Advertising and Marketing Your Bounce House and Inflatable Equipment Business

Local Phone Book

The two primary advertising venues for a local bounce house company are the local phone book and word of mouth. The cost for a phone book advertisement will depend on the size of your ad. The larger the ad, the more calls you will receive, but if you're starting out with just a bouncer or two, you don't need as big an ad. A smaller ad will probably get your bouncers booked regularly and not cost you as much. Call as soon as possible to find out when the deadline for submitting ads for the next phone book. If you miss the deadline, you'll have to wait for the next book to be published.

Word of Mouth

Word of mouth is the best free advertising you can get. It's very important that your employees always make a good impression on your customers, that your bouncers be clean and serviceable, and that you deliver and setup your bouncers on time. Repeat business depends on this, but so does getting the business of the parents or grandparents who are dropping kids of at a party. Many bouncers come with a plastic sleeve where you can place brochures or business cards. Be sure that these are filled at each of your parties.

Online Advertising

Online advertising in a directory such as the one your find here at BounceHouseInfo.com is another means of finding new customers. These directories do not guarantee click through rates, so don't pay more than they might actually be worth to you. Those directories that are found at the top of search engine lists are often the best places to add your listing, but they will also cost you more.

Search engines advertising may also be a good way to start driving more business to your door. Especially if you are selling bounce houses, search engine marketing through Google or Yahoo pays off. The programs at Google and Yahoo are similar in many ways, but there are some differences. Each company has been developing more tools to help advertisers refine their advertising campaigns. You will reach different groups of people with each search engine, since most people have their preference. You can specify the amount of money you wish to spend each month, so you don't have to worry about overspending your advertising budget. Be sure if you are a sales company only to make that very clear in your ads. You pay per click for these ads, so you don't want to be paying for someone looking for a bounce house to rent. Same goes for rental ads. Spending more to get top placement isn't always necessary either. If you are on a limited advertising budget, you may well spend your daily allowance by mid-day. Placement in the 3rd through 5th spots will still give you plenty of clicks, and they will be cheaper clicks, which means more clicks and more customers.

Developing Your Own Website

Larger bounce house companies often have their own websites. A website allows a company to show the customer pictures of the bouncers and inflatable equipment they have to offer, as well as make promotional offers on package deals. With more and more people turning to Internet search engines to find what they're looking for, it only makes sense for up and coming bounce house companies to develop their own website.

Costs include domain registration fees, which can be as low as $7.00 annually, hosting fees, which average about $10.00 a month, and site design and development. Your site design and development costs will depend on whether you hire a professional web designer or if you provide all or part of your graphic and web design services yourself. If you want a professional looking site, you should go with a professional designer. Costs for a professionally designed site can range from $250 to $300 for a small site. Larger sites that offer you the ability to make changes to your site without knowledge of html, web design language, are also available for additional expense. Our in house web designer would be happy to discuss your needs and give your a price quote on a custom website design for your business.

Participating in Community Events

If your community is holding a big charity event, providing a bouncer or slide free of charge can give you extra publicity and exposure to new potential customers. Since non-profits are a big part of any bounce house rental company's bookings, you won't want to over do on this. You may want to pick a particular charity that is near and dear to you and do their annual fundraising event.