If properly managed, scooter fleets are highly profitable ventures. However, an often-overlooked bonus to this business model is the ability to diversify revenue streams based on access to tens or hundreds of thousands of users.
This blog post will provide suggestions of alternative avenues to generate further revenue with bike sharing and scooter sharing.
Example
A bike share company with a B2B advertising platform offered space on both its mobile app and bikes. Within two months of launching their advertising program, they earned the equivalent of almost $15 million USD.
A Basic Way to Attract Customers
The clearest means of generating additional revenue would be through the use of advertising. One of the best ways to attract advertisers is to have a large user base.
With bike and scooter fleets, a standard pricing schedule has already been set by many operators as determined by your particular market. This means that fleet owners will likely have to explore other avenues to generate an increased userbase.
An excellent way to attract these customers is through the use of promotions. Any bike or scooter share software you utilize should have the capacity to create and disseminate promotions. Within your app, users should be able to view and redeem any in-house promotions, like Free Rides or Day Passes.
Promotions can be sent via email lists to reach a wider audience within your coverage area. While your targeting may not be ideal, you will guarantee a broader sweep. Additionally, if the software you use supports this functionality, you can generate codes tied to a promotion that can be offered on coupon aggregator (such as Group On).
Many cities actively encourage fleets to work with local businesses. Partnering with a small business is a great way to increase your reach with these promotions being disseminated to those on their email list.
One Joyride operator, Darajtee, printed promo codes on flyers and distributed them in neighbourhoods and on campus to target specific users.
B2B Ad Sales
Some third-party fleet management software also enables you to generate advertisements for your affiliate partners from your backend. This feature should be used as much as possible.
For example: if an operator works with a local coffee shop, it can have the business offer a coupon through their app and pay for the advertising space. This simultaneously drives new traffic to the business, while also earning the operator additional revenue.
There are two easy ways for operators to arrange an advertising partnership: monthly fees or PPC (pay-per-click). In the first, an operator can charge their affiliate partners a monthly price for leaving an ad up on their platform. In the second, a trackable link is used in the description of the ad so that when a rider selects the option to “Redeem the Coupon” or “Learn More” a tally is kept. The operator can then charge a flat rate based on the number of clicks received.
Two very basic rules for calculating potential revenue are:
- Daily active users/10 = monthly fee
- CPC: Between $0.01 — $10.00 (heavy tailed)
Example
PPC with a conversion rate of 4% off of 250 scooters
CPC = 0.25 USD
– Ad creation time: 30 seconds
– Average of four rides per scooter/day
= 28,000 trips weekly
= 1,120 clicks / week
= $280 week
= $13,440 additional gross annual revenue on a single advertising partner
As it is possible to have multiple advertising partners, the capacity to generate additional revenue is significant and should be explored to the fullest extent.
Conclusion
With a bike or scooter fleet, you’ll have access to tens of thousands of riders. Leverage this connection through your software platform by partnering with business and getting paid to have in-app advertisements.
