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Using Instagram to showcase your equipment rental business

Looking for ways to increase exposure of your equipment rental business, but are on a limited marketing budget?  Instagram isn’t just a social media platform for selfies and pictures of food.  This could potentially be a powerful tool to get more eyes on your products or services.

Why Instagram?

With a user base of over 80 million, this fairly simple photo sharing platform has grown from a mobile app to a fully-fledged online database that is searchable and linkable across all platforms.  Pictures can be tagged, organized, and provide instant-feedback from anyone browsing them.

Sometimes browsing rental inventory or product catalogs on websites doesn’t always translate well to mobile devices, with Instagram, photos are easily swiped through, flipped, zoomed, liked, and shared with the familiar platform that everyone knows how to use, especially the younger demographics.  This is a very important audience for anyone in the rental industry.

For example, a wedding rentals company would be able to show off their entire catalogs of dresses, suits, and accessories and apply very evocative visuals, thanks to the beautiful presentation tools available on Instagram.  The wow-factor is much higher when everything is presented in a cohesive gallery, generating a natural buying interest for your business.

Inside Scoop on Products

When expanding your rental inventory, it can often take a while for new products to really take off, without an involved marketing campaign.  Instagram allows your rental business to update and share your new products or services with all members who have followed you and liked your products.  You can give these VIP members an inside look at upcoming products, or you can show them what goes on behind-the-scenes at your rental equipment business.

More Customer Feedback

Your Instagram account can demonstrate ways in which your inventory is used and allow for members to share their own experiences with their own Instagram photos.  You could hold a contest asking for users to submit the best photo of your rental gear to go on the front page of your website.

Your Instagram account isn’t just limited to posting photos of your inventory online like a pawn shop.  It can be personally tailored to add personality and likeability to your rental business.  Use it to upload pictures of company moves or trade expos where you can display exclusive unveilings of future products.  Get to know your customers and fans personally by holding meet-and-greets, charity events, and giveaways to get people excited about your products.

The best way to stand out from the competition is to stand up and broadcast who you are, what better way to do that than with one of the fastest growing social media platforms on the internet?  Expand your customer base and begin tapping into younger demographics who are much more visual and place much more importance on convenience and accessibility than all other metrics.

Finally, retain those customers with casual professional relationships and advice, thanks to Instagram’s easy-to-use app and web integration.

Rental Damage Protection: What you should know

Let’s face it, when it comes to earning a living, being a business owner is probably up there as one of the most stressful and difficult positions to be in, yet the overall experience can be highly rewarding, especially if you take the necessary steps and measures to ensure that your business runs as smoothly and as efficiently as possible. As far as difficulty levels go, equipment rental businesses are especially frustrating as you are trusting others with your products, relying on them to not only respect them, but to also return them back to you in as good a condition as when you rented them out in the first place. For this reason, SaaS (software as a service) products are proving extremely popular amongst equipment rental businesses all over the world, as they are not only helping to make life easier, they’re actually helping to make the businesses more efficient, and therefore more lucrative and rewarding. Here we’ll be taking a look at the benefits of SaaS products for rental equipment businesses. 

They allow you to easily keep log of your inventory – There are a number of different types of equipment rental businesses currently in operation, with some common examples including: furniture rental, wedding rental, inflatable rental, storage rental, and more. The more products and pieces of equipment that you currently offer out for rental, obviously the more difficult it will become to keep a log of all of your current inventory. Say for example, you hire out chairs for large parties or functions. You may hire out 200 chairs, yet only receive 199. That missing chair may not sound like much to some people, but it is still your property, it is still a part of your inventory, and it will still cost money to replace. SaaS products allow you to easily log all of your inventory, know what is there and what, if anything, is missing, and exactly how much of each item you have available. What’s more, if products are returned damaged or in poor states of repair, you can not only make a note of this, you can refer back to the software, find out which customer(s) returned it in its damaged condition, and then take the next necessary steps. 

They prevent double-booking and general problems with orders – Say you rent out marquees for weddings, parties, outdoor events etc, and currently have 20 in your inventory. You may have one client who has ordered 11 for a social event they’re throwing. That will leave you with 9 left. Now, say a wedding party orders 10 marquees yet when it comes to being delivered, you discover there are only 9 remaining, you will have some explaining to do and some angry customers that will probably not use your service again. SaaS products however, will allow you to simply open the application, take a look at how many marquees you have available for rental, how many are out for hire, and the date when they’ll be returned. Before processing any orders, a quick look at this info will tell you, and your customers, all that is needed to be known, making life much easier for everybody involved. 

They make it much easier to organize tasks – Another great benefit of these products is that they make it much simpler to organize tasks to do with the day to day running of your business. You can easily log the dates when certain products are due to be rented out, which products are being rented out, how many of each you’re renting out, and when they should be returned. All of this is accessible via a few clicks of a few buttons. Everything you need to know about each order will be right there on the screen for you and all of your employees, which again, makes life so much simpler.