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Advertising – media type considerations
2The structural changes relate to the decline of traditional advertising stalwarts, the yellow pages, print media and television advertising.
Firstly the Print Media
The print media has long been the main source of news, and hence advertising. However, good journalism, even bad comes at a price. The print media’s classified and advertising revenues have long funded their journalists and distribution costs. But that is no longer the case.
NEWSPAPER REVENUES FALL 29%
Internet news is cutting deep in to the traditional print media. Many companies have tried to build business models that are Internet friendly? Albeit that they are extensions of the old business models, such as subscription services. Such models have generally failed, for a variety of reasons, but one in particular dominates all. There is a perception amongst Internet users that information on the net is free or should be free. With so many other sources of information to choose from, browsers simply err away from subscription services to other free sources of information.
Journalists are having debates over the fact if you want good information you need to pay for it. That may be true, but at this stage of the Internets maturity, people appear to be less discerning in the quality of information they receive.
The Canadian Company Dialect has published a list of newspapers around the world that have been closed down,
Secondly Television Advertising
I read recently, unfortunately I can not remember the source, that over half the world’s television advertising spend is in the USA. Audience fragmentation is a main issue, people have choice now in their visual home entertainment, from free to air television, cable tv, Internet programs, even video games and dvd’s etc. This choice range acts to fragment the audience, and even the audience with in a household. Consider the old images from the 1950′s and 60′s probably even the 70′s of families all sitting around one TV watching the hit shows of the day. Now days, it is more likely that mom is watching on one TV, Dad on another, the kids in their rooms either on MSN messenger or playing video games.
Here are some statistics, in the UK there forecasts indicate that advertising revenue is expected to fall by nearly $0.7 Bn US in three years. The USA television bureau is forecasting another 7% decline in advertising across the sector.
Finally Yellow Pages
Increasing research in the US and Australia has found that the use of the traditional yellow pages is declining.
People are increasingly turning to the Internet to find information, even local information. Some figures suggest that this the use of on-line search can be as high as 80% of all information searches.
Even Wall Street acknowledges that the days of printed directories like Yellow pages are numbered. The Wall Street Journal reported that advertising in US print directories is expected to fall 39% over the next four years. In there words as people migrate en masse to the web.
Dr Lynella Grant is the author of Yellow Page Smarts, she makes the point that relying on just yellow pages is now longer safe. She makes the points that over half of all customers now go to the internet first to find information even for local products. This is not too say you should not have Yellow Pages advertising, rather you should not be singularly reliant on it.
As an example, speaking to one of our customers recently, he said. When Dad run the business we use to spend up to $15-$20k a year on yellow pages advertising, we now spend $2k. The reason is that our leads for our small print business are increasingly coming from both business and private customers finding us on the web – even the locals!
So what is going up
Well not surprising internet advertising is growing at around 10% per annum. Again this is not surprising either when you go back to fundamentals. The media companies whether TV or print provide information and entertainment. But so does the internet!
The yellow pages provided information that was traditional inaccessible – a list of all service providers in a category. But again so does the Internet, but it does so with the user being able to source information of their choice.
So what to do
Firstly, your advertising mix still needs to contain elements of each of the media services. Obviously depending on your target market and budget. Most companies are well versed and educated in advertising in these traditional forms, so there is not much point discussing them further.
Although it is worth mentioning that for small business it may be worth looking at TV advertising as the costs may be more palatable now, relative to the results.
What we would contend is that companies need to have a well considered marketing mix. The element needed though is to create a digital marketing foundation. An subject discussed in the next blog post.
About Us
HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au
Next Generation Hire Software & Rental Software for Construction Rental & Fencing Rental Hire Companies
2The next generation of natural business flow software for Temporary Fencing and Construction Rental and Hire businesses has been released. It now also enables you to control your own website content and catalogue.
Construction hire and rental companies, particularly temporary fencing have some unique hire and rental requirements specific to their business sector. Previously many such companies have had to rely on multiple systems to manage their businesses.
Not so any more!
