Vacation Rental Management Blunders: Advice You SHOULDN'T Take

It’s difficult for vacation rental companies to have clear visibility when popular marketing strategies are constantly shifting and changing. It seems that marketers have a different opinion when it comes to what will work for your vacation rental management and what won’t. It’s hard to keep track of what you should include in your marketing efforts. The following tips are outdated when it comes to vacation rental marketing and you should avoid the following four strategies at all cost.

Focus on “outbound” promotion.

Ah, traditional marketing. If you’re stuck in this old way of thinking, it may be time to make a few changes to your marketing strategies. For example, ask yourself this: Would you rather buy, say, a new kind of snack that you saw on a commercial or one that you saw a friend “like” on Facebook? Would you buy a snack because of an annoying jingle or would you be more impressed by a friend’s recommendation? This scenario presents the main difference in outbound vs. inbound marketing. Traditional marketing “pushes” a product onto the consumer with ads, commercials and intrusive marketing. The idea of inbound marketing is that your ideal consumer is out there already, looking for you! Thus, the focus of your vacation rental management should be on educating the customer once they make the first point of contact. This means concentrating efforts on your website and its SEO, as well as using social media.

Utilize Pay Per Click Advertising.

Will investing in “clicks” bring more traffic to your site? Yes. However, there are better ways to gain more qualified traffic that will convert more easily to leads. Making a long term investment and commitment to your on-site search engine optimization will result in gaining more targeted traffic. Instead of receiving paid traffic, with SEO you will be getting more organic traffic. Ideally, this will include people who are seeking you out and who are genuinely interested in your vacation rental services. A blog is a great way for vacation rental management to utilize SEO!

Linking Links, Links and more Links.

Featuring outbound links (links to other sites) can work to your benefit. However, you don’t ever want to send people away from your vacation rental website. Make sure that the links you used are limited in number and are ones that will ultimately help the guest on your website delve further into the booking process. For example, if you’re writing a blog post about some of your new vacation rentals, it is okay to link to another blog that does a great job in writing about local events or activities. However, this type of link building should be used sparingly. When you do post outbound links make sure that they open up in a new window by setting the Target attribute to _blank so that your visitors can stay on your site.

Ignore negative reviews.

Bad reviews are going to happen and there is nothing you can do about it, right? Wrong. Those negative reviews are unfortunate, but they need to be addressed in a timely and professional manner. This process is very simple and easy, but if you need help, I talk more in depth about it in a blog here. Vacation rental management not only involves keeping your happy customers happy, but also dealing with those not-so-pleasant vacation-goers.
With a comprehensive inbound marketing strategy, vacation rental management can be cost-effective and beneficial in the long run. However, it can be difficult for all industries to pinpoint exactly what it is that they need to do when it comes to marketing their business. There are tons of tips available out there for vacation rental companies and it can be overwhelming when deciding which routes to take and which to avoid.

Need some help? Paveya is here to help you grow. Contact grow@paveya.com or call us at 855.372.8392.