Business AspectsMarketingUsing TechnologyVacation Rental Owners

Vacation Rental Email Marketing (To Increase Bookings)

The travel and tourism industry is one of the largest growing sectors in the world today. It is no wonder that vacation rental businesses have a bright future. Vacation rental owners can boost their business using various marketing techniques such as social media, search engine optimization, but one of the most important and sometimes neglected tools to use is email marketing. It ss an effective channel to market your offerings that can achieve a return on investment (ROI) of 4,400 percent.

Here are some effective ways in which you can use vacation rental email marketing techniques to drive new and repeat bookings to your vacation home.

Get a quick overview of the best email marketing techniques to boost your VR bookings; check out the slides below!

Treat new subscribers as if they are already your guests

Information from Statista shows that welcome emails can generate about 320 percent revenue per email in comparison to other forms of emails that you send to your prospective customers. Welcome emails also dramatically increase your open rates by 86%.

How can you give a royal treatment to your new subscribers? Send a personalized greeting and be sure to include a warm tone and personalized subject line. Encourage them to book your vacation rental by including high-quality pictures of your property (keep the files small though) and be sure to keep the text to a minimum. Text doesn’t always convey the kind of experience that you offer at your property. This is the reason why you should shift your focus towards photos instead. You’ll want to avoid using stock images since they don’t offer your prospective guests the details they need to feel secure and warm about your property. It will be much easier for them to visualize the experience which increases the likelihood of them choosing your home for their trip. You can also shortlist various activities they might enjoy and don’t forget to suggest top rated restaurants and bars that you think they will enjoy at nearby locations.

Create visually appealing emails

While creating an email design for promoting your vacation rental service, you’ll want to stay away from boring white, standard email formats and opt for a nice email template instead. Online email marketing companies such as Mailchimp, Constant Contact and HubSpot offer simple tools to make your emails pop with color and design that your customers will appreciate. A word of warning though, don’t overdo it and be sure to take your time while developing the template since it should match the look and feel of your home and reflect your sense of interior or exterior design.

Inspire your prospective guests to travel

There are countless places where your prospective guests can travel worldwide. This might sometimes make it difficult for them to choose a location for their next vacation but the great news is that you can step in and make the decision-making process a lot easier by helping them make that decision. Using email marketing and especially by focusing on your content, you can show them why your property is the best choice for a vacation.

Do not shy away from sharing beautiful images of more than just your rental property itself. If your property is located near a mountain, beach, hillside, or any other special place, share beautiful pictures of the surrounding scenery along with “romance words” to create a visual picture in their mind. You want to captivate the imagination and compel them to consider your vacation rental. Get them to imagine how relaxing and fun it would be to spend leisure time at your place.

If you haven’t already, be sure to list your vacation rental at RentalTrader.com. It is a simple and quick signup process and is a great way to help you grow your revenue.

Offer limited-time deals during the off-season

Seasonality is something that the vacation rental industry has to face. It doesn’t really matter if your property is a ski lodge or a beachfront house. If you have your property in a leading tourist destination, then it is obvious that the region will be prone to peak season and offseason. You will likely have full bookings during peak season and may not have any bookings or limited guests in the offseason.

Instead of being disappointed with mediocre results, now is the time to redouble your efforts and increase your marketing in the off-season. You’ll want to brainstorm and think of any and all unique marketing strategies that could possibly be deployed. Off-season marketing also helps you build momentum for the next peak season.

You can create excitement amongst your prospective guests by offering a limited-time discount on a stay at your vacation rental. Offering a hefty discount over your total booking rate will compel travelers on a tight budget to choose your rental over others.

Be sure to set a tight deadline since many consumers make a reservation quickly due to the fear of missing out on the opportunity. Nobody wants to miss such a great deal when they are looking for an opportunity. You can also include a countdown in your email for reinforcing a sense of urgency in your prospective guests. This will further make your guests act fast.

Have a mobile-first email design strategy

Over 50 percent of all email conversations happen on mobile. This indicates that there is a high probability of your prospective guests opening the emails that you send them on their smartphones. This is the reason why you need to make sure that the emails are rendered well on various mobile platforms. If you don’t test your emails on iPhone and Android devices, your prospective customers will likely end up deleting your email in seconds.

You don’t have to fret about it. The entire process is not as complicated as it appears to be. The great news is that you don’t have to be an email development expert for designing mobile-optimized emails. You just need to use mobile-responsive templates. This will help you create your emails for promotions in minutes.

Refrain from using poor quality free and purchased marketing lists

We’ll be blunt: Buying an email list is a bad idea! Good quality email lists are nearly impossible to find so we suggest creating and building your own list which will take time but will yield the best results.

Recipients in a rented or purchased email list are typically not aware of your company and will mark your email as spam. Further, you don’t want to take chances and violate FCC rules since they require that email recipients “Opt In”.

Build your own vacation rental email marketing list

If you’re starting a new vacation rental business, now is the time to start collecting and building your database. If you’ve been in operation for some time already, you’ll need to mine your vacation rental guest data for email and contact information. This data is crucial so that when you send marketing information, you can include personal information such as name, date of the last stay, names of family members, and more.

Adobe’s Digital Marketing blog says that emotion influences over 80 percent of purchase decisions while only 20 percent of purchases are made from intellectual consideration. So, personalization plays a crucial role in triggering an emotional purchase such as a vacation and everything surrounding the process of deciding on where to travel and what to do.

Personalized emails receive 25 percent higher opening rates and a higher click-through in comparison to a standard emails. Also, personalized emails help you build a healthy and lasting relationship with the recipients as you focus on conveying relevant information to the recipient but with a personal touch. Consider offering something valuable for ensuring reader engagement. For example, you can consider sharing information about upcoming events in your region to entice your guests to return. You can also inform them about any upgrades you have made to your property while sharing high-quality images to pique interest.

Solidify your brand’s presence

Vacation rental email marketing helps you strengthen your brand presence on the web. Offering an amazing experience to your guests via email or invite them to visit your social channels and you’ll be on your way to building a solid reputation in the vacation rental industry.

Having a good reputation will set you apart from the crowd and will also help you develop a loyal customer base. Digital marketing offers you a plethora of benefits so be sure to use cost-effective approaches and focus on service and effective communication with your guests.

Get to know your guests

You can use email forms, polls, and can also conduct online market research while developing two-way conversations with your prospective guests. It will help you learn more about their preferences and the information that you gather should be utilized in developing promotions and content.

Considerable savings

While using email marketing tools to promote your vacation rentals, you will be able to send instant messages to your prospective clients. You can also confirm direct bookings and carry out other communications through emails. This also implies that you will have to bear fewer costs and will be able to manage bookings and communication on your own instead of hiring staff. Once you start implementing marketing strategies you will discover how seamless it is to connect with prospective clients.

By utilizing simple and effective vacation rental email marketing techniques, you can attract prospective guests to your vacation rental property. The vacation rental sector is quite competitive and you may face a lot of competition if you live in a prime tourist destination. However, by applying effective email marketing strategies, you will stand out from the rest and with work and endurance, the result with be more guests at your property and increased revenue.

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