HireEzy v2.1 has been released with all the specific needs of Construction hire and Rental companies, particularly temporary fencing. Such companies need specific functional in addition to normal hire and rental functional requirements.
HireEzy 2.1 includes all standard hire and rental functionality PLUS
1. Estimation tools to support quotes
2. Management of services to support rental or hire solutions
3. The need for staff and contractor management
4. Issuing and tracking of safety data to meet safety requirements
5. Flexible payments and recurrent billing options.
HireEzy is a complete business solution for temporary roofing, scaffolding and fencing hire/ rental companies.
Natural Business Flow
HireEzy is a natural business flow software, part of the next generation of software solutions that are easy to use but also fully integrate with the internet. Natural business flow software follows the natural way businesses operate.
The natural flow in general terms construction rental and hire companies, specifically scaffolding, fencing and roofing rental and hire follows these broad business processes.
1. Market to create leads
2. Quotes supported by simple estimation tools and booking availability.
3. Convert quotes to invoices and confirmed bookings.
4. Manage and allocate materials and labor resources – (either internal or contractor).
5. Delivery, Assemble, Inspect, Dis-Assemble and Collect.
6. Account for the money.
7. Manage existing clients to generate new business.
HireEzy assists you to manage each of these processes with not only the tools you need, but some you may not even have thought of. Each of the processes will now be briefly discussed.
Marketing
The primary purpose of marketing is to create sales leads. HireEzy provides a full range of in-built marketing tools to enable you to produce your own high quality brochures, catalogue, e-mailers and newsletters. Most importantly it enables you to control your own marketing from one location.
Marketing – Integrated Web Option
The internet is now increasing the primary source of lead generation for most businesses. However for it to work for you it must have a high search engine ranking. That is if “scaffolding hire Melbourne” is typed by a prospect, your company web site must appear at a minimum on the first page of listings. It is worth noting, research has shown that prospects will click on a search result (organic result) over a paid ad appearing on the same page.
HireEzy’s web integration option can significantly help here. By integrating your hire or rental catalogue to the web site, any changes you make in the catalogue are published to the web site. Such changes ensure more frequent web site changes. This in turn means a higher search engine ranking, increasing the chances you will appear on the first page.
HireEzy is the only known system in the world to offer this fully integrated functionality – a critical business tool.
Quoting
HireEzy has some simple inbuilt tools to support your quotation process, such as:
1. An inbuilt length estimator,
2. Contractor resource availability,
3. Inventory availability for a given date range, and
4. Discount rate for approved clients
Such tools simplify the quotation process, meaning all information is at your finger tips. Once a quote has been produced, a simple high quality quotation with graphic images can be produced, and emailed to the client or printed and handed to them.
Invoicing
Quotes are turned to invoices with one click. Or allow quotes to be adjusted to reflect any changes in the original quote. Industry payment terms and conditions are included, such as recurring billing for long term rental or hire, part de-hiring of long term rental or hire items, even allows for adjustment of payments for stand down days.
Manage and Allocate Resources
There are primarily two resources you need to manage, your inventory and your staff/ contractors. With HireEzy you can effectively manage both of these key assets.
The inbuilt inventory management tools enable you to manage your inventory purchasing, receipt, maintenance and dispatch to a job. Accurately providing you with real time information on your stock on hand. If you have depots, no problems, HireEzy can manage your inventory at each site.
Your staff and contractors are essential to your service delivery. HireEzy provides the tools to improve your management of your most valuable asset – people.
Like an item, the availability of staff and contractors is managed in HireEzy. Both can advise of leave periods, other jobs etc and these can be added to the system to provide accurate forecasts of availability. Got a new job and want to confirm a contractor availability then just click SMS, and an SMS is sent straight to the contractor with the job details and dates.
Delivery, Assemble, Inspect, Dis-Assemble and Collect
HireEzy comes with the inbuilt transport planning tools to enable you to schedule deliveries and collections, including assigning tasks to drivers and co-drivers such as:
• Assembly/ disassembly tasks,
• Payment collection,
• On-site period inspections, and
• Collections.
