✨ Tools to help you shine on Google
💖 Tools to develop your brand image
🌿 Tools for daily organization
After more than a year of restrictions, France is finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Even so, cultural and entertainment venues remain closed for the time being. These restrictions are prompting the French to turn increasingly to outdoor leisure activities.
Users of our platform describe the 2021 season as "the best since the store opened" or "the best season in 20 years". This season should be just as exceptional! (Don't hesitate to read our article; Bicycle rental shops: Getting ready for 2023, a season that promises to be special).
France is in the midst of a digital revolution, and every day thousands of people set up their own websites.
💡 "Did you know?"
source IHS statistica 2019
We've decided to put together the Renter's Toolbox 2.0 for 2023. In this guide, we'll introduce you to all the tools you need for your bike rental business. Initially, you'll find tools to help you shine on Google and social networks, but also tools to help you get organized on a day-to-day basis.
Aaaah Google, love it or hate it! But your customers are looking for you on Google, and yes! I hope I'm not teaching you anything! Here are our tips for being the mega boss of the game on Google.
Before you start practicing, it's always important to lay the foundations:
Local referencing is a Google tool that enables local businesses to improve their visibility in their catchment area.
To answer this question and illustrate what we mean, we're going to give you a concrete example.
Imagine a family on vacation in Toulouse, wanting to rent bikes to ride along the legendary Canal du Midi. Their first instinct? A Google search for "bike rental" on their smartphone. The world's best-known search engine will then geolocate their position and display the nearest bike rental outlets.
That's where you come in! Your goal? To be among the "local pack" or the "pack 3" - you know, that business block that appears under the map.
In the photo above, it represents the position of bike rental companies in Toulouse, see the advantage you can take over your competitors.
💡 "Did you know?"
Source: Hubspot
Smartphone searches represent quality traffic, as people like our family are looking for physical stores close to their location that can meet an immediate need.
In other words, local searches such as "bike rental Nancy" come from very interested customers who express very specific requests and are often looking for an immediate solution.
That can be a lot of information in a short space of time, but don't panic! We'll explain it all just below👇
I am a beginner
Google My Business is a Google solution that's simple, effective and free!
This solution enables you to improve your natural referencing in geographically targeted searches - in short, it's the ideal tool for local businesses, such as bicycle rental companies.
A Google My Business listing will also significantly increase your visibility: once your listing has been created and validated, you'll appear on Google Maps, on the first page of search results.
Now that we've seen all the advantages of this solution, we'll take you through the next steps to help you create the best possible page for your company.
To know ☝️
Before creating your Google My Business page, you need to be in possession of :
📫 - A complete physical address, it must be as precise as possible.
🌐 - A Google account to which you'll connect your listing, i.e. a Google email address, by the way, if we can give you a little advice, prefer an email address containing the name of your establishment, it always looks more professional.
☎️ - A valid telephone number, and don't forget to add a personalized messaging service for your business.
Got everything? Let's continue ...😊 :
I claim my establishment: click here
Create my Google My Business page: click here
I need help creating my page: click here
Why use Google My Business: click here
⚠️Ne Don't take the creation of your listing lightly: Google places a great deal of importance on the quality of listings. We recommend :
🎉 You've just created your Google My Business listing!
Don't panic if you don't see your Google listing directly on Google after it's been created - IT'S NORMAL! Google will send you a letter to the address you entered on your Google My Business listing, as a way of verifying your contact details. For your information, this takes about 14 days.
❌ Meanwhile:
✅ As soon as you receive this letter, here's how to proceed: click here
🎉 Your Google My Business listing is online! 🎉.
It's a good start, the Google My Business listing will enable you to significantly increase your online presence. Now let's move on to part 2👇
I'm an expert
If you're an expert, i.e. if you've already had a Google My Business listing for a while, we'll explain the latest and most useful features for your business.
Google Post is one of the latest GMB (Google My Business) features, enabling businesses using this functionality to increase their visibility and local referencing, all free of charge.
You'll be able to personalize and publish directly on your GTM page.
The procedure ⚙️
From any device, connect to your Google My Business dashboard, then click on "Articles" on the left of the screen.
To know ☝️
The last step is the integration of a call-to-action (CTA) button, here you can choose between several proposals:
From this button, you can associate the URL of the destination page of your choice. For example, to your Facebook page from " Learn more ", or to your website from "Buy" .
In our image, the "Call" button has been chosen.
Thingsto remember 🧠
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GoogleAds is Google's online advertising program. Simply build advertising campaigns and position yourself on keywords of interest to your business.
GoogleAds is based on a keyword bidding system. The more people who want to position themselves on a keyword, the higher the price per click. Every time someone clicks on an Ads ad, the advertiser pays.
💡 "Did you know?"
The average cost per click across all sectors is around $2.
Fast and effective: whereas with natural search engine optimization (SEO), you often have to wait many months before seeing the first results, with a GoogleAds campaign you'll be able to position yourself in first position very quickly. It's a highly effective way of raising your profile. Once you've created your campaigns, you only have to wait a few days before seeing the first results.
In addition to seeing the first results very quickly, you'll generate quality traffic.
