms your customers are using most frequently. The five main social media channels are Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and LinkedIn. However, depending on who you are trying to reach- not every platform will be necessary for your rental business.

If you want your social media posts to be seen by more people, you have two options: rely on the organic reach of your posts or use paid ads. Because social media algorithms are always changing, it’s crucial to stay informed about the latest changes. Not all of your followers will see your posts organically, so boosting your reach with paid advertising might be a good idea.

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Search engines

Today, Google is one of the most important marketing channels for both B2C and B2B businesses. Why? Oftentimes, customers initiate their buying journey with a quick google search. Therefore, your business must appear on the first page of relevant Google searches. You can increase visibility for your rental business by being strategic with keywords and SEO on your website, landing pages, and blogs.

Blog

Customers value content that is useful to them, such as tips and advice. By providing this type of content, you are showing your customers that you are an expert on the subject matter. This will help strengthen your credibility and give a positive impression of your business. Not only will creating blog content help potential customers become more familiar with your company, but it will also make them more likely to buy from you in the future. When you publish blog posts on social media, not only do you have the chance to reach a larger audience, but an audience that is closer to making a purchase. If someone has already interacted with your business before, they have formed an opinion of your business and are therefore more likely to rent from you.

Email marketing and newsletters

Of course, one important way to maintain relationships with both loyal and potential customers is through newsletters. Newsletters are not only informational, but they also serve as a valuable reminder about your service. By reminding your audience of your business’s existence, you increase the chances that they will think of using your service the next time they need it.

Which content formats will you use?

Decide which content formats you will use on each channel to increase website traffic. That might include images, GIFs, memes, podcasts, videos, webinars, blogs, or even landing pages. Content marketing can be a lot of work, especially for small businesses that need to constantly create new, fresh content that will excite their customers.

READ: ”Essential software and tools for a rental business”

Regardless of whether you’re a small business with a few employees or a bigger business with a larger team, you still need to figure out which role each of your employees is playing in your marketing strategy. Here is a list to help you start this process:

• Who in your team plays a role in your market strategy? 
• Describe what each of them will do to bring your market strategy success. 
• What do you need help with? 
• Can you outsource some of the tasks or get help from a friend?

When deciding which marketing activities you will have the most success with, you have to consider your budget. If you don’t have the biggest budget to spend on marketing, you can still run a successful marketing campaign with a low budget, but it will be more important for you to use more time planning and deciding which channels you should use. The cost for paid ads varies a lot from channel to channel, and we recommend that you research how much budget you need to do a successful campaign in the country you are targeting.

If you feel like you are not ready to start advertising with paid ads, you can spend your time increasing the organic traffic to your website, by building up your social media channels and content on the website. Another possibility is to get a local newspaper to write about you and spread the word about your rental business, or you can also send a press release to the media. Be wise with your time and plan accordingly by detailing how much time you expect to spend executing your marketing strategy.