It even includes full integration with Google Street maps to provide directions. On site conditions, limitations including access times etc are also included.
Accounting
Most accounting packages rely on data being transferred from business operations. HireEzy accounting package is driven by your hire transactions, saving enormously on double handling of data and the associated risk of errors. For example, creating an invoice in HireEzy immediately creates an Account Receivable record. If you still have other accounting packages then we could provide data export to those systems. HireEzy accounting module has a full range of financial reports needed to run your business. HireEzy accounting module is included with your purchase.
Manage Your Clients
The old adage is that it is 15 times harder to win a new client than to retain an existing client. HireEzy’s inbuilt management tools, such as contact management, newsletter productions and customer discounts etc, ensure that you have the tools at hand to support your on-going client retention.
HireEzy is the ideal solution for temporary roofing, scaffolding and fencing hire/ rental companies who want to grow their business whether in the USA, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom or New Zealand.
If you are interested in more information or an online demonstration then please contact us or book a demo on line at www.makinglifeezy.com.au
About Us
Making Life Ezy developers of HireEzy and AgencyEzy.
HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration.
How to Use Social Media Tools
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Marketing Problem
Hire Rental Advertising Considerations
Why Traditional Marketing Fails
Yellow Pages Versus SEO
Creating a Digital Marketing Platform
Creating a Digital Marketing Foundation
Hire Rental Web Lead Statistics
Marketing via Twitter
How Rental Hire Company can use Twitter
Business Reason to Use Twitter
Marketing via Facebook
Using Facebook for Business
They worried about Social Media in the 1930′s
Marketing via YouTube
How Rental and Hire Companies can use YouTube
Big List on How to Use Social Media
Marketing via WordPress
Why Blogs are Effective for Small Business
Why Small Businesses Should blog
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Global List of Rental and Hire Associations
Here is a useful set of links to the main international rental and hire industry associations, in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
Such associations can often provide useful business advise to Rental and Hire businesses, especially in times like these.
New Zealand Hire and Rental Association
Australia Hire and Rental Association
United Kingdom Construction Rental
South Africa Contractor & Plant Hire Association
If you know of any more please let us know and we will add them to the list
About Us
HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au
Why tough times should benefit the hire and rental industry
During the tough economic periods it is worth revisting your business value as a hire or rental company, no matter what sector you service. The business value of hire and rental companies is actually at its highest during tough times, particularly those servicing the business to business sector.
So what is the business value of the hire and rental industry?
Well here are five good reasons why companies should hire from you.
Cash flow saving
Companies who elect to hire or rent equipment from you are able protect cash reserves. Rather than spending valuable cash on buying items up front, your clients can effectively defer cash outlays through period payments for the hire or rental items. If timed correctly by your client, their receipts from their customer payments from the project can help fund the on-going rental or hire payment (obviously for medium to long term hires). For those of you who have Corporate clients, hiring or renting is often perfect. Many corporate clients have capital budget constraints during a downturn. Therefore hiring or renting can be an ideal way for some corporate clients to get what they need, as hiring or renting is considered to be an operating budget expenditure. Operating budget expenditures are often delegated substantially down the corporate ladder.
True costing
For many clients hiring or renting actually aids their project costing, in turn aiding them in improving their profitability. Hiring or renting is a known cost. Whereas often supplying the equipment from their own internal assets does not enable them to determine the actual cost of the item. Many don’t know the actual depreciation (replacement) value to be assigned, the actual cost of servicing and storing the item. It may sound trite, but for many companies true costing is a major issue.
Risk reduction
Buying items also increases risk. How long is the item they buy going to be used for? Will it be needed again? Should we buy something that may last for the project duration or something that we can be used again? What happens if the item breaksdown? How long before the manufacturer can get a replacement, this can impact the project and hence cash flow. Hiring and renting eliminates these concerns.
Servicing costs and compliance
Related to the risk element above is the need to ensure that the item is correctly serviced and maintained. Many hire and rental companies, especially in the construction hire and rental, eliminate this concern by providing on-site servicing and service histories. If your hire system doesn’t do this then you really need our HireEzy product.