Generate qualified traffic: Qualified traffic is a set of "qualified visits" made by people belonging to your core target, in short, it's a set of people likely to bring you conversions. GoogleAds will help you generate qualified traffic: when you create your campaigns, you'll define your "ideal customer". Google's algorithm will then insert your ad on the keywords you've defined and display it to the Internet users closest to your "ideal customer", thus attracting qualified customers.
Pay only for what works: The Google Adwords advertising program charges for clicks, known as "cost per click", i.e. you're billed ONLY when someone clicks on your ad. Practical, isn't it 😉
Things to remember 🧠
With GoogleAds, you'll be able to get the word out quickly, encourage visitors to come to your establishment, reach a maximum number of Internet users and generate qualified traffic - all very quickly!
Is that a lot of information? If you're still here, we've decided to make a small selection of online training courses to help you develop your skills in the tools we've presented.
Make a GMB sheet like a pro: click here
Run an Ads campaign like a pro: click here
Create a Google Ads campaign: click here
If you want to learn more about measuring site traffic, we've written an article about it: click here😉
🍀 Lokki's bonus
SEO is important on Google! To do so, you need to respect certain rules for your website. Certain tools can help you diagnose your site, helping you visualize your strengths and areas for improvement.
STOP! 🖐 Don't panic if you don't have 100% or the indicators are red, it's normal 😇
The tool we recommend for your diagnostics is :
I test here : https://website.grader.com/
Website Grader is a free, easy-to-use tool that lets you analyze 4 indicators:
ps: We're at 81/100 and you ?💫
Social networks have become a real communications weapon for companies. Far from their early days, when they were mainly used for communicating or sharing memories, social networks today enable you to boost your online presence, raise your company's profile and reach a wider audience.
Let's do an exercise together! Here we go 🤤
Together, we'll create a Facebook post and introduce you to some super useful tools. So why Facebook? Because it's the social network that brings together the largest number of people on the same platform. Today, there are almost 2.8 billion users worldwide, including 40 million in France.
For our example: You'rea bike rental company, and you've created a new program of forest rides for this weekend! You want to get the word out on Facebook! Let's get started!
It's important to take the time to think carefully about your image on social networks. Don't forget that your publications reflect your brand image and the quality of your establishment.
On Facebook, your photo must respect a maximum width of 2048 pixels, although it will be displayed at 500x375 pixels on the pages.
If you don't have the equipment to take high-quality photos, there are alternatives. These platforms make high-quality photos available free of charge. These photos are free of copyright, meaning that the author of the photo grants us the right to use and distribute his or her photo. #SaveYourMoneyForSomething Else
For our example, we're in this situation, so we go to one of these platforms.
the perfect solution: https: //unsplash.com/
Unsplash is :
Efficiency and quality: https: //pixabay.com/fr/
Pixabay is :
Here's our photo! As a reminder, the theme is "a walk in the woods".
it's here : https://www.canva.com/
Once we've chosen our photo, we'll move on to creation, i.e. we'll personalize our photo so that Facebook users can make a direct link between our photo and our bike rental store.
To personalize our photo, we're going to use a tool that's extremely easy to use, free and fast: CANVA.
Canva is a graphic design platform, it allows its users to create different types of content very easily and get a professional result. In just a few minutes, you can create graphics, posters and visual content for social networks.
The great thing about the platform is that it offers a wide range of creative templates for flyers, posters and newsletters. All you have to do is personalize these templates to suit your needs and desires. In short, it's well worth a look.
Here's the creation! We did it in exactly 5 minutes.
So we imported the image we'd chosen from Unsplash onto the platform, then using an existing template on Canva, we simply customized our poster.
The aim is to create the most harmonious whole possible. That's why :
To give you an idea, here's a short tutorial : click here
Before we publish our post, there's one last step to finalize: writing the description of our post. The description needs to be original, direct and as structured as possible, so we recommend using the AIDA formula. What's AIDA?
The AIDA method is an acronym that stands for :
A for Attention: The aim is to attract as much attention as possible.
I for Interest: Here, the aim is to arouse interest, and the best way to do this is to use affirmations.
D for Desire: Creating emotions in people.
A for Action: Your proposal should move the person to action.
Using the AIDA formula increases your chances of publishing success. It's not for nothing that it's one of the most widely used techniques on Facebook, but it's also used in other areas: websites, emails, advertising, television...
In 2013, Facebook introduced the hashtag, a feature that increases the visibility of a post. As Facebook explains, hashtags " turn topics and phrases into clickable links within your journal or Page publications. They enable users to find publications on topics that interest them". In fact, when you click on a hashtag, a feed of publications including that same hashtag appears. You can also see related hashtags at the top of the page.
Don't hesitate to add hashtags with the name of your city, the name of your region, the hashtag #France or even a hashtag with your field of activity. For example, if you're a rental company, add the following hashtags to your post: #Nice #PACA #France #location #vélo
_Lokki_-_Facebook_-_www.facebook.com.png)
Remember that Facebook is a social network, so you don't have to use a serious tone.
Inserting emojis in your post helps to highlight the most important information in your publication, and they also make your post more "scannable" by Facebook users, the aim being to bring out the essential.
