One Option to Improve Hire and Rental Sales in a Recession

March 17, 2009 - PRLog -- Research in to the Hire and Rental Industry identified that many Rental and Hire Companies, rate the following as their primary marketing lead sources:

Web leads
Repeat Customers and
Word of Mouth

The press release focuses on the latter two lead sources.

The latter two are actually inter-related.  Most word of mouth customers are actually referred by existing customers.  During a survey of hire and rental companies though, few could identify who their best customers were for creating word of mouth leads.

In current parlance, those existing customers who refer work to you are in effect viral marketers for you.  Viral marketing is where one person tells a number of people, who in turn tell a few more and so on about your hire or rental service.  Such word of mouth or viral marketing can be good or bad.

If you have a person who creates 4 or 5 sales leads a month for you, then they are probably a valuable asset to your business.  However the survey revealed most hire and rental companies had only anecdotal evidence at best as to:

Who are their best viral marketers were?
How many leads do they actually create?
What is the value of the leads created in terms of converted bookings?
Is there any trend either up or down occuring from each person?

From an effective management perspective this information is vital!

By knowing the answers to the questions above, an effective marketing plan can be implemented to maintain or improve leads from this source.  Such a marketing plan is termed a referral marketing campaign.  However in developing a referral campaign, there are some considerations you need to think about?

Should you reward your viral marketers?
If so how much should the reward be?
How often should it be given?
Should you send information updates to your viral marketers so that they are better  informed on your offer or specials?

Conversely though, if you begin to reward such marketers will you negate their effectiveness?  That is once people become aware that the person is being rewarded for promoting your services, it may reduce their credibility with their networks.

So how to solve the dilemma - to reward or not to reward?

The easiest approach is to simply contact those people who are your best viral marketers and ask them?

In contacting them, say to them that:

We wish to thank you for the leads you have generated for our business.  This has been great for our business.  We have a number of great people such as yourself, so we are considering what sort of program we could put in place to reward and encourage them.  Could I ask, what your thoughts are and what sort of things we could put in place?

The information you gather from this process will lead you to the type of program you need to put in place.  Implementing such a program could well be the most cost effective sales and marketing initiative you undertake this year.

HireEzy, hire and rental business management software, can really help you in firstly answering all the key questions relating to your viral marketers .  Who they are, how many leads they create. the value of bookings created.  

Furthermore, it has the inbult marketing tools to create newsletters to update your viral marketers.  Record any viral marketing rewards provided, so that you can conduct  a business analysis of the relative gross value of each marketer.  Go beyond that and enhance your web lead effectiveness as well with the fully integrated HireEzy on-line catalogue and ordering system.

HireEzy is the world leader in innovation in the Hire and Rental Industry. Available in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.   If you want more information or an online demonstration, please contact us by email on sales@makinglifeezy.com.au or go to our website www.makinglifeezy.com.au

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HireEzy is the complete business management system for the hire and rental industry. Developed by Making Life Ezy, HireEzy is the worlds innovation leader in the Hire and Rental Industry. HireEzy is available in USA, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand.
For more information go to www.makinglifeezy.com.au