Minimizing Assets
Assets require maintenance as described above both when in use and when stored. This costs money, in fact in Logistics the average assigned value to store, maintain, insure and account for an item is usually 35% of its cost, depending on the equipment. Furthermore, many listed companies and larger companies use Return on Assets as a performance measure. The more they hold in asset value the greater the revenue they need to generate in order to meet this performance figure. Hence hiring or renting can actually aid them in achieving there performance targets as the hired or rented item is not considered an asset.
For many people these statements above will be blinding statements of the obvious. But are they so blindingly obvious to your customers? Renewing and reminding them of your value proposition is often a good activity in these times. Especially when many of your clients are going to look at the costs they spend with you on hiring and renting. Many of your clients will just see the dollar figure and not reflect on the benefits you provide.
If you are a party rental or party hire company the following article provides more specific how to information on this subject.
Making Life Ezy are the makers of HireEzy the world’s most innovative hire software and rental management software. We are committed to helping our clients grow through the provision of business value, such as the information provided in this blog.
Why Rental and Hire Companies need Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)
1Many Rental and Hire companies perceive relationships as just being about customers. The fact is this is a very limited view.
Successful Hire and Rental companies also recognize the importance of other vital relationships such as critical suppliers.
So what is a critical supplier?
A critical supplier is one whose loss to your business or change in business arrangements would have a significant detrimental impact on your service delivery or profitability!
Critical Suppliers can be contractors, service providers, equipment providers or even finance providers.
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Managing Critical Suppliers
If you have such critical suppliers, then the next question is how do you manage these relationships now? And more importantly how do you manage the Supplier Performance?
Like any great relationship communication is the key – but good communication it must be founded in facts (accurate information)
Information
To effectively manage any business relationship and its related performance, you need information. What information do you need. Well imagine you were sitting opposite a major critical supplier trying to save the relationship or negotiate a new deal.
You would want to have at your finger tips:
Basic Contact Information: Including the names and roles, contact details for all relevant people within that supplier? That is you would want to know who you are dealing with in the company.
Previous Communication: You would want to be able to have reviewed all previous communication between your company and the supplier. Why, because you want to avoid the “you said” ” he said” discussions. Being able to show actual records of conversations/ meetings, email exchanges even SMS between your staff and theirs, puts you in control of the discussions.
Relationship Value: Finally you would want to have proof of all financial transactions between the company by period. Even down to which bookings, when and too whom the supplier services were used, including any feedback from customers. Demonstrating actual performance to any contractual performance agreements is essential in ensuring that the discussions remain objective and hence fruitful.
If you agree that this is the esential information you need, then the next question is – do you have ready access to such information now? Or do you need to go and find all contracts, ask staff for any emails or notes they have on converstaions with the supplier etc.
If your answers to the above questions gave you cause for concern, then consider installing HireEzy.
HireEzy comes with an inbuilt Supplier Relationship Management system, that:
- Captures all related bookings and financial transactions for that Supplier (Automatically);
- Automatically records all emails or SMS sent to the supplier from your staff;
- Allows notes from meetings, conversations etc to be entered and date time stamped;
- Enables all contracts and agreements to be store, Agreed discount terms;
- Even only allows you to capture all contact information, inc multiple contacts; and
- Even referrals made by Partners, then result in leads are captured.
HireEzy provides you with one place to capture, store, analyze and review all information you need to manage your supplier relationships.
So if you have critical supplier relationships and you dont have a rental software or hire software solution that assists you, then it may be time to consider HireEzy. The world’s most innovative rental and hire management solution.
To find out more or too book a demo, go to www.makinglifeezy.com.au
HireEzy is available in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Benefit from Economic Stimulus Packages
The impact of the Stimulus packages announced earlier this year should now begin to benefit the Hire and Rental industry.
Many projects announced in the Stimulus packages had lead times for tendering, design and planning stages, especially the larger projects.
The Hire and Rental industry is critical to the efficient delivery of these projects, as explained in previous post.
