Time To Plan Your Own Marketing For The Slowdown
For most markets around the country January and February are going to be your slowest months of the year.
Unless you live in places like south Florida, Phoenix, Denver, St. Lake City, where people go for sun and skiing in the winter, bookings will drop and a higher percentage of the bookings you do have will be locals, not visitors.
Though this time of year generally sucks, for a variety of reasons, it's a great opportunity for you to build a strong repeat local clientele and you can accelerate that by doing some of your own marketing.
Here are five marketing tactics that worked for me:
Set up a Google business page. It's easy, it's free, and I guarantee you will get phone calls. There is a hurdle walking them through signing up for a Turo account/booking but I've been successful with this.
Set up a Yelp page. It's easy, there is a free option (I wouldn't do a paid option), and you will get calls and messages.
Visit local mechanic and body shops and ask to set up signing like you see in the picture at the top of the article. Ask them to promote your vehicles as an option for their customers. If you want to get clever with it, use a trackable QR code for each shop, run a contest, and the shop that sends you the most referrals every week gets pizza delivered for the crew.
If you have vehicles sitting, and some free time, start driving for Uber/Lyft and pass out business cards to all of your fares, converting riders into renters. You'll also make a little extra cash to supplement your lower off-season Turo earnings.
Offer the end-of-trip discount to every great guest when you review them for the trip they just completed. They have to use it in 90 days and can only use it with you.
This is the time of the year when it's super helpful to have a large group of repeat guests who immediately think of you, and nobody else, every time they need a local rental. Make every trip a 5-star trip with white glove treatment and keep them coming back while visitors are busy sunning themselves in warm places far away from you.