Short answer:
There are lots of things we do to promote car sharing and plenty of ways you can help spread the word too.
What we will do
- We provide you with a personal invite code, so you can offer people $50 off their first booking at our expense
- We provide stickers for your car, so people can see it on the street and know it's available
- We do a lot of media outreach to raise awareness of car sharing - check out our media coverage
- We run targeted digital advertising campaigns for the areas where cars are listed (like Google, and Facebook)
- We work to optimise our website for popular search terms so that people looking to rent cars in your area can find our website and your cars
We don't do billboards, TV ads or other high-cost traditional advertising. Instead, we focus on targeted digital marketing, word-of-mouth referrals and optimisations to our platform.
What you can do
You can help to promote your car by:
- Making sure your car's profile is as appealing as possible – use a clear photo to make your car stand out. Add photos of the sides, boot space and interior and write a short, clear description. that highlights your car's best features.
- Adding a profile photo of yourself – this helps build trust, and could also boost your earnings: our data shows that owners with a profile photo earn more than those without.
- Sending a thank you message to your borrowers – after each trip, send the borrower a message thanking them for borrowing your car and asking them to leave you a thumbs-up review if they enjoyed it. Having good reviews will make your car more appealing to future borrowers.
- Sharing your car's profile with your personal and professional networks – friends and family, and local community Facebook groups or pages. You can get a link to your car's public profile by searching for your car and copying the URL.
- Following us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and sharing your favourite posts with your friends and local community groups or pages
- Inviting people to join – for anyone who signs up using your invite code, they'll get credit to try us out and you'll also be rewarded with credit
- Telling people about car sharing – word of mouth is one of the biggest ways we get new borrowers, so the more people you tell about it, the further the word will spread
- Posting an ad on Gumtree
- Posting on Facebook
- Posting flyers on community noticeboards around your area (see below)
- Create personalised flyers for your car and distribute them around your neighbourhood - see below for instructions and an example
- Thinking about what type of people might want to use your cars and where they are hanging out. For example, if there's a noticeboard at your local supermarket, you could post a note saying your car is available to help shoppers get their groceries home. If there's a local live music venue, let musicians know that your van could move their drum kit. Post-grad students at the local university might want your SUV to go road-tripping. Get your creative thinking cap on.
Creating a personalised flyer for your car
We've found that handwritten flyers perform better than glossy marketing brochures. It might look scrappy, but it works.
To make and distribute a flyer:
- Print out a photo of your car
- Using a permanent or colouring marker, write up a blurb. We recommend text like: 'Rent my car! I don't use my car that much, so now I'm sharing it on Uber Carshare. You can use it to get around cheaply and conveniently. To rent it go to www.ubercarshare.com and become a member – it's free to join!' (Adapt to suit your own situation).
- Add the details, including your hourly, daily, and distance rates, the street and suburb where your car is parked, and your first name
- Make photocopies of the flyer - black and white is fine
- Drop them in letterboxes in the streets around you and put them up on noticeboards and places with lots of foot traffic, like around train stations in your area
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