In essence the industry is critical because it can efficiently deliver equipment, resources and solutions to the companies delivering the projects with out the need for such delivery companies to use critical cash reserves to purchase equipment.
Stimulus Packages Size and Investment
During the earlier part of 2009, Governments in the USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada announced significant local stimulus packages. A major portion of this investment has been directed towards Infra-Structure projects designed to kick start the construction sector.
The numbers are staggering!!!
Specific details on the USA package
Whilst some major projects in each country will have lag times as the tendering, design and planning stages are processed. However many of the government initiatives have been directed towards accelerating numerous small projects.
These projects will be small, numerous and dispersed creating a demand on tools and equipment. Construction, Tool, Scaffolding and Temporary Fencing Rental and Hire companies may well be able to benefit from this demand. In order to meet the requirements of numerous competing projects, many construction companies may not be able to efficiently allocate and re-locate in-house tools and equipment.
Hence increasing demand for more construction hire equipment.
A second related issue is that in some countries, banks are forcing property developers to expedite projects or lose their line of credit. This has had a flow on effect to Town Planning departments, where many are under heavy workloads to meet expedite approvals.
Small Projects Flow On
Some Western Governments have handed our tax incentives or cash hand outs to stimulate demand. This could contribute to a growth in the home repair and maintenance market. Three factors may potentially contribute to the growth in this segment:
- Reduced equity in the home due to the fall in house prices will mitigate against many people borrowing against their house value to undertake major projects.
- Increased disposable cash from tax cuts and interest rate cuts may assist in home owners undertaking minor projects and repairs.
- The prospect of a greater focus on activities with friends and families, which includes home repair activities, again discussed in the previous post.
If you are considering improving your marketing to these segments Construction, Tool and Temporary Fencing then using HireEzy’s ( hire software, hire management software) inbuilt marketing tools will aid you substantially. For more information go to www.makinglifeezy.com.au
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Rental and Hire Company Web Lead Statistics
1HireEzy Web Integration Brochure- PDF download
A survey of HireEzy clients and prospects revealed some interesting insights into the major sales lead sources for rental and hire companies.
Whilst there was a range of results, those that clearly lead in their rental or hire market segments all showed similar statistics.
The clearest result was that the leading hire and rental companies in Australia, UK and the USA now generate over 50% of all new sales inquiries from their web site. This can be a combination of direct web submitted inquiries or customers who have checked out their web site prior to calling.
Secondly that most now find Yellow Pages or Yellow Pages on Line a rapidly declining source of new business. One customer with a long established business, cited that his father use to spend $25 000 a year on Yellow Pages, they now spend less than $2000. The reason is that yellow pages is no longer the major source of new business for them, rather it is business from the web.
Compare yourself to the best performers from the survey!
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Benchmark Yourself |
Your Answer |
Survey Results – Industry Leaders |
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What percentage of your new business sales inquiries come from the Web?
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55%
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What percentage of converted new business sales come from inquiries that started from the Web?
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35% |
If you are below these benchmarks, then here is what they were doing.
The websites of those that were successful in achieving more than 50% lead generation, demonstrated some common characteristics:
· Frequent changes to the content;
· Ability of customers to view their hire and rental catalogue;and
· Ability of customers to place orders.
Cost of website development to achieve this frequency of change and maintain catalogue updates was however cited as an issue.
Now this is where HireEzy comes in to its own, HireEzy enables you to make changes in your back end catalogue and have those posted straight to your web site. The Website provided by HireEzy also enables customers to create booking requests, these booking requests then appear as sales leads in your HireEzy system.
The attached brochure provides more information.
This solution is perfect for:
· Party Rental and Party Hire;
· Fencing Rental or Temporary Fencing Hire Companies
· Tool Rental and Tool Hire
· Equipment Rental and Equipment Hire
· AV rental and AV Hire
In fact most companies who hire or rent products or services!
No wonder HireEzy is the innovation leader in the global hire and rental market.
For more information go to www.makinglifeezy.com.au or download our brochure at the top of this post!
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