Vacation Rental Marketing 101

Introduction to Vacation Rental Management & Marketing

Vacation Rental Softwarehttp://kigo.net

Index• Current Market Landscape• Vacation Rental Management• Marketing Your Vacation

Rental• Channel Management• Managing Multiple Portal

Listings• Independent Websites

• Multi-lingual Websites• Search Engine Optimization• Guest Reviews• Referral Marketing• Mobile Optimization• Management Software

Current Market Landscape

The Vacation Rental Industry is booming: Nearly half of U.S. travellers say they have stayed in, or plan to stay, in rental homes for their 2013 leisure trips.

There are approximately 6.1 million vacation rental properties worldwide generating a revenue of $85Billion.

Takeaway: The Vacation Rental industry is quickly becoming saturated. It is imperative to invest in marketing your properties in order to stay ahead of your competition.

*Source: http://www.tripadvisor.com/PressCenter-i5890-c1-Press_Releases.html http://software.homeaway.com/vacation-rentals/news-events/market-trends-reports

Vacation Rental Management

Source: http://discovervacationhomes.com/PhoCusWright_travel.asp

Vacation Rental homeowners have the option of managing their properties by themselves or to go with a vacation rental agency.

More than half of the vacation rental market’s total rental revenue now goes to industry professionals.

Location, saving-time, price and experience in the vacation rental market play an important factor when deciding to use a professional vacation rental agency.

Marketing Your Vacation Rental

The vacation rental industry is becoming more and more competitive. In order to stay ahead of your competition and increase your bookings, you will need to implement a mix of marketing strategies:

• Partake in Channel Management (aka Affiliate Marketing)• Create and Manage an Independent Website• Ensure your Website is Multi-lingual • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)• Mobile Optimized Websites• Managing Positive and Negative Reviews

Channel ManagementTo optimize leads and bookings, vacation rental managers can choose to advertise their properties across multiple vacation rental portals such as AirBnb, HomeAway, HouseTrip etc.

Portals have high traffic volume and large marketing budgets, allowing vacation rental managers to promote their properties on established brands.

The audience you reach through portals can range from niche pet-friendly markets to global markets with millions of users. Find out more

Channel ManagementA number of factors will determine which portal you choose to use to promote your vacation rental property:

• Cost: Do they implement monthly subscription, commission-based or a mix?• Market Reach: Do they cater to a specific niche or are they global?• Search Engine Ranking: Which portals rank high in your target market’s search

engines?• Connection Type: In order to effectively manage your property information and

availability calendar across multiple platforms, the portals you choose must have connection capabilities with 3rd party websites and software programs.

Managing Multiple Portal Listings

Marketing vacation rental properties on multiple portals allow you to increase your exposure and increase your bookings. One of the risks of listing your properties on multiple portals is that your property information and availability calendars may not be up-to-date.

In order to solve this problem, Vacation Rental Software companies have introduced Channel Managers that allow you to automatically have your availability calendars and property information updated. If a guest makes a booking on Housetrip, your property is automatically shown as “booked” on Booking.com and your own website.

Channel Managers reduce the risk of double-booking and allow you to save significant amount of time managing your properties. Find out more

Independent WebsitesAlthough using vacation renting listing websites are a good way to advertise your vacation rental, owning and operating your own website will establish an online brand identity and increase the trust between a potential guest and your vacation rental agency.

With independent websites, you can centralise all of your marketing efforts, from Adwords campaigns, e-mail marketing, local marketing to offline marketing initiatives.

Implementing analytics programs will allow you to optimize your website by giving you statistics on the location of your website visitors, the search terms used to visit your website as well as the bounce rate. Find out more

Choosing the Right Website

There are a number of options you can choose from when selecting a vacation rental website. It is imperative that you select a website that is created for the unique needs of vacation rental managers.

Factors to consider when choosing a vacation rental website:• The website should have in-built availability calendar capabilities so that

guests can search properties and book them straight from your website. • The website’s backend should allow central management for all your

vacation rental activities from calendar syncing, channel management to email inquiry automation.

