Party Rental Marketing.
How do successful party rental businesses succeed with digital marketing. Lessons learned from 20+ years and dozens of clients in the party rental industry.
If you’re reading this it’s because you either own a party rental business or you’re thinking about starting one. Here are some tips from Jim Mariano, President of Recipi and rental business owner for 15+ years….
Website.
You need a modern, mobile-optimized, useful website to compete. Here are the key features of a successful party rental website.
Mobile-optimized. Over 50% of your visitors will be a mobile device.
SEO. Does your site appear in Google searches for your key rental items? Most rental business owners don’t understand SEO (search engine optimization) but here are a few quick and easy ways to check your SEO.
Do you have dedicated pages for each of your core rental items (tents, tables, chairs, etc)?
Page / URL names… look at the full URL for your pages. Ideally, your page URLs should include your items and your target location, for example: https://www.backyardtentrental.com/dance-floor-rental-boston-ma . This signals to Google that this page is a great answer when someone is searching for “dance floor rentals Boston.” This is so important.
Does your website help your customers AND help your business.
Does the website answer your customers frequently asked questions?m(Pricing, delivery area, package deals, info about your process, etc)
Does the website help YOUR BUSINESS? Does your contact form produce useful leads? (Do you ask event location, event date, which items are you interested in, give us more details about your event setup?) Too many rental websites have a contact form that just says “name, email, message” which results in very useless inquiry that simply say ,“ I need a tent for 150 people.” Instead, you should collect all the info needed to quickly and accurately respond to the customer. A good inquiry should look like this:
Name - Joe Blow
event location - 150 south street, Waltham MA
event date - 8/7/2022
items: (tent, tables, chairs, lights, linens for tables)
describe your event: We are having a backyard engagement party for 60 guests. The event will be in our backyard, on grass, no underground hazards.
Analytics. You cant improve what you cant measure. Does your site have analytics built in so you can learn where your visitors are coming from? If you’re spending more to advertising on Wedding Wire, wouldn’t it be helpful to know how many visitors and leads Wedding Wire sent to your site? Without analytics you cant grow and learn.
Does your site use actual photos from your events? Customers want to see your work. Your website should include your actual photos so customers can see exactly what you offer. If possible, the photos should be live-action shots from the event with people included. At Recipi, we frequently see small tent rental businesses showing photos of big, beautiful wedding tents for 200, but they only offer small 20x40 tents for example… There is a disconnect between what your website shows, versus what you offer. Or, we see lots of photos of rental items setup but without people in the shot. (A sad looking photo of a tent rental setup with chairs stacked, tables without linens, etc) Whenever possible, we want to use real photos.
Take pictures after setup is done.
ASK CUSTOMERS FOR PHOTOS (and online reviews) after the event.
Marketing.
Think about how you shop for local services. If you needed a plumber, would you go to instagram? (Probably not). While social media and word-of-mouth are certainly marketing tactics, those two things are not enough to grow a business quickly. Let’s discuss the best marketing tactics for party rental businesses
Google Ads. Google is where most consumers go for local business services. If potential customers are using Google to search for “table and chair rentals near me,” then shouldn’t we just try to capture the already existing demand for those searches? (People are already ringing the doorbell, shouldn’t we just answer the door?). Google Ads allows rental businesses to choose their keywords, locations, budget, etc. This is the easiest, most effective way to get more visits to your website, leads, and ultimately customers. Here are the key benefits of Google Ads.
You only pay if/when someone clicks on your ad and lands on your website. There is very little wasted spend.
You don’t have to make any website changes to start Google Ads. You simply start the ads and watch the clicks, inquiries, and customers roll in.
You can choose which rental items you want to advertise on. If you have a jam-packed summer filled with tents, you dont need to run ads on tents. You could instead use Google Ads to get more rentals for those items that don’t sell out each weekend (chairs, dance floors, linens, etc). Or, Google Ads can be used to help with the slower months.
Don’t forget, just because you are busy, it doesn’t mean your business wouldn’t benefit from more leads. With more leads you can:
Be more picky about which jobs you take
Raise your prices!
Fill your schedule sooner (fewer “last minute” inquiries, easier to plan your schedule, labor, etc)
Online Reviews. nGoogle, Yelp and Facebook allow customers to review your business. If someone searches “tent rental companies near me” and a list of five rental businesses appear, having dozens / hundreds of 5-star reviews will set you apart from your competitors. Essentially your past customers are helping your sales.
Email Marketing. Your best customers are your already existing customers. Businesses are constantly focusing on finding NEW customers, but they often forget about the hundreds / thousands of customers they’ve already served. For my rental business, I send out an email in February to my past customers reminding them to book their events now before we sell out. I would much rather work for a repeat customer where I know the tent will fit, the people are good customers, and the relationship already exists. I send a “save your date” email in February, an “extra seating for Thanksgiving,” email and maybe one more email when bookings are slow in my less-busy months.