Inbound marketing refers to a specific kind of
marketing strategy – one that earns the attention of users to encourage
customer interaction, voluntary sharing, and word-of-mouth dissemination. In
contrast, outbound marketing is traditional advertising from the company to the
consumer, outward, like cold-calling, email blasts, and pop-up ads.
Traditionalists tend to rely heavily on
outbound marketing practices, spending heavily on advertising, telemarketing,
and purchased email lists. These practices are tried and true; however,
customers are becoming increasingly selective over what they want to be exposed
to. With new technologies like spam filters and caller ID, coupled with a more
and more sophisticated and informed consumer, these practices are becoming less
effective.
Inbound marketing for vacation rentals allows
potential customers to choose to opt in to your content and brand. The idea is
that good content—written, photographed, or videoed—will attract customers who
are already shopping around for vacation rentals and are open to being educated
by you. Organic practices that are part of a strategic vacation rental SEO
campaign facilitate inbound marketing. Think of it this way, it is more
cost-effective to be found by customers who are interested in your product and
have done some self-education and are ready to book.
In the hospitality industry, customers often
feel an emotional investment in where they stay; make them feel at home, and
they will gladly recommend your vacation rentals to both close friends as well
as to the larger audience of review sites like TripAdvisor or Yelp. This is the
essence of inbound marketing; your property, service, and web presence will
earn the love of your customers, who in turn provide you with the most
effective marketing tool of all: a personal recommendation.
Rather than spending thousands of dollars on
creating ads, and thousands more on placing them in the hopes that someone,
somewhere, will be intrigued enough to bite… let your customers come to you.
This way you can focus all your energies on targeted customers who will
actually book your vacation rental. It is a revolution in marketing, an
investment that can continue on its own momentum as opposed to an ongoing
expense year after year.
