Using Promotions in your Rental or Activity Business to Win Customers

Offering Promotions and Discounts on your rentals or activities provide benefits beyond just attracting more customers. If created and used correctly, promotions can provide you with an advantageous edge over the competition.

Let’s explore how you can use discounts to assist with your business operations.

Understanding your Promotions.  To get started with creating promotions, it’s best to first define the objectives of your promos.  Objectives could include:

• To get more Bookings
• To promote a new activity or rental
• To upsell items or add-ons

Once you know what you want to achieve with the promotions, then decide on important rules for the promo. Consider these 3 questions below.

1. What will the discount be? Understand the value of each of your rental or activity to decide the discount amount.  Don’t discount an activity too much, so you end up losing money.
2. How will you promote the promo? Think about how you will get the word out about your promotions. Popular methods include:
   • Email marketing
   • Automatic Thank You emails after the customer leaves
   • Post to your Website
   • Post to your social media pages
   • Create flyers to advertise in your local community
3. What will the rules be? Consider the timing when you want a promotion to be valid. Off-season and holidays are an excellent time to offer discounts. Also, think about giving your promotions an expiration date. The benefits of this are two-fold: It will create urgency to use the promo before it expires, and not keep a promo going for too long that it affects your revenue.

Now that you’ve laid out your plan for promotions, let’s dig deeper into what promotions can do for your business.

Use Promotions to Build your Customer Base. When creating your promotions, you want to think about your customers and build promo codes for them.  Ideas include:‍

• Loyalty Promo: Have a promotion for repeat customers. You can send the code to your email list of past customers, or set up a thank you email that is automatically sent to your customers once they return the rental or are finished with the tour. Sending this email a day or two after they leave is a great option, and include the promo code for a future booking.
• New Customers: Create a promo that only new customers can use.  If they are first time renters, and they see you offer a promo for just them, it will likely entice them to book to get the discount.
• Less Popular Rentals, Tours or Activities: Create a promo for the offerings that typically aren’t booked as much as others. Offering a discount for these rentals or tours can boost the reservations, and also show customers that these activities are just as worthy as the others.
• Less Popular Days: If you are typically booked up on weekends, but your weekdays are often slower, then a promo that applies to your less popular booking days is a great option to bring in more customers.
• Competition Promo: If you have a competing business in your local area, then a discounted offer is a great way to edge out the competition. If you can get them to choose you or the other business with a promotion, then you can build that relationship, so they will continue to choose you year after year.

Use Promotions to Market your Business. Beyond building customers, promotions can provide a keen insight into your business and help get more visibility of your offerings. Look at these possible ways:

• Building Relationships: Work with other local businesses to leverage your activities by offering discounts. Create a unique code that local partners can share with their customers. This is a great way to get out into the community and help each other with getting more customers. For example, if you offer water sport activities in your area, reach out to a local B&B or cabin rental company, and give them a discount code that they can offer to their guests that are staying in the area.  Return the favor and let your customers know about their business as an option for lodging close by.  You can even sweeten the deal by offering the partner a small commission for sending customers your way.
• Data Analysis: Use a reporting tool to see how your promos performed in the last year to decide which activities are popular and most often booked, and use the data to promote these activities via your website, email marketing, or social media outlets.

If you are not a current WebReserv customer, and are interested in learning more about how our booking platform can benefit your rental, tour, or lodging business, reach out to our expert team today. We’d love to have you onboard.