How to use discount codes at a boat rental

It’s a Tuesday in June. The weather is fine, your staff are at the dock, and half your boats are still tied up. A discount code gives people a reason to book on exactly that day.

In Let’s Book, a discount code takes an amount or a percentage off the booking. It can also give free time, like half an hour extra on a two-hour rental. You decide which boats, dates and times it works for. A code works on a trip with fixed departure times too.

Attracting new customers

A discount helps someone who has never rented a boat, or who found the price a bit high last summer. Share the code where your future customers already look: Instagram, Facebook, a local newsletter. Give it an end date, so people book this month and not someday.

Increasing bookings at off-peak times

Most rentals have quiet times: weekday mornings, May and September, the hours after five. A code that works only then fills the gaps in your planning. You’re open and staffed anyway, so every booking it brings in is extra. In Let’s Book, you limit a code to weekdays, time ranges and trip lengths, and you exclude single dates. A lower weekday rate does the same without a code. Read about the pricing model for your boat rental.

Encouraging repeat business

A customer who had a good day on your water is the easiest one to win back. Let’s Book sends a follow-up email a day after the trip, and a win-back email to customers who haven’t booked for fifty weeks. Put a discount code in either one, and your thank-you becomes a reason to book again next summer. More on those emails in the boat rental customer journey.

Selling special events in advance

A code for a special day gives people a reason to plan ahead: a sunset cruise in August, a trip with mulled wine in December. Set the code to the dates and boats of the event, and it can’t be used on anything else.

Measuring your marketing with a code per channel

Give each channel its own code: one for Instagram, one for the flyer at the campground, one for the hotel down the road. At the end of the month, the list of discount codes shows how often each code was used, so you know which one to repeat. Our social media tips have more on posts that bring in bookings.

For a flyer or a mailing, you generate a batch of unique codes at once, each good for one use, and send the list to your printer as an Excel file.

Keep codes off your busiest days

A code is there for the days that need help. On a sunny Saturday in July your boats usually fill up at the full price, so leave those dates out. We’re happy to set up your first code with you. Read more about discount codes in Let’s Book.