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Why you should send an email marketing campaign to your bike rental customers and how Bike Rental Manager will make it easier for you

Business Growth

Jul 24, 2019

Gary

6 min read

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and how Bike Rental Manager will make it easier for you

Email isn’t dead. Your message is 45 times more likely to be seen using email than Facebook, writes Campaign Monitor. It is one of the few ways to market that will help you build authentic relationships with your bike rental customers. And to keep your business alive.

Email is also the most effective marketing channel to drive ROI (Return On Investment) for your shop. In fact, email marketing yields an average 3,800% return on investment for businesses for every $1 spent on email marketing.

The reality of website traffic, even highly targeted traffic, is most new visitors to your store will never return—unless, that is, you do something to keep them coming back.

Start building your email list as soon as possible

Building an email list and sending compelling emails gives you a way to retain the traffic you worked so hard to earn by providing subscribers with an incentive to stay in touch. You can use emails to sell, educate or build loyalty.

A key thing to know before you begin building your email list is that you need permission to follow up with prospects and customers over time. To do that, subscribers need to “opt-in” to hear from you, and there are a number of ways you can encourage them to do so.

When they pick the bike up

Ask if they are happy to receive emails from you, add their email address in their customer record and click the “Marketing Opt-in” button whilst they are at the counter or add the opt in button in your registration process if they register online.

When they book a bike online

Add an opt in button in the registration process when your customers book a bike or register online and BRM can automatically add the email address to your mailing list.

To build a list of prospective customers who have not yet booked a bike you can place opt-in forms on your website. To grow your list, you need to ask people directly to sign up.

Try placing your signup forms on your website, so you can add website visitors to your email list even if they don’t book a bike this time:

On Your About Us page.
Your blog page.
A pop-up form. Set pop-ups to trigger when a visitor is slipping away, so you don’t interrupt their experience. For example an exit-intent pop-ups only show when a visitor moves their mouse off your website, giving you a second chance to collect their email. Sumo app is one example you could use.

Or you can use “Lead Magnets” to collect email addresses. For example you could offer exclusive deals and discounts. But do be careful with discounts: they can hurt your margins by coaching customers to always wait for deals. Good time to offer discounts would be when you have a slow season to keep business going.

Start building your email list as soon as possible

How to make people on your list to actually open your email?

The aim is to achieve a high open rate and, ideally, a high click rate to your website. Though the body of your email is always the most important, the first section that will engage your audience is the subject line.

The key to a catchy subject line is one that quickly and descriptively summarizes the nature of your email in as few words as possible. Use language to grab your audience’s attention immediately and give them a reason to open your email. Ask yourself, “Would this subject line make ME want to open this email?”. If you’re not excited to open your own email, they likely won’t be either.

For example: “The Top 5 Most Beautiful Rides in X”, “The Best cycling routes in X”, “We now take bike bookings for Event Y”, “Book your bike now for Event Z”, “Rent the latest model xyz, now in stock”, “Book your bike for summer, get 10% off”, “Last bike service slots available in July, book now!” etc.

Here are some tips on how to write great subject lines.

European General Data Protection Regulations

Make sure all your communication adheres to European General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

In short, this means you need to ask permission to add anybody on your list and to send them communication.

Use email service provider to make it easy for you

Bike Rental Manager is integrated with Mailchimp to make it super easy for you to create professional-looking emails in no time.As stated in this article, you can browse your selection of available deals on smartphones and top brands and explore the cell phone service plans that best suit your needs.

Mailchimp has a great Guide on how to create Email campaigns. Once you have created a template you can easily copy the template and use it for your next campaign.

Mailchimp will make it easy for you to measure the success of your email campaigns, you can read more about it

If you would like more information what write in your emails, here are some great guides for you:

Neil Patel: A beginner’s Guide to Successful Email Marketing

Hubspot: The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing

Good luck with your next email marketing campaign!