Ultimate Guide: How to Maximize Your Parking Revenue with Digital Marketing
Posted: Jul, 5, 2023 9:00AM ET • 27 min read
Today, nearly 92% of drivers search for parking online. Whether it’s to pre-plan where to park, reserve a parking space, or use GPS to find a parking lot, your customers are searching for and finding parking online.
Did you know customers search for parking 8 to 14 hours before arriving at their destination? When it comes to marketing your parking operation, digital marketing is the way to go.
What does this mean for you? It means leveraging digital marketing is key to increasing your parking revenue!
Increase lot occupancy on evenings, weekends, and even during downtimes.
Get your location to the top of Google Search.
Put your location on all the maps: Google, Waze, Apple and Bing.
Cover All Your Bases: Ask the right questions.
As someone who oversees your organization's parking operation, you may need to be better-versed in digital marketing... and that's okay! You can ask several questions to ensure you receive good value for your dollar.
1. Why does my contract with my parking provider not include digital marketing services?
Digital marketing parameters change on the fly. If your contract was established three to five years ago or more, it's unlikely it covers the fees required for digital marketing services, such as a daily budget for online ad spend, social media ads, Waze, or Google Ads.
2. Why is my neighbour getting free digital marketing services from their parking providers, such as Google and social media ads?
Refrain from believing everything you hear. Your neighbour may think they are getting free marketing services for their parking operation. Still, their program likely doesn't include online ads—the most effective type of online marketing and one that requires a daily budget. If it does, someone is paying for the daily spend needed to run the ads and service associated with it, and it's most likely your neighbour. Digital marketing is never free, mainly when it includes running online ads.
3. How do I know if my parking provider uses effective digital marketing practices or runs effective ads?
There are questions you can ask to verify if your parking operator is providing valuable and effective digital marketing services.
Grow Your Parking Revenue with Successful Marketing Techniques
Still, trying to figure out where to start? We've got you covered! Below are helpful questions and answers you should consider when developing your digital marketing strategy.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
Definition: The process of maximizing the visibility of your parking lot information to a web search engine's unpaid result for parking near your location queries.
Questions to ask:
1. What keywords is the web page optimized for?
a. Keyword research should be completed.
b. Keywords should include your address, "parking near" facility name, and nearby facilities.
c. Keywords should be optimized for: title tags, headers 1,2 and 3, meta tags, body text, and alt tags.
2. How many people visited my web page this month?
a. Your parking provider will have access to this through Google Analytics or another analytics tool of its choice.
3. What call-to-action are on the web page?
a. Examples of suitable calls-to-action are registered monthly parking permits and reserve parking.
4. How many external links does my web page have?
a. At least one is your organization's website linking to the parking-specific web page from your supplier's website.
5. What’s the bounce rate on my web page?
a. High bounce rates are sometimes good and will exist if there is no main call-to-action, such as reserved parking.
b. If your bounce rate is more than 50%, that's okay. Just ask your parking provider how long people are staying on your page. If it's 30 seconds or more, this is a good sign, as it indicates visitors are reading the information on the page.
Local-SEO:
Definition: Similar to SEO in that it is a process that maximizes the visibility of your parking lot’s physical location in a web search engine’s unpaid result for queries related to parking near your location.
Questions to ask:
1. Are my location listings verified?
a. Yes. Your location listings must be verified, or they will not appear online.
2. Are posts being published on my listing every so often?
a. Yes, a post is published on your listing once or twice a month.
b. This shows online visitors that your post is active and accurate.
3. Does my listing have any reviews? What about negative reviews? If so, are they being responded to?
a. Yes, all positive and negative reviews are being responded to.
b. All spam reviews are being reported.
4. How many people have requested directions to my listing?
a. This number will vary based on your location.
5. How many people have seen the listing this past month?
a. This number will vary based on your location.
Online Advertising:
Definition: A form of marketing that promotes your parking facility and its visibility in search engines and social media platforms through paid advertising.
Questions to ask:
1. Do my social media or Google ads link to a web page specifically for my parking facility?
a. Yes. A web page specific to your parking facility is linked to the parking supplier's website.
2. What’s the daily budget to run my ad? Am I reaching my budget each day? Who’s paying for this?
a. Minimum $20/day.
3. What's the click-through rate of my ad?
a. A minimum of 3% is acceptable.
4. What’s the cost-per-click of my ad?
a. The cost-per-click should be at most $4.00.
b. Ideally, it should be between $0.01 and $2.50.