According to Hubspost, a post containing emojis in its publication is :
🎉 Congratulations, you've just created your first public publication! 🎉
It's true that Facebook is an exceptional tool, but it's not magic. You need to use every possible means to do so. That's why we've come up with a complementary tool to Facebook, straight from our magic boot.
The purpose of a newsletter is to inform your audience about the latest news, a new product, a new package or a new service. The newsletter can also take the form of an information note on an update or a new feature.
Staying in touch with your customers is essential, and that's why a newsletter is the best way to do it. The main objective is to animate your community, with the most entertaining, useful or promotional content possible.
Add a call-to-action (CTA) button to your newsletters, to encourage your customers to visit your site.
It's an online service for sending newsletters and automated campaigns. You can also create and manage customer lists for your newsletters.
→ The big plus of Mailchimp is that it's a free tool. Every month you can send up to 10,000 e-mails and manage almost 2,000 subscribers.
If you're ready to take things a step further, we've got 2 more tools for you. Images in publications are good, video is better! But why?
A publication containing a video has a higher engagement rate than one containing an image/photo. Since Facebook automated video playback on its platform, i.e., videos play by themselves (and without sound), their viewing rate has exploded (+7%). By using video in your publications, your content has a greater chance of being viewed, and therefore of creating interaction with the surfer.
We've got just the thing for you, with the Lumen tool.
Lumen is an application for transforming text into customizable videos, so you can produce content for your social networks to boost your online engagement.
Thanks to its simple interface, it's very easy to create attractive video content, and in just a few minutes you can be creating professional-looking content. All you have to do is choose and define a theme, colors and fonts, and even add transitions.
Lumen is here: https: //lumen5.com/
Now that you've got all the tools you need to become the big boss on social networks, and want to scale up to manage all your social networks from one person, we've got just the tool for you too: Buffer
Buffer is an application that lets you manage your social network accounts. The application offers two services:
Publih: You can publish and schedule your social networks from a single location.
Analyze: Analyze your account performance
Buffer is a multi-support collaborative tool, meaning that your colleagues can also add, create and edit posts. What's more, you can use the application on any type of support, on computer, tablet and even on your phone.
Last but not least, Buffer is an intelligent tool, with the ability to offer you strategic recommendations. The application can provide you with information on the best time to publish, how often or what content to prioritize. It can even create a personalized report on the best strategy for managing your social networks.
Buffer is here: https: //buffer.com/
→ For Bosses
→ For BigBoss
Being the boss of the Internet is great, but you can't neglect the management of your business.
After presenting you with tools for becoming the BigBoss on Google and on social networks, we're now going to show you the best tools for optimizing the management of your rental business.
For rental companies, it's imperative to manage their business well, as they carry out a large number of operations every day. Good management helps optimize customer service, which can translate into shorter waiting times and better customer relations.
Good business management also requires the use of tools that give you a global view of your business. The aim is to centralize as many tasks as possible in a single tool, to save a huge amount of time.
Are you a rental company looking to improve the management of your business? We've got everything you need!
Lokki is a simple, all-in-one software package for rental professionals. It allows you to completely centralize the management of your rental business and helps you organize your day-to-day activities:
Lokki creates your online store in just a few minutes. Your customers can book and pay directly online. Gain visibility with ease!
All information is centralized, eliminating the need for paper and spreadsheet files. Consult your inventory easily and plan your bookings in just a few clicks!
Coach lokki helps you better understand your business and your customers. In just a few clicks, engage your customers on social networks, by e-mail or SMS.
Free yourself from administrative tasks with a simple, intuitive tool. Edit your quotes, register your invoices and track your outstanding payments!
Lokki it's here : https://www.getlokki.com/
The Lokki platform also enables its users to take advantage of a solid partner to facilitate the process between a rental company and a customer. The tool we're about to introduce is called Tulip. It's an insurance policy for bike breakage and theft, and the big plus? It's directly present on the Lokki platform.
Tulip is insurance for bicycle rental professionals.
Toactivate the process, rental companies simply offer the insurance to their customer, choose the app's rental duration and activate the insurance, all in 3 clicks.
Long-term offer :
Your Renter's Toolbox 2.0 is now ready to use - it's up to you! We hope you find our guide useful.
Don't forget, your sector is promising 😉
Before we finish, here's just a quick reminder of all the tools we've introduced to you:
I - To Shiner on Google ✨
II - To shine on Social Networks 💖
→ For BigBoss
III- Getting organized every day 🌿
Despite the negative impact of the economic and health crisis on the tourism and leisure sector, it would seem that the bike rental market is less affected than others!
According to INSEE, household spending on the leasing of personal and household goods and services remained stable after the 2008 financial crisis, and is expected to continue growing after the recovery from 2009 onwards.
There are 2 closely related reasons for this:
The current situation doesn't make it easy to set up and organize a new season. But it does challenge your adaptability. 💪
The conditions of your business are changing. At Lokki, we're convinced that digital technology is the key to these changes.
And at the same time, the rise of digital technology gives you a great opportunity to overcome this crisis and get ahead of your competitors 😇
