How to Promote Your Inflatable Business

Notice that I didn't say, "How to Advertise Your Inflatable Business." Because when you're just starting out, advertising is expensive and while you may think one form or another is the way to advertise an inflatable party rental business, there are lots of ways you've probable never thought of and plenty of ways to promote that only costs some effort on your part and no money. And with your limited budget, my guess is you're willing to put forth some effort without parting with lots of cash.

On of the best ways is promote is to find out from local charitable organizations what some of their upcoming events are and whether or not you can participate. An example would be a March of Dimes Walk America, A American Cancer Society's Relay for Life event, a local community celebration or festival. A school carnival or fair.

When dealing with the Walk America or Relay for Life, what you want to do is offer to set up your inflatable bounce house or slide and do a Pay to Play. That's where people at the event can buy tickets from you so they can bounce or slide. Normally I sell one ticket for a dollar or six tickets for five dollars. One ticket lets you slide one time or bounce for three minutes. The deal you make with the Relay for Life or the Walk America folks is you'll give them 25% of your net profit from the event. In most cases, if they don't already have someone doing inflatables, they'll be more than happy to let you set up and sell tickets. If the weather is good and the Walk America or Relay for Life is a well established event, you can do several hundred dollars in a couple of hours and in some cases, several thousand dollars.

In one Relay for Life event, I sold more than 4,000 tickets in five hours and after paying the Relay 25%, I walked away with more than $2,800 in cash. The other expenses are paying for help to run the inflatable (you'll need three people for one inflatable, five for two inflatables) at the event. Also make sure you have the proper insurance for the location of the event. If it is being held at a school or community park, you'll most likely need to add the school or local government to your insurance for the event.

Relays will make more money than a Walk America. A well run Walk America will have an hour or two kickoff and then following the event another hour or so before people head home.

Other than the ability to make money, these events attract hundreds if not thousands of people. You can hand out business cards, flyers and you should have t-shirts with your name, phone number and web page in a large font. So people know you're local and open for business.

I always tracked my business and I did my best to try and find out what events lead to other events for my rental business. My first Relay for Life lead to six other relays that year and lead to several church events as well.

Remember to check out PartyWright.com for links to start your inflatable business