how to market your service without a website?

I had a strange request from a client to market his car rental service WITHOUT a website. this car rental company is small and new.

what i had in mind is using classifieds, myspace and facebook. Google adwords wont work on hubpages and squidoo right?

any other ideas?

a blog...lol dude needs a website

That client sounds like a pain in the ass. You could just promote a google maps listing. I'm assuming he wants to save money on web design here, and not that he hates all things internet.

people who are renting a car are usually doing it from far away so they're not going to be looking at local classifieds. I also think marketing it on facebook or myspace would be pretty worthless because if you're buying ads, how would you target them and if you're just looking to establish presence, it'll look shady if they have a myspace but not a website. Tell the guy he NEEDS a website. If he's not willing to even do the basics, fire him because he will make your life miserable.

You could offer to sell him leads. Make a website for him, run a campaign of your own, set up a phone number to redirect to his, and ask him for a percentage/dollar amount per lead. He might be weary because he doesn't understand how internet marketing works, but you can use that to your advantage. That way he'll pay for results, and you'll get paid for work.

...Or just fire him.

Banner ads on local tourist, and business sites.
@mandom if I want to rent a car in New York I wouldn't be looking for car
rental in London would I? Of course you'll be looking at local classifieds.
Register in a local directory get on google maps and point it at that listing.
Won't get as much response as a website but he don't want one.

Better than that. Register a local car rental domain name, Stick a site on it,
Seo it up to first page then sell him the leads, Show him how much traffic and
enquiries you're getting and sell it to him for four times as much as he would've
paid if he'd bought one in the first place.

oxonbeef said:

@mandom if I want to rent a car in New York I wouldn't be looking for car
rental in London would I? Of course you'll be looking at local classifieds.

Click to expand...

I have never looked for a classified ad for a rental car in my life. And I travel full time and have rented hundreds of cars in dozens of cities around the world.

If I'm in LON and I want a car in NYC I would go through a booking site to find the lowest price and then go to priceline to get it for about 40% lower. OR, I would google "car rental new york". But I definitely wouldn't look in print classifieds and also not on internet classifieds like craigslist. Renting a car off CL just seems sketchy.

But maybe that's just me. Frankly though any business like that without a website just sounds dodgy to me. Like it's some kind of overnight setup that's going to steal your credit card number, give you a stolen car to drive and then clear town while you're explaining to the cops. Not that a website makes a business legit but it at least gives the appearance.

mandom said:

I would google "car rental new york

Click to expand...

That's execactly my point. And when I travel I always
go to CL and pay cash. Untraceable and hasn't got "Jack me, I'm a tourist"
written all over it. Usually sell them for a profit or far less than a rental would
cost me as well. But that's digressing off the subject.

If they don't want a website advertise them on the yellowpage and city guide sites like yelp. The classified sites and goog maps as well.