Oftentimes, the clients that approach us underestimate just how much of an impact an inbound marketing strategy can have on their business. When E-Z Rent-A-Car got a hold of us, they were in desperate need of a new website and car rental marketing strategy that they hoped would increase their reservations and ultimately their revenue. We took that hope a step further by relaunching their website with inbound marketing in mind.
Our Approach
We started by redesigning their website, built around a customized reservation system that was easy to navigate but powerful enough to provide E-Z with the data they need to track ROI. Along with the reservation system, we provided the E-Z team with a fully responsive website that can maintain their large user base and be integrated with several third-party APIs, as well as allow E-Z to manage their robust rewards program.
But to ensure that their website would help them achieve their goals, we created a detailed inbound marketing campaign that included:
- Social Media Publishing and Engagement
- Lead-Nurturing Rewards-Based Email Series
- Detailed Content Marketing Strategy
- Aggressive Holiday Initiatives
Travel Trivia Helps Boost Brand Awareness
E-Z is catered towards travelers who are on a budget and need quick, reliable service—think families on vacation or students heading home for holiday break. And they know that in order to stand out in the rental car arena, customer service needs to be their top priority.
To drive brand awareness and enhance E-Z’s authority as a source for travel tips and tricks, their blog focuses on providing all sorts of travelers the information they need to make their trip as easy as possible. Along with their HubSpot blog, E-Z posts all of their blog content to their social channels to consistently enforce their authority while giving their fans easy access to content.
Apart from using social media to distribute their blog content, E-Z engages with their audience by hosting “Trivia Tuesday” on Facebook each week. Users answer trivia questions about the cities that E-Z caters to for a chance to win an Amazon gift card.
This simple trivia question garners an average reach of 8,638 and an engagement rate of 18%—that’s 18 times the industry average.
Paid Facebook Ads Increase Website Traffic
For E-Z’s most popular locations, we created detailed city guides to help travelers make well-informed decisions when planning their vacations. Including museums, concert venues, quick bites, fine dining, local wares, high-end retailers and much more, each city guide provides travelers the what, when, where and why of their favorite destinations.
To drive traffic to their website, E-Z implements paid Facebook ads using the City Guides to reach users interested in specific destinations. These ads have an average engagement rate of 5.2% and a click-through rate of 2.40%—ultimately sending an average of 8,605 people to E-Z’s website.
Based on their spend, E-Z sees an ROI of 142% from their Facebook ad campaigns.
Weekly Deals Emails Boost ROI
Along with Trivia Tuesday, E-Z’s subscribers receive weekly deals that encourage them to take advantage of steep discounts and book a rental car for their upcoming trip. Through consistent delivery, several rounds of A/B testing and fresh deals each Tuesday, we’ve been able to not only maintain but also grow E-Z’s base of returning customers.
From the first half of 2016 to now, E-Z has seen a 64% increase in organic reservations—that’s approximately 15,858 reservations per month, up from 9,694.
Holiday Travel Campaigns Break E-Z’s Records
For the 2014 and 2015 holiday seasons, E-Z hosted what we dubbed “Cyber Weekend.” Starting on Black Friday and lasting through Cyber Monday, we launched an aggressive email marketing campaign to boost reservations during this very busy season.
In 2014, Cyber Weekend consisted of two emails—one on Black Friday and one on Cyber Monday. While this campaign was a simple expansion of our weekly deals, it generated record-breaking results for E-Z. 18,402 new users visited the site and 4,822 of those users converted.
In 2015, as E-Z began to open new locations, we took their holiday campaign a step further to allow us to more effectively target personalized content in the future. By offering VIP Cyber Weekend deals to their current subscribers, we were able to segment their humongous list based off of each subscriber's preferred location in order to send them more personalized content. Additionally, this allowed us to alert them of new locations opening near them that may be more convenient.
The result of our expanded 2015 Cyber Weekend campaign broke E-Z’s records yet again. From 2014 to 2015, new users skyrocketed by 50% with a total of 27,784 people visiting the site and 7,609 of them ultimately making a reservation.
Combined, E-Z’s Cyber Weekend generated a 51% increase in organic traffic, 43% increase increase in conversions and 56% increase in total revenue from 2014 to 2015.
Let’s Recap
What started as a simple website-redesign project turned into one of our most successful inbound marketing initiatives to date. With a combination of paid social ads, consistent email campaigns and a renewed focus on delighting customers, E-Z was able to see tremendous year-over-year growth.
Social Media
- 18% engagement rate on Facebook posts
- 2.40% click-through rate on paid Facebook ads
- 142% ROI on paid Facebook ads
Weekly Deals
- 64% increase in organic reservations
Cyber Weekend
- 51% increase in organic traffic YOY growth from 2014 to 2015
- 43% increase in conversion rate from 2014 to 2015
- 56% increase in revenue from 2014 to 2015
Hearing about growth-driven design for the first time? Learn more about the three pillars of GDD and how this methodology can help you solve your greatest marketing challenges.
Nick Osler
Designzillas’ Account Manager and most organized Zilla in the office, Nick heads the partnership and communication with each of our amazing clients.
