Waiting for the phone to ring for more rentals is not a strategy.
Running a rental business has plenty of challenges; equipment, staffing, vehicles, and billing to name a few. Rather than just waiting for the phone to ring or the next email inquiry to come in, Rental Recipi is here to help you be proactive about getting more jobs booked and growing your business. Here are our three best tips for your rental business.
1) Website.
Wait. We know you’re thinking about jumping right over this section because you have a website. Let’s stop and really think about your site. What is your conversion rate? A conversion rate is the rate at which your website converts visitors to leads (phone calls, email inquiries, reservations). What would your business look like if you could just get more people to contact you?
Lets say your website gets 100 visitors on a typical day. You probably get 3-5 “leads” today (a 3-5% conversion rate). What if you could push that number up to 7-10?
How can you improve your conversion rate?
Use actual photos from your customers' events. Your potential customers want to see exactly what your equipment looks like, and in some level of detail. Whether its a tent, a bathroom trailer, a dance floor, etc, you should try to show real photos from real events (with people in the photos). After each weekend’s events, we recommend sending an email to customers asking for pics from their event and a review of your business. This is a great way to get photos and reviews.
Consider putting pricing on your website. You can always caveat your pricing by saying “prices starting at” or “does not include delivery, setup, removal, etc”
Consider packages. Help your customers with pre-canned packages (tent, tables, chairs and linens for 40, 60, 80 guests for example).
Make it obvious to visitors what they should do next. What is your call to action? Do you want them to call you, fill out a contact form, reserve using your online booking software?
2) SEO.
SEO (search engine optimization) which is just a fancy way of saying “getting your website to rank highly in a Google search.” Imagine the impact on your business if you had an endless supply of free traffic to your website on your core items and services. If done properly you will never have to spend another dime on advertising.
SEO takes time. Like planting a tree, it will take some time before the tree starts to bear fruit, but once it does, the reward is a long-term flow of free leads to your business. Like the secret recipe for Coca-Cola, no one single person knows all the ingredients that go into how Google ranks websites in a search result, but Google does offer some insights. Here is the single best way to improve your SEO.
Create unique pages for your main rental items.
Lets see an example in action…
https://www.backyardtentrental.com/dance-floor-rental-boston-ma (notice the keywords and location in the URL). Now, go to Google and search “dance floor rental Boston.” The results will look different for everyone, but this page generally ranks #1.
3) Google Ads.
Google Ads is easy to implement and requires no changes to your website. You could start a Google Ads campaign and feel the benefits tomorrow. Here’s how it works.
Google sells ad space right at the top of their search results. It is an auction system meaning the space basically goes to the highest bidder (there are other factors, but that's the general idea). Google Ads offers all kinds of targeting including:
Keywords / phrases. Which search terms do you want to run ads on? (tent rentals, wedding rentals, rent chairs, linen rentals near me, etc)
Geo Targeting. Choose the exact area you want to show your ads. You can target specific cities / towns, or choose a radius around your business.
Budget limits. You set how much you are willing to spend each day.
Negative search terms. “DO NOT show my ad if someone searches for xyz.”
Here is the best part about Google Ads. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad. Unlike other forms of advertising where you pay a lump sum up front and just cross your fingers and hope it works, Google Ads is a pay-per-click advertising service. The cost per click will vary based on competition, location, etc.