5. Has SEO been set up for the strong foundation of my ads?
a. Yes. A web page and location listing specific to your parking facility has been built with best practices SEO, positively impacting the quality of your ads and the cost-per-click of your ad.
Keeping Your Digital Marketing Costs Low
Digital marketing can be costly. However, it's important to understand that you get what you pay for. The more you invest in digital marketing for your parking facilities, the greater the return. It's as simple as that.
However, certain digital marketing services are necessary, while others you can manage without. An effective digital marketing program requires a mix of four things:
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
2. Online ads on at least one platform, such as Google, Waze, or social media channels
3. Content that captures your audience’s attention or helps provide an easy online experience, such as how-to videos and a comprehensive map of your parking lot.
4. Performance reports identifying areas of improvement, opportunity and successes
Partnering with a parking provider that has an in-house marketing team is key. Not only will they understand the parking business, but they will likely charge very competitive rates for their services compared to marketing agencies.
Get Your Location In Front of as Many Eyes as Possible
Have you ever navigated to the second page of Google? We haven't, and neither will your customers. Local SEO is imperative to your parking operations' success. When done correctly, it ensures that your facility's physical location is visible in the top results of search engines.
Local SEO puts your facility in front of potential visitors through various online maps such as Waze, Google Maps, Parkopedia, Apple Maps, Bing Places, and even in-car navigation system maps, thus increasing the number of drivers who choose to request directions to your parking facility.
Work with your parking provider to get your location on the following maps. You’ll thank us later.
How to Use Digital Marketing to Increase Parking Revenue
As the person responsible for overseeing your organization's parking operations, you must understand how digital marketing can be used to market and improve your parking facility and increase your parking revenue. 1. Let your customers know what to expect by having a presence online.
Building a customized SEO-friendly web page for your parking facility will not only benefit your online presence, but it will also attract visitors to your parking facility. Having your information available online lets people know what to expect when they get to your facility, which alleviates the natural anxieties associated with finding parking. Inform them of what to expect when they arrive, where to park, how to pay, rates, amenities available, and much more.
2. Increase location awareness with local SEO.
Use local SEO to promote the physical location of your parking facility and help it appear in the top Google search and map results for relevant queries. Having your information available online will increase the chances of people planning to park at your facility.
3. Occupy the absolute top of Google for relevant search queries using Google Ads.
Running Google Ads will ensure you occupy the top position or top half of Google search results for relevant queries. Google Ads are very effective because they're only shown to customers who search for parking near you instead of targeting people who fit certain demographics. When an online ad and a non-paid search result occupy the top of Google, customers' sense of trust is enhanced, and they are more likely to click on your search results.
4. Tie your facility to nearby destinations using social media ads.
Capture the attention of your target audience on social media. It's important to know that the social media game has changed. Non-paid posts are less effective than they once used to be. This is because social platform algorithms have changed to favour paid posts. Knowing that short videos work best on social media is also key. Short videos that promote your facility and tie it to nearby destinations or popular events effectively capture your audience's attention and increase the likelihood of customers parking at your facility for their next outing.
5. Collect measurable program results, ensure revenue increase, and gather insights on who your customers are.
The best part about digital marketing is that it generates measurable results with hard numbers. Translate the data collected from digital marketing techniques into parking revenue and valuable insights for your parking operation.
6. Use email marketing to communicate the launch of your parking facility or rate changes to your regular visitors and tenants.
Email marketing is an effective way to communicate new amenities or changes taking place within your parking facility. Your regular visitors and tenants appreciate the communication.
Hard Numbers. Hard Results.
The best part about digital marketing is that it generates measurable program results. The metrics and insights you can generate from your online marketing are endless, allowing you to identify areas of improvement, opportunities to explore, and successes. Digital marketing initiatives should be monitored regularly. A minimum of two weeks of activity is required before official performance reports with valuable insights can be formulated.
1. Compare your financial reports from the previous year.
2. Look for revenue spikes.
3. Determine and weigh impacting factors.
Optimize Your Digital Marketing Efforts
The beauty of digital marketing—it's data-rich. Gone are the days when we can't explain why or how. When done right, digital marketing tracks every move from consumer behaviour and conversions to administrator output. It provides measurable results and direction for improvement.
Learn who your target audience is…
How old are they?
Where do they live?
What gender are they?
What languages do they speak?
What are their interests?
Learn how your online visitors behave…
How long are visitors spending reading about your parking lot?
