How to Promote a Van Hire Company

Whether you're setting up a brand new business, or looking to refresh an older one, marketing a van hire company can be complicated. Your market is pretty fixed, you’re not likely to persuade anyone who isn't in need of a van to hire one. This means there is plenty of scope to waste money on wide-ranging digital marketing that delivers no new customers in return.

Other marketing methods like vehicle wrapping might face initial investment costs that make them seem expensive and unreliable when they can actually deliver fantastic long-term returns - but you have to make sure your investment counts with smart choices.

We've put together this post to help van rental companies who are looking for new customers while not wanting to waste money on expensive and ineffective marketing. We'll look at how to get the best out of your marketing budget, focusing on what customers will respond to and a few tips for keeping costs low.

5 ways to effectively promote a van hire business

Build trust

Many small-scale van rental companies may struggle to stand out against larger national companies as they are not familiar. Van hire can be seen as an unregulated industry, with lots of opportunities for scams or low-quality service. People naturally gravitate to companies they recognise. This means that proving that you can provide a reliable and pleasant service is the best marketing tactic you have.

There are plenty of ways to do this, but the first is to get a professional online presence. Don't just put up a Facebook page and expect that to be enough. Get at least one well-designed webpage out there, showing links to plenty of reviews, detailing your policies and procedures, and giving customers the information they need to trust you.

You should also seek out van rental industry accreditations. Joining a professional body will give your business much-needed support while also showing customers you're serious about delivering excellent service. In the UK, the British Vehicle Leasing and Rental Association (BVLRA) is a great place to start.

Encourage reviews

Another way to inspire trust is to collect as many reviews as you can. Ask customers to leave reviews on directory sites like YELP, Google Business and aggregate sites like TrustPilot. 

This is where social media sites like Facebook are also helpful. Give people options of where they can review you. This will encourage more customers to leave a review as they can find a place that is convenient for them. Just make sure you link to them all on your homepage, to help convince customers they can trust your van rental business.

This might not feel like a tip, but make sure to deliver a fantastic service too. Ensuring customer satisfaction will obviously result in good reviews which is always a plus. However, people who have particularly good or particularly bad experiences are the most likely to leave reviews in the first place as well.

Keep your campaigns local

When running a van hire business, chances are the majority of your customers are going to be local. Really local. A lot of people will want to be able to pick up the van, use it and return it the same day to keep hire costs down. They won't be willing to drive far to fetch it. 

This means that unless your van rental company has multiple depots or sites around the country,  you only need to focus your marketing efforts on the area local to your business.

When it comes to digital marketing, paid ads can easily be restricted to a specific area. This saves on the costs of paid campaigns, helping your company sit at the top of search engine result pages without blowing your entire budget. You can also run locally targeted paid campaigns across most social media platforms.

Simple steps like setting up a Google Business Profile, and making sure all your company details and contact information are accurate and up to date are also useful. This will help your business appear on 'near me' searches for people in your area. It's also a great place to collect those all-important user reviews, that keeps them easy to spot by potential customers.

Targeted direct mail

Another marketing method that works well for local marketing is direct mail marketing. This is easy to target locally, as you can just send to certain postcodes within your intended area and know that geographically relevant people will see your campaign.

However, it can be expensive. With the cost of designing, printing and posting all your direct mail, the price can quickly mount up, so you need a big return on those costs to justify the outlay.

Rather than simply showering chosen areas with leaflets, streamline your campaign by targeting customer groups who are likely to need your services. If not now, then soon. One such group is homemovers.

People moving home might rent vehicles to move their belongings rather than get a removal company involved, particularly if they are looking to save money. This gives you a headstart when marketing as all you need to do is persuade them to pick you over your competitors.

Here at MoverAlerts, we can help run targeted direct mail campaigns by providing relevant leads via our subscription service. We can even create and send your direct mail marketing too using our fulfilment service.

Raise brand awareness

Finally, when it comes to local marketing you shouldn't stay tied to online marketing techniques. Raising your company's brand awareness locally can be cost-effective and have a fantastic impact if handled right.

An obvious start is to make sure your business brand is clear to see on your company vehicles. Vehicle wrapping may have a high initial cost but you can view it as a long-term cost to justify it. Fast forward a year and you'll likely have recouped your initial investment costs and then some.

Using brightly coloured vans in brand colours rather than a plain white van is a great way to grab attention too, with vehicle wrapping a great way to get your business message and contact details out there. People will spot the colours, the branding, and it will sink into their subconscious - even if they don't need vehicle rental right now, if they do in the future they will think of your business first.

Vehicle wraps can be a surprisingly cost-effective way of finding new customers organically, as part of day-to-day business operations. But community involvement is another great way to get positive brand exposure

Traditional advertising like posters or radio can help raise brand awareness locally too but they can work out very expensive with a low ROI. Partnering with other local businesses can be more efficient as you can find other businesses that target similar customer groups. Speak to businesses that offer relevant products, such as self-drive hire insurance or a car rental service to see if you can get a mutually beneficial recommendation exchange going.

Finally, if you want to create a positive brand image as well as raise your profile, community involvement is a great option. Sponsoring local sports teams or community organisations will show your business in a great light but are again costly - using offering a company vehicle to support charities can be a cheaper and equally effective option. Using one of your vans to run deliveries or move items to support events will get your business seen for all the right reasons and build a really memorable reputation for your company.