Are you looking for an effective way to advertise your vacation rental? Whether you are managing a cottage, apartment, resort, or any other type of rental property, generating bookings isn’t always easy. A well-planned advertising strategy can help get your rental in front of new customers and maximize your return on investment. From mastering the basics of online advertising to launching an influencer marketing campaign, there are many options when it comes to successfully advertising your vacation rental. Here’s an overview of the best strategies to employ.
1) Develop an Online Presence
Your website is often the first point of contact for customers when they are researching potential vacation rentals. Make sure your website is up-to-date, mobile-friendly, and showcases the unique features of your rental. Make sure your website is optimized for search engines (also known as SEO) to ensure potential customers can easily find it. Create accounts on travel booking sites such as Airbnb and VRBO. Additionally, consider launching social media accounts on platforms like Facebook and Instagram to post updates and promote special offers.
2) Leverage Video
Video is an effective tool for engaging potential customers. Create a brief video tour of your vacation rental to capture the attention of customers and showcase why your property is the perfect choice for their vacation. Upload the video to your website and social media accounts, and promote it through paid ads. These days, developing hard-hitting visual content drives more engagements than anything. Invest in making quality video content that highlights the best qualities of your vacation rental property, and make sure that customers you’ve had in the past comment positive reviews under your content as well, so that you can build a trustworthy presence across online platforms, too. Once you have a solid content library, you should then post videos to platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Instagram (reels) and Facebook. All of these platforms have great outreach and push video content on their algorithms better than just static posts–(but also you should support video content with static posts as well!)
3) Invest in Paid Advertising
Want to make sure your rental is seen? Consider investing in paid advertising across various platforms. Paid ads allow you to target an audience who are most likely to be interested in a vacation rental in your area. Use online ads to promote your property or special offers while in-print media such as billboards and magazines can also be effective. Beyond posting regularly on your social media, you can also post what is known as paid social ads–which are social media posts that you pay to get boosted. These will increase your property’s outreach across platforms and into the timelines of potential customers. It’s smart to target these paid ads in the community/region and even surrounding region that your vacation rental property resides in. It might also be smart to track the clicks you receive from these paid ads, so you can gauge how much more you may need to invest in, or if they are doing the job sufficiently with what you invested with initially.
4) Connect With Influencers
Influencer marketing is a great way to spread the word about your rental property. Connect with social media influencers who specialize in your local area or to capture the attention of customers who are interested in travel. Offer influencers a free stay in exchange for posts and stories promoting your rental. Another reason connecting with influencers is great marketing, is because likeability is an unbeatable trait when it comes to marketing. Someone with great influence amongst a widespread community talking great things about your property can go a long way. Just make sure you have the capacity to handle a potential influx of clients if you go this route–have a stable website that can handle high user traffic, as well as the means to clean the property, engage with multiple clients, and make sure your rental home is being run efficiently and safely. It may be wise here, to invest in a property management company, such as Valta–we make running a rental home seamless.
5) Reach Out to Local Businesses
For a more targeted approach, consider reaching out to local businesses. Ask them to display brochures or postcards in their establishment or link to your website from theirs. You can offer discounts to their customers to encourage them to book with you. Additionally, you could use other promotional materials such as postcards, flyers and newsletters. Local businesses usually already have the hearts of the surrounding clientele–they’ve been there for years, people know them, they have a good reputation. Potential renters will trust that your home is perfect to rent, if someone they know and trust and constantly do business with is vouching for you.
Conclusion
These are just a few of the many strategies you can employ to advertise your vacation rental. Invest in the right promotional channels and you’ll soon see an uptick in bookings. It may also be smart to combine a few of these strategies, if not all. With a little creativity and the right advertising strategy, you can make sure your vacation rental gets the attention it deserves from potential customers.