By Paul Kobylnyk
Missed Part 1? Read it here.
Choosing a monthly parking spot used to be easy for commuters. They’d find a facility close to their destination, park, and they were good to go. Easy, right?
But these times, they are a-changin’. The parking industry has evolved into a multi-faceted marketplace — one that now extends beyond product to unequivocally include service.
As a result, the one-size-fits-all parking facility of decades past — unyieldingly reliant on price as its competitive advantage — is no more. Budding monthly parkers now have access to a much wider range of amenities, giving them plenty to ponder before locking in a monthly parking purchase.
With the competition for capturing and retaining monthly parkers taking place along a much broader front, it helps to have a parking professional on your side that can provide a well-rounded assessment of your facility and identify where you can outshine your competitors.
Below are just a few of the areas we consider when conducting preliminary parking facility assessments.
5. Is Your Parking Facility Clean?
Potential monthly parkers must see evidence of regular surface-level and deep cleans to be successfully sold on the quality of your parking facility.
“Cleaning schedules are highly dependent on the size and layout of your lot,” says Ovidiu Margarit, a veteran Impark account manager. “However, I strongly recommend conducting surface-level cleans multiple times every week — daily for very busy facilities — and deep cleans at least once every quarter.”
6. Can Your Parkers Manage Their Monthly Parking Online?
What your customers can achieve online will play a hefty role in the success of your monthly parker intake — particularly when marketing to the rapidly growing millennial market.
Equipping yourself with a platform for digital monthly parking transactions can act as the unique selling point you need to retain a competitive edge. The average 20-something’s aversion to traditional transactions is so prevalent, in fact, that Accenture predicts digital payments will become the preferred payment method by 2020.
7. Are You Marketing to Customers on Multiple Platforms?
According to Ecommerce Foundation’s United States B2C Ecommerce Country Report, 88 percent of consumers conduct web research before making purchases online or in person, implying that a succinct digital presence can influence buying habits early on in the decision-making process. That’s why Impark Digital, Impark’s industry-leading digital marketing team, is dedicated to creating landing pages and location-based online marketing campaigns, reaching parkers before they’ve even put their key in the ignition.
However, over half of U.S. consumers still consider traditional advertising methods to be the most trustworthy. This suggests the key to converting prospective monthly parkers lies in a multichannel marketing campaign; one that blends traditional print marketing with innovative digital strategy. This “best of both” approach is measurable, scalable, and maximizes both your reach and ROI.
8. What’s Your “Something Extra?”
Do your parkers hear classical music as they walk to their car? Can your bike-parking tenants access showers with complimentary towel service? Will you give your tenants roses on Valentine’s Day?
In a marketplace abundant with amenities, monthly parking has become a sophisticated purchasing decision. Facilities — particularly in competitive downtown areas — need something extra to stand out from the crowd and sustainably prosper.
“The first parking lot I had monthly parking at was dark, wet, and flat-out grungy,” Yoshiki Duell, a monthly parker in downtown Toronto, explains. “Now I park at an Impark facility that’s easy to get around with excellent amenities — it even has carpets. It’s like night and day! Well worth the extra money per month.”
(Thanks for parking with us, Yoshiki!)
9. Partner With Impark
Attracting monthly parkers to your facility and retaining their business can be expedited with dedicated oversight from an industry-leading parking operator like Impark.
Our superior service standards, knowledge of today’s highly resourceful parking customer, and deep understanding of the ever-evolving parking landscape have led us to cultivate a vast monthly parking community with an impressive retention average.
Using our local expertise and industry best practices, we can design a monthly parker program that’s well suited to your facility.
Let’s see how Impark can help you. Contact us today.
Paul Kobylnyk is Director of Strategic Accounts at Impark. Email him at pkobylnyk@impark.com.
