In the final of our three-part series of blogs looking ahead to communities and cities reopening in 2021, we focus on how operators will seek to increase their profits, attract new customers, and support their existing patrons. The 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns have had a significant impact on budgets and staffing levels. As we look forward to reopening, they will have a lot of ground to make up to increase profits and maintain a loyal customer base.

One way to accomplish this is through a comprehensive and integrated marketing program. Innovative promotional campaigns allow operators to offer unique and targeted discounts and benefits specifically to the individual customer needs, while providing comprehensive campaign analytics to enhance ROI. For instance, the ParkEngage Promotions Service enables you to launch personalized parking promotions, benefits, and discounts to targeted customers to generate brand loyalty, as well as attract new prospective customers.

Another strategy to help operators increase their profits is through effective inventory management and partnerships with aggregators. Aggregators offer special rates and bring in customers from outside the operator’s typical base. However, the ParkEngage Inventory Management service puts the operator in the driver’s seat and gives them greater control over their parking inventory, seamlessly integrating their operation with neighborhood businesses and allowing them to resell their reservable inventory to businesses outside of the aggregators like hotels, theaters, and event destinations. This solution helps the operator gain better negotiating power, as well as make the channel sales flow more dynamic, thus making the relationship more profitable for themselves and the channel partners. 

In recent years, marketing for parking operators has become a much more sophisticated affair. Customer analytics to understand customer behavior, and customer segmentation, have become essential so that more effective marketing campaigns can be launched. These innovative marketing solutions will be vital to helping operators get back on track in 2021 by streamlining their marketing programs, increasing profits, and expanding and solidifying their loyal customer base.

In a previous post, we discussed the benefits and applications today related to beacon-based technologies. Another more low-tech solution that can provide a similar passive user experience is geofencing.

Geofencing solutions take advantage of the fact that most people are already driving around with their GPS solutions enabled on their smartphones (along with WiFi and Cellular positioning). Smartphone GPS systems have an average accuracy of between 15-25 feet, which can be used to roughly locate the phone in relation to a parking facility entrance.

Parking technology companies use geofencing, along with GPS, to take an action when a user is within a certain proximity of a parking location. These solutions can be used for a wide range of objectives including inviting a potential customer to park in their facility, provide guidance or reminders once they have parked in their facility, or identify their location and offer benefits such as amenity services, discounted rates, etc.  

Parking operators have so many options available to them today to offer the most innovative and valuable benefits to prospective parkers. These solutions are essential to supporting their marketing efforts, helping to increase their revenues, attracting new and retaining loyal customers, and more.

Find out how ParkEngage can help you streamline your end user parking experience.