How To Market Your Vacation Rental to Millennials

Posted on October 1, 2015 by Maria Rekrut

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Apps, Millennials, and How to Market Your Vacation Rental or B&B in a Wi-Fi World.

Vacation Rental and Bed and Breakfast Owners are always looking for ways to attract new guests and retain customers. How do we attract the Millennial Generation?

The Millennial Generation is looking for reasonable ways to do things and cheap ways as well. That’s why such websites as booking.com are popular because it’s cheap and they can sit on their bed and do it. Some rental places have not only created apps and mobile websites, but also games and concierge apps.

A lot of hotels and vacation rentals are even thinking of restructuring as a whole and getting more technology and design to apply to the consumers. The age of advertising is changing and sometimes the structure of the hotel / vacation rental is something that might need to change as well. The new age is high on Wi-Fi, if there’s Wi-Fi they’ll go and I believe that is something that businesses are trying to adapt to as well.

Focusing on the apps a bit more, you have all kinds of apps that the new generation is using right now. Let’s start with apps that show you what is around your location, such as places to shop, restaurants, vacation rentals, bed and breakfasts and hotels. There are apps out there that show you where nearest gas stations are, where you can find food restaurants as well and even find attractions and events in that said place you are going.

Some also inform customers to the nearest hotels/motels, and places such as that as well, which is all in one app. Some of those apps are: IExit, RoadNinja, HotelTonight, which lets you book a hotel at the last minute. There are apps that let you book flights through them, such as: Hipmunk, which is a flight and hotel app, there’s also Kayak, which leads you to great deals on flights, hotels, car rentals and etc.

Booking.com, which has vacation rentals, B&B’s, villas and hotels for good prices with a pay later feature that you can use as well. You can filter to your needs and make sure you find the right hotel, motel, vacation rentals and bed and breakfasts for you.

Google Maps and Apple Maps is something a good handful of the 21st century uses, because everyone has an IPhone for the most part. When taking road trips it is especially useful if you are driving. TripAdvisor was the hottest app of the year, it has over 200 million vacation rentals, bed and breakfasts, hotels, motels, restaurants, attractions and so much more to look into.

Yelp was another one that was very popular for the millennials, which displays customer reviews for just about anything you can think of. Uber has become one of the most popular apps used as well, not just for traveling, but it’s like a new-aged taxi that takes you places for a fee. All you do is put your credit card into the app when you sign up and it takes it right out the moment you leave the Uber. Airbnb is still such a great app to use and website as well and millennials are the largest uses of this website.

The 21st-century has a different variety of apps that millennials use, some apps have it all in one and some are specifically for certain things, but that’s what makes the app generation something spectacular don’t you think?

Learn how to transform your rental property into the money making machine it can be!

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Reaching Out to Generation X and Y as a Vacation Rental Owner

Posted on October 1, 2015 by Maria Rekrut

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Confused about how to reach out to the younger generation? Social media got you down? Wondering what exactly an ‘app’ is and what it can do for you? Read on to find out!

Advertising to the Millennial Generation or Generation Y is one thing, but advertising to the millennial about travelling is another thing. It’s different because the 21st century consumers don’t travel as often as the generation before. If anything, the present generation only travels on holidays or spring breaks when they get a chance to get away from school, work or their business.

Most of the 21st century consumers either go to school full-time/part-time, or have a job that’s similar as well. The best time to get into the peripheral vision of the new generation consumer is to advertise at the right time The best time to advertise is around holiday’s, and  around times where you know traveling is going to be something that they are going to be doing, summer is a perfect time to attract the Millennial Generