Vacation Rental – 5 Things you Must Avoid in 2013

Mar 19, 2013

If you own a vacation rental, you will definitely look for ways and means to increase the occupancy rate and generate more revenue from your rental. There are many of experts that regularly give you guidelines on how to go about it, and these tips can be useful and credible, too. However, while you should make it a point to follow advice from experts, you should not follow them blindly and mindlessly.

Here are some vacation rental tips that you should avoid if you want to be successful in your business venture.

1. Focusing on established outbound promotion can fetch good outcome:

   If you are still stuck using traditional marketing efforts, you are losing out on a lot of potential clients. The world of marketing has changed considerably and is no longer restricted to catching attention of people who do not want to notice you. This means deviating from ads in magazines and newspapers, radio and TV advertisements and PPC. Instead, focus on getting found by people who are looking for what you have to offer. This will mean getting a professional-looking website that is search engine optimized (SEO), registering for free membership on listing websites eg. VacationCluster.com and using social media platforms to spread the word about your vacation rental so that potential customers can find you easily. While traditional marketing methods can still get results, you will notice better results if you change your marketing efforts to include inbound marketing tactics.

2. Rely on Google Adwords and PPC advertising:

   As a vacation rental owner, you may not have the necessary expertise and skills to run a Google Adword or PPC campaign. As a result, you may not have the knowledge of how to run these campaigns successfully to get the desired results. This can work out to be pretty expensive, especially if you own a property in a popular vacation destination and have to compete with other owners for popular keywords. If you are not familiar with Google Adwords and PPC, you should stay away from them altogether. It would be better to concentrate on search engine optimization (SEO) of your website so that it ranks high on search engine results. This will allow you to get organic traffic and people who are genuinely interested in renting your property during their vacation.

3. Removal of Data and saving clients’ information is a misuse of time:

   There are many vacation rental owners that do not believe in data removal or saving the particulars of their clients. If you are following the herd, it is time to change and rethink your business strategy. Regardless of where your vacation rental is located and how big your business is, it is necessary that you have a database that has all the information about your existing and potential clients. You can do this by creating a simple Excel spreadsheet with all the relevant information and updating it as and when necessary. Also, opt to invest in email marketing software that allows you to stay in touch with your current and potential customers so that you can keep them updated about any promotions or marketing efforts you undertake. You will be amazed at the response you can get through this seemingly innocuous marketing effort.

4. Renewing all listing sites:

   There are many listing sites today that offer all kinds of incentives to buy their memberships. It can be tempting, but that is not the way to do business prudently. If you are already a member of listing sites, analyze the number of leads and the bookings you have received from each site. If a site does not give you a good return on your investment, you should not renew the membership for that site. Also, you should not get tempted by new sites, as the last thing you need is to spend all your time managing your multiple memberships without being certain whether these new sites can deliver results. Stick to listing sites that deliver results.

5. Having your own rental website is not necessary:

   Many home owners are content with having their properties added on a listing site. However, this is not enough. If you want to be competitive and have an edge over your competition, you should have a professional-looking website that allows potential clients to book the rental and pay for it online. You need not worry about not knowing a thing about websites, as there are many graphic designers and companies that will be more than willing to design your website and host it for you for a nominal fee.