5 Ways to Self-Promote Your Vacation Rental
It never fails. It happens every single year. The busy summer season is about to arrive and I get very anxious. There are few months without bookings following the winter and my mind is consumed with disaster scenarios of having to sell my vacation rental. And then, just like clockwork, the next week after my complete and utter breakdown, the bookings flow in so fast that I cannot keep up with them! Does this scenario sound familiar? Learn from my mistakes and overcome the annual panic. With these tips on how to self-promote your vacation rental, you will fill those vacancy gaps in the slow season!
**Be cautious of any agreement you might have with your current booking/marketing agency that may prohibit you from self-promoting.**Experience Makes You an Expert
While I do not claim to be a digital marketing expert, I have extensive entrepreneurial and promotion experience with my vacation rental. Through my ventures, I have learned several opportunities to successfully self-promote your vacation rental. These tips are just one step to implementing a profitable vacation rental strategy. So, cast your net wide and catch some fish (or guests) with these tactics:
1) Peer-to-Peer Advertising
What’s the best kind of advertising? The free kind! The easiest method of creating an advertisement for your vacation rental is with Craigslist in the market you wish to target. While many regions have a category all their own, if you live in a larger area, you may want to include posts in sub-sites as well. For example, for my property in Lake Tahoe, I also post in Sacramento, San Francisco/Bay Area and Reno, Nevada. The category for your listing already exists via Classifieds > Housing Offered > Vacation rentals. Simply fill out the posting form, verify the listing and it will run for a week, just rinse and repeat as necessary!
Just because it is free does not mean this option should look any less professional. Do your best to mimic your listings like VRBO and AirBNB. A listing with proper format, grammar, image quality and that is visually appealing will increase your overall leads.
2) Let Your Message Fly
Flyers seem simple enough, but how often do you actually make the effort to do it? Even I have fallen short with this opportunity, but it’s a low cost option to self-promote your vacation rental. One of the quickest ways to create a graphically appealing flyer is using a free template from Canva. You can also get some of the images at no cost! Once completed, print a few dozen flyers and place them in offices, schools, coffee shops and other public places with available bulletin board space.
3) Gain Fans – Gain Guests
One of the best ways to convert window shoppers to guests is through a Facebook page. Let your satisfied customers do the talking and promote their excellent stay by checking into your page. Consider branding your vacation rental with a name to extend your self-promotion efforts. Our property in Lake Tahoe is known as the “Tahoe Bear Bungalow.” It is a fun, memorable name, and our guests love it!
Creating a Facebook page is easy, but make sure you do not create a personal or group page. Your vacation rental is a micro-business and that is the vision you should have whilst you create your Facebook page. After it is created, share the page with your friends, families and colleagues to self-promote, and gain a few extra bookings each year. I get at least two to three extra bookings per year from this tactic.
4) Master of Your Domain
Purchase your own website domain for your vacation rental. Not only is it fun, but it is an opportunity to increase your self-promotion. You can gain new leads from organic search or from promoting the website elsewhere. Having your own domain also legitimizes your business when you share information elsewhere. For example, using my custom email address of [email protected] is much more professional than sharing an @aol.com account.
Creating a website is easy with the use of WordPress. If you need help, consider hiring a freelancer on UpWork or Fiverr. Someone can build you a simple site for less than $100, but you will need to budget for monthly hosting. I prefer SiteGround and they have some very inexpensive packages to choose from. The best part? All of this is tax-deductible against your rental income!
5) An Ad Campaign Anyone Can Run
In the past, business owners may have been afraid, ill-prepared and believe they lacked the skill to run an advertising campaign. With the power of Facebook, you can easily promote your vacation rental to a specific target audience in a specific geographic area for a low cost. You can also select demographic information including age, gender and areas of interest. I target and show my vacation rental to thousands of possible guests for less than $10 per day!
Comments