Car Rental Marketing Strategies

Car rental searches start online. If you're a national rental company, make sure you're positioned to show up high on travel booking sites. If you're a specialized or local rental company, start a search campaign for key potential search terms.

Email and SMS marketing can be an easy tactic to keep renters coming back for more. Tease previous customers with special offers.

People want a rental car company they can trust to deliver good cars, prices and service. Make sure your online reputation reflects that and work with a pro to clean it up, if need be.

Many people go through travel booking site or other specialty apps when renting a car. So the first order of business is to make sure your rentals are listed there, and priced competitively to win customers.

Particularly for specialty rental car businesses, SEO and SEM are a must. These efforts will ensure that you're at the top when people are looking for a hard-to-find or specific type of car rental. Work with a pro who can help you devise an effective strategy.

Implement a strategic email and SMS campaign (using automation to make things easier) so that you can leverage existing customers for repeat business. This could include activities to promote specials or new rental inventory to generate buzz.

Reviews matter in the car industry—even when it comes to rentals. Make sure you have a plan in place to continuously generate new positive reviews, but also to address issues and keep your reputation clean.

If you're a larger rental company, you're already investing in branding. For smaller or more specialized/local car rental brands, you'll need to engage in these efforts on a local or regional level. While you can't compete with the big guys on spend and eyeballs, you can use hyper-targeted TV, display and social to build a name for yourself in your area or with a more specific audience.