EquipCalendar

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

Every industry has at least a few of them - those unwritten rules that can make or break a fledgling business or even impact an established company.  When it comes to the do’s and don’ts of equipment rental, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to go ahead and write them down for you, so you won’t have to suffer through the pain of learning them the hard way.

While this cardinal rule of business may seem obvious, too often owners and employees get so tied up in the logistics of running their equipment rental company, they actually forget all about the very people that should be their number one priority.  Keep in mind that if you aren’t working on building your customer base, you simply aren’t going to be making any money.  And at least as importantly, if you have an especially happy or unhappy customer, they’re going to be sure to let all of their friends, neighbors, relatives and business associates know about it, which is also going to have a big effect on your bottom line.  Let the tools that are available to you, like EquipCalendar, take care of the logistics so that you can spend your time making your customers smile. 

If there’s one thing that you need to know about an equipment rental business, it’s that if a piece of equipment isn’t renting, then it’s not earning you money.  You can easily track which items you currently have that aren’t paying for the expense of keeping them around, whether it’s because of the routine maintenance they require or that they’re just taking up too much space.  It’s much better to bite the bullet and sell your underutilized equipment so that you can invest in something else that’s in higher demand.   

The rental equipment biz can be stressful, there’s no two ways about it.  But it’s very important that you maintain professionalism at all times, in front of both your customers and your employees.  That’s because if you want to be taken seriously and inspire confidence in your abilities, you simply can’t be caught running around like a chicken with your head cut off.  Do whatever it takes for you to keep your cool in the moment and then, if you really, really need to, feel free to lose it the moment you get to your car. 

You can also create a network of your own websites, using relevant keywords and posting useful information there. If you own a company that rents out audiovisual and lighting gear, think about registering the domain ‘AudioVisualLightingRentalsBoise.com’ (or whatever city you are in) and using it to host a special blog about how to throw the perfect event, great local venues, caterers, etc. Then be sure to link it back to your business website.

Don’t Forget The Locals

Getting to the top of your local search listings is a lot easier than climbing up the general ranks. If you have a rental business that provides things like tables, chairs and linens for parties or temporary power solutions like generators, odds are that most of your business will come from people in your area. That’s why creating a dedicated local page on Google Places, Bing Places for Business or Yelp can go a long way toward driving searches to your rental company. 

 
With a little effort and imagination on your part, there’s no reason that you can’t boost the search engine rankings of your rental business and see a big increase in your sales as a result!

Use the web for data because it has it, tons of it.  Research competitor rental prices and set your prices accordingly.  Research your competitors special offers and coupons, see if they appeal to the consumer in you.  Find out who has the easiest to read and navigate website in your industry and emulate them.

Social media is easier than you think and pictures rule the world.  With a single picture of your latest delivery and setup, you have a social media campaign, ready to upload and you didn't have to hire anyone extra for it.  Upload the picture, mention the city or neighborhood you delivered to, the type of party, and you've improved your search results for the next prospective customer.

Package your rentals to make it easy for your customers.  Prospective customers do not want to wade through a page for chairs, a page for tables, a page for linens with a calculator in hand.  Any items that are frequently rented together, perhaps matched by color or theme, create a "ready to go" package out of it and give them the discount price you would have anyways for bundling.  You could have a red package, a red+white+blue package, a cowboy package, anything you can dream up.

Do not put 25-50 links, buttons or categories on your website.  Your prospective customers will get confused.  They will have a product or search term in mind, and if it doesn't match yours or is tough to find amongst the busyness of all of your listings, you could lose the sale.  Try this out, for one month, when a prospective customer calls in, log the name of the product they are calling for, in their own words.  Those are the words you want on your website.

Create and experiment with a Display Network campaign on Google Adwords.  Simply put, this is an advertising campaign that targets mobile phones and tablets exclusively, in the city or cities of your choice.  You can pay as little as 4 or 5 pennies for a click.  You can even set a max budget per day, for clicks, at something as low as a $1.00.  That's cheap, less than gas for one or two deliveries.  We do the same thing ourselves and today (10/3/2014), our ads were shown to 11,000+ prospective customers and we only paid $1.94 for those that clicked on the ad for more info.

Create a service area page.  Chances are you serve a major metropolatin area, but you still need to tell customers, and the search engines, where you can provide rentals.  It's also a good opportunity to talk about delivery charges or maximum distance before surcharge.  Plus, not every person is a literal person, some people are visual so you need to include a picture of the metro area, perhaps drawing a "Shape" on Google Maps or use ScribbleMaps, then sharing it with your website visitors.

Get repeat or new business with an email campaign.  Do you know how much email campaigns cost?  Most of the time, it's a big fat zero until you get over 2000 users or 12000 emails in a year.  We use/recommend MailChimp for these reasons, it's affordable (or free) and to be honest, if you have more than 2000 subscribers, you won't mind paying a little to turn them into repeat customers.  Here's another secret, some visitors to your website just come there looking for an email subscription to get discounts or other offers.  They aren't there to buy (yet), they are there to try and get a deal.  Don't let those opportunities pass you by because they are free too!

Give coupons or discounts for reviews on Yelp and Google+.  It's a big social world out there.  People trust the recommendations they read online, even when they've never met the person writing it.  People check to see if you've been reviewed and if you have 4 or 5 stars.  If you've already landed a party rental client, ask them for 1% of effort on their part to write a review of their experience with your company and staff.  If 1% of effort is too much, offer them a coupon, perhaps a referral discount for a friend or their next party.

This info brought to you by EquipCalendar.  Track your events and equipment with ease!