• Depending on your budget you can select a custom website or a template.• The website should be hosted on a trusted and secure network.

Find out more

Multi-lingual WebsitesVacation rentals are trending internationally - 2012 saw the growth of the vacation rental industry outpace the hotel industry by 27% globally.

Although English is the primary international language, there are a large volume of guests who do not speak English. In order to cater to the needs of an international audience you will need to create a multi-lingual website. You should research the top countries your visitors come from, and choose to translate them first.

There are numerous professional translation services who can translate your website for a low-cost, as well as website platforms who have in-built multi-lingual capabilities. Find out more

Source: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/1/prweb10367258.htm

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing your website to rank high on search engines. Search engines are the #1 driver of traffic to websites, making it a great source of low-cost leads.

It is imperative to be listed on the first page for selected keywords: 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results.

Keyword research plays an important role in SEO: you will need to select keywords that you are able to rank high on. It is not advised to only focus on high competition keywords such as “Vacation Rentals in Florida”, but instead create a portfolio with a wide range of keywords that you know you can rank high. Find out more

Source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/24-eye-popping-seo-statistics/42665/

Content Marketing

Content creation, blogging and creating landing pages, can significantly increase your search engine ranking. Content creation allows you to increase your website’s page number and allows you to place a wide range of keywords onto your website.

Consistent SEO orientated blogging and landing page creation shows commitment, professionalism and as a result drives traffic to your website.

The more content rich in SEO keywords you have, the more people you will reach, which means more bookings. Find out more

Source: http://www.impactbnd.com/blogging-statistics-55-reasons-blogging-creates-55-more-traffic/

Guest ReviewsReviews and testimonials have become an important part of the booking process for potential guests. They can be used as a powerful marketing tool to a vacation rental owners’ advantage.

As a vacation rental manager, you should be encouraging guests to review your property after their stay. Review reminders through check-out emails, leaving business cards that encourage guests to review your property are a few ways in which you can obtain reviews.

The impact of a negative review far exceeds the impact of a positive review and could affect vacation rental bookings. However, if you respond in a timely manner, and highlight the positive points from their negative review, you can reduce the impact of the review.

Source: http://gigaom.com/2011/09/17/the-tripadvisor-effect-are-online-reviews-making-brands-irrelevant/

Find out more

Referral MarketingThe key to succeeding in referral marketing is going above and beyond for your vacation rental guests. Apart from the guests’ satisfaction with the property, customer service plays an important role in adding value to their rental.

An automated email response system is an invaluable tool for maintaining excellent customer service standards. A check-in email with information about the property/area is a good starting point for a great customer service experience.

Go that extra mile and pleasantly surprise guests with a welcome package. A great marketing tool that will increase chances of being referred to the guests’ friends and family. Find out more

Mobile Optimization25% of internet users utilize smartphones, not computers, for majority of their web surfing. This number will continually grow as tablet and mobile technologies advance, making it imperative that your website be mobile-friendly.

An important tip to remember is to keep your mobile website simple and clean: an image heavy website full of flash plugins will make it almost impossible to use from a mobile device.

Vacation Rental Software providers who have website platforms, can easily create a mobile-optimized website for your agency. Find out more

Source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Content-Vaults-No-1-Marketing-Priority-2013/1009648

Management Software

In order to save time, increase bookings and stay organized vacation rental managers can utilize vacation rental system. With vacation rental software you can:

Automate every aspect of your business • Automated email inquiry response• Automatic availability calendar and property information syncing• Housekeeping staff schedule automated through booking system• Check-in/Check-out email automation.

Management SoftwareThere is a significant ROI on using vacation rental software, from increased marketing reach to decreased manual data entry and management:

With Vacation Rental Software you can:• Promote your properties on portals • Promote your properties on partner vacation rental agencies with an readily-

available data-base• Dynamic pricing options to take advantage of last minute deals• Online Payment Integration• Email parsing to • Reports• Analytics• And many many more features…Find out more

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