van hire service marketing

[markus]

man and van hire service would like to progress from two vans to ten vans but am stuck for new ideas to market the business. Have already tried the usual routes of advertising, leafleting, cold calling etc. Would be grateful for any new ideas however offbeat they may seem.

[Joyous]

My local "Big Yellow" storage facility has a notice board in the entrance hall and it always has business cards/flyers for removal firms and men with vans. Might therefore be worth getting in contact with some others for some marketting opportunities.

Another thought is estate agents. Many first time buyers have a limited amount of stuff and therefore don't need a huge removal lorry. Might be worth getting them to agree to you leaving some leaflets in their offices or even giving them to give them to buyers upon exchange of contracts.

Just a thought.

Regards

Joy

[BIZAL]

That is a big question

There are many forms of promotion and each have benefits.

Local radio station ( cheaper than you think)
Pay Per click/ SEO/ Online promotion
Royal mail for leaflet drops ( £45.00 per thousand)
Advertising boards .
Uni's notice boards etc

If you are unsure, ask your customers where they would look for your service and put a referral program in place. That is always the starting point

[peterjhale]

my question would be why are you going from 2 to 10 - that's a big expansion

if you have this idea you should already know who your potential customers are, where they are based and why they want your services

now you have that information you should work out at what stage will they require your service and where will they look to find such a service

then you have your answer

[markus]

Thank you all for your replies.

I guess the main problem is (as all business people will know) there are some weeks where you simply have too much work (where expansion would seem like a good idea) and other times when the work simply isn't coming in.

I have a few ideas to expand, good ideas, I think, that potential customers would find attractive, but, as ever, it all comes down to whether advertising costs would justify increased orders.

I guess that is the age old problem.