Every holiday is an opportunity for you to market your vacation rental in a fun and intriguing new way. October tends to be a slower month for many vacation rentals, but marketing your rental property for Halloween is an effective way to bring in more bookings and potentially fill your calendar. This blog covers nine vacation rental Halloween marketing strategies and tactics to scare up your rental bookings.
Contents
- Why Market Your Vacation Rental for Halloween?
- Strategy #1: Plan in advance
- Strategy #2: Have fun with social media marketing
- Strategy #3: Start a Halloween email campaign
- Strategy #4: Write Halloween-themed articles for your rental website’s blog
- Strategy #5: Create enticing offers for guests
- Strategy #6: Decorate the house with subtle nods to Halloween
- Strategy #7: Create a Halloween-themed welcome basket
- Strategy #8: Upsell Halloween-themed experiences
- Strategy #9: Provide Halloween entertainment for a night in
- Main Takeaways
Why Market Your Vacation Rental for Halloween?
Is it really worth it to market your vacation rental property for Halloween? Here are a few of the potential perks.
Increase conversion rate and bookings
By marketing your vacation rental property using blogs and social media posts (two of the strategies below), you can improve your search engine optimization and increase the number of people clicking on your website. With more clicks comes more interest in your vacation rental property, and as more people book a stay, you’ll earn more profit.
Offer a festive and memorable guest experience
Hosting a vacation rental property is all about the guest experience, and catering your guests’ experience to the current holiday is an excellent way to make sure they’ll never forget their trip. From decor to Halloween-themed upsells and spooky entertainment amenities, having some fun with the holiday is rewarding for you and your guests.
Earn positive reviews
Whenever you put more effort into the guest experience and truly make it special, you’re likely to receive some amazing reviews from guests who had a great time at your vacation rental property. Good reviews can lead to more bookings in the future, which can eventually result in additional earnings.
Strategy #1: Plan in advance
The first key strategy to marketing your vacation rental property for Halloween is to plan in advance. In fact, that should always be part of your marketing strategy, regardless of the time of year or upcoming holidays. If you want to attract guests to stay for Halloween, you’ll need to adjust your listing ahead of time. A month or even earlier in advance, you should begin putting together a plan for various social media posts or maybe even a promotional video with a Halloween theme. Don’t wait until Halloween is only a few days away to figure out your marketing strategy!
On your social media pages, it’s a great idea to promote fun Halloween activities and events in your area. Haunted houses, apple orchards, pumpkin patches, hayrack rides, and scary movie marathons are all perfect for this. By promoting these attractions and events on your social media profiles, you can advertise all of the entertaining experiences people can have in the area. At the same time, you’re offering those who want to go to these attractions a place to stay while they’re there: at your vacation rental property.
Halloween is a great holiday for visual content that’s perfect for platforms like Instagram and Pinterest. We’ve detailed guides on Pinterest marketing strategies and Instagram marketing strategies, read them to elevate your rental business on social media. Post aesthetically pleasing photos of your vacation rental property, complete with clever captions. Encourage your followers to interact with your content by including questions like, “What’s your favorite kind of Halloween candy?” or “What are your plans this Halloween?”
Another fun idea to promote your vacation rental property around Halloween time is to run a social media contest or giveaway. For instance, you could make a post that offers a chance at winning one free night at your vacation rental for everyone who follows, likes, and shares your post. This increases interaction with your post and generates interest in your vacation rental property.
Strategy #3: Start a Halloween email campaign
If you already have a mailing list filled with past and prospective guests, you can send out a Halloween email promoting the spookiest local events. Before starting this campaign you can read our vacation rental marketing tips. Use an eerie-looking or Halloween-themed email template for an easy method of adding fun and eye-catching graphics. Anyone who reads your email and is interested in attending the local events may end up booking a stay at your vacation rental!
A tip for managing your email list: Using a Property Management System, or PMS, to automate the process of sending emails out can save you a lot of time! Learn more about various home automation for vacation rentals and increase your efficiency as a vacation rental property owner.
Strategy #4: Write Halloween-themed articles for your rental website’s blog
If you have a blog on your vacation rental property’s website, Halloween-themed blog posts are a great way to drive traffic to the page. You can compile your activity recommendations into an article or write other Halloween-related content. For blog posts, you don’t have to directly promote your vacation rental; this kind of content falls under the umbrella of branded shareable material. This type of material is ideal for attracting attention from new potential guests and boosting your website’s search engine optimization. While creating this content, always keep your target market and ideal guests in mind. If you’re running a family-friendly vacation rental property, you’ll definitely want to steer clear of guts and gore.
Strategy #5: Create enticing offers for guests
For many vacation rental properties, peak season lasts through the summer months and then slows down quite a bit in September and October. You can offer a special spooky promotion during these months to attract guests to your vacation rental. For instance, you could offer free tickets to various Halloween-related events for the lucky guests who are able to book a stay in your rental over the holiday. This could be tickets to a haunted house, a pumpkin patch, a hayrack ride, or any other fun Halloween attraction. You could even run the offer for the full month of October in order to fill up your calendar! Another fun offer is providing pumpkin carving supplies for all guests staying in your vacation rental so they can enjoy a festive activity together.
Strategy #6: Decorate the house with subtle nods to Halloween
Incorporating some fall hues and Halloween accessories is a great way to decorate for the holiday holiday. A little fall-themed decor can go a long way. If your vacation rental has more of an open, minimalistic feel, keep up the subtle vibes with some added fall colors. Burnt orange and deep purple throw pillows, plus a black branch wreath, can set the mood. Some pumpkin spice or apple cinnamon candles are a perfect touch as well.
However, if your vacation rental’s style is more kitschy and cozy, you might be able to add some flashier decor to match. Pumpkins, witches, bats, black cats–you have plenty of options to choose from! Even giant fake spider webs can be an amusing addition to your Halloween decorations.
Strategy #7: Create a Halloween-themed welcome basket
You’re probably already familiar with the idea of a welcome gift basket for your guests, but what about tweaking it to fit the Halloween theme? A few items you might want to include are a fall-scented candle, Halloween craft kits, a bottle of wine, a classic horror movie on DVD, and of course, some candy! You can select personalized items depending on the particular guests that have booked a stay at your vacation rental. A welcome basket is always a great way to improve the guest experience and make your guests feel special.
Strategy #8: Upsell Halloween-themed experiences
One upsell you could offer your guests in September and October is a pumpkin carving experience. You could simply provide all the supplies needed for pumpkin carving: pumpkins, carving tools, tea light candles. This could be a memorable experience for families, groups, couples, or friends staying at your vacation rental property. You could also work with a chauffeur service to offer your guests transportation to and from all of their Halloween activities.
Strategy #9: Provide Halloween entertainment for a night in
If your guests plan to spend Halloween night in and don’t have any events to attend, make sure they still have a great time by providing some Halloween entertainment. One easy way to do this is to have streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime available for your guests to watch as they please. There are hundreds of horror movies available to watch on these streaming services. You could also provide a few horror movies on DVD (plus a DVD player). A copy of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and your guests’ night in is complete.
Main Takeaways
Want to market your vacation rental property for Halloween? Here are nine strategies.
- Plan in advance.
- Have fun with social media marketing.
- Start a Halloween email campaign.
- Write Halloween-themed articles for your rental website’s blog.
- Create enticing offers for guests.
- Decorate the house with subtle nods to Halloween.
- Create a Halloween-themed welcome basket.
- Upsell Halloween-themed experiences.
- Provide Halloween entertainment for a night in.