Where are your visitors clicking on your webpage?
Do visitors frequently return to your website?
How did they get to your webpage in the first place? From social media, Google search, or Google Ads?
Determine your ROI…
Was there a spike in your revenue from when you began online marketing
How much are you spending on digital marketing initiatives?
What’s a safe conversion rate you can use to determine this?
Get actuals from the webpage from the call-to-actions, like reserved parking and monthly permit registrations.
Is Your Parking Operation Reaching its Full Potential?
Digital marketing for your parking operation can increase your parking revenue, and maximize awareness of your facility's physical location, online presence, reservation, permit sales, and so much more.
So, what is digital marketing for parking operations? It’s the process of promoting your parking facility online using digital media. Key aspects of digital marketing to consider when marketing parking facilities.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Local-SEO
Search engine marketing (SEM)
Social media marketing
Content development
Email marketing
A tactical mix of traditional marketing: signage and mail distributions
What Does All of This Mean?
It's important to understand the various digital marketing techniques and how, if executed properly, they can provide you with a return on investment. The chart below outlines the main benefits of digital marketing techniques and what your parking provider should do.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Why do you need it?
Appear in top Google search results for queries related to your parking facility
Increases location-awareness
Promote your facility details and amenities
Tie your facility to nearby destinations
Location appears when drivers pre-plan parking
What your parking provider should do:
Build a web page specific to your parking facility
Ask your company to link to this web page from your main website
Build the web page using best-practice SEO techniques
Encourage your company to build a parking information section on your website
Encourage you to request nearby facilities and tenants to link to your web page from their main websites
Track KPIs, such as the number of people that visit the web page per month, who they are, how they get there, how they behave on the web page
Regularly optimize and maintain the web page.
Local-SEO
Why do you need it?
Appear on Google Maps, Waze, Apple Maps and Bing Places
Location appears when drivers use GPS to locate nearby parking
Positive impact on SEO
Increases location-awareness
Promote your facility details and amenities
Tie your facility to nearby destinations
What your parking provider should do:
Build a Google, Waze, Bing and Apple map listing for your parking lot(s)
Ensure all listings are optimized with applicable information
Regularly optimize and maintain the listings
Manage and respond to listing reviews
Track KPIs, such as how many people requested directions, called, clicked the listing, etc.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Why do you need it?
Be the top search result on Google for queries related to your parking facility.
Positive impact on SEO
Increases location-awareness
Effective audience targeting using keywords
People looking for you will see the ad
Promote your facility details and amenities
Tie your facility to nearby destinations
What your parking provider should do:
Recommend a minimum daily ad spend
Build ads using best-practice SEM techniques
Regularly monitor ad performance and optimize accordingly
Track KPIs, such as the number of people who clicked the ad, the cost-per-click, etc.
Provide performance reports
Social Media Marketing
Why do you need it?
Effective audience targeting using demographics
Positive impact on SEO
Increases location-awareness
Promote your facility details and amenities
Tie your facility to nearby destinations
What your parking provider should do:
Recommend a daily ad spend
Recommend best-performing social media platforms for your location
Build ads using best-practice techniques for the social media platform being used
Create image and/or video content appropriate for the social media platform being used
Track KPIs, such as the number of people who clicked the ad, the cost-per-click, etc.
Regularly monitor ad performance and optimize accordingly
Provide performance reports
Content Development
Why do you need it?
Compelling content is required for effective digital marketing
Content is required for: a custom web page for SEO, social media marketing, email marketing, etc.
What your parking provider should do:
Create an image, video, or written content appropriate for the distribution channel
Email Marketing
Why do you need it?
Communicate the launch of your new parking facility, rate change or new amenity in your lot
Communicate with regular visitors, subscribers and tenants
What your parking provider should do:
Ask you for an email list of your tenants, regular parkers, and nearby businesses
Distribute a branded email and follow-up email to those who did not open the initial email
Monitor KPIs of the email, such as how many people opened the email, clicked the email, etc.
Digital Marketing Glossary
The glossary below explains key definitions perfect for referencing when speaking to your parking provider about digital marketing opportunities.
Search Engine Optimization: Optimizing your online presence (website or a specific web page) to get organic or unpaid traffic from the search engine results page. Three main factors that affect SEO are the on-page and off-page structure of the web page, the number of visitors to the web page, and the user experience on your web page. Several aspects can influence these main factors, such as the use of SEO-friendly techniques when building the web page content and the back-end structure of the web page, the quality of the content on the web page, and the number of platforms driving visitors to the web page.
Local-SEO: an effective way to market a physical location. The main difference between SEO and local SEO is the geographical component.
Search engine: a program that searches for and identifies you in an online database. Examples of search engines are Google, Bing and Yahoo.
Search engine rank: where a website or web page is ranked within search engine results. Rank within a search engine is also called a "position."
Search engine result pages (SERP): the pages displayed by search engines in response to a query by a searcher. The main component of the SERP is the listing of results that are returned by a search engine in response to a keyword query.
Crawlers: the algorithm used by search engines to collect data from the internet and determine search engine rank. When a crawler visits a website, it reads the entire website's content (i.e. the text) and stores it in a database. Crawlers are also known as "bots."
Search engine marketing: a form of internet marketing that involves paid promotion and paid advertising of a website or web page to increase visibility in a search engine’s results pages. Examples of this are Google Ads.
Social media marketing: using social media platforms that involve paid promotion and paid advertising of a website or web page to reach new customers and engage with existing customers.
Pay-per-click: an internet marketing business model in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. The cost-per-click depends on the quality of the ad, the relevancy of the advertisement to the web page it links to, the user behaviour when the ad is clicked, and so on. Social media and search engine marketing ads follow a pay-per-click model.
Social media: websites and applications that enable online communities where users participate in social networking, create, and share content. Examples of social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Content marketing: involves creating and sharing online material, such as videos, images, text information, and more.
Email marketing: communication outlet with a specific audience.
Create an Effective Marketing Strategy
Now that you understand various digital marketing techniques and how they can increase your parking revenue, it's time to evaluate which combination of services in the suite is most effective for ROI. Spending your budget wisely and strategically to ensure you get the best results from your marketing program is key.
Certain digital marketing services are required, and others that you can manage without. Here’s what you need to consider when building a marketing program:
1. SEO is the backbone of successful digital marketing.
SEO is the foundation of a successful marketing strategy in all its forms. To proceed with effective digital marketing, the following needs to be established first, and of course, with SEO best practices:
A custom online presence and web page outlining the details of your parking facility needs to be built
Location listings on Google, Apple, and Waze need to be create
A web link between your main website and your parking operator’s website needs to be implemented
Parkopedia, Bing Places and even in-car navigation system maps
2. Online ads are required for noticeable ROI.
Once SEO for your parking facility has been established, running online ads is a critical next step that will result in a significant ROI. We strongly advise only running ads if SEO has been established. Without SEO, your ads will have a low-quality score and high costs-per-click, which will exhaust your daily budget in no time.
Moreover, online ads require a daily budget, usually a minimum spend of $15.00 per day. With that being said, you may have to commit to one type of online ad:
Google local ads
Waze maps ads
Instagram ads
Google search ads
Facebook ads
Once you discover which online platform is best for you, you'll need to ensure your ads link to a web page specific to your parking facility. This is key not only for SEO but also for protecting the quality of your ads. High-quality ads result in low cost-per-click rates, allowing your ads to be shown to more people for longer periods and at cheaper costs.
3. Content development is key.
Content development is required for digital marketing. For example, image or video content is needed on social media. Moreover, pictures and videos will ensure your parking-specific web page provides positive visitor experiences, resulting in great SEO. With that being said, below are a few key pieces of content you'll want to develop:
A comprehensive map of your parking facility
Photos of your parking lot, including the entry and exit
How-to videos and PDFs that explain how to pay for parking If you are running social media ads, upload a short video promoting your facility
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cassandra Carchesio
Marketing Coordinator
Cassandra has been with Precise ParkLink since 2020, beginning her career with us as Social Media Content Coordinator before quickly moving to her current role as overall Marketing Coordinator. She’s responsible for developing the content and social media strategies Precise ParkLink uses for internal communications as well as the marketing campaigns their clients use to engage their customers. In addition to this, she leads webinars and internal training sessions, taking these projects from inception to execution.
Cassandra brings a wealth of training and experience to Precise ParkLink’s marketing department. With a Bachelor’s degree in Professional Communication from Ryerson University and further accreditation in digital marketing management from the University of Toronto, she has gained success in the entertainment industry, most notably working on Bell Media’s The Social program. Her commitment to professionalism and working collaboratively to apply research-driven techniques to her work is highlighted by IBM recognizing her as a Collaborative Computing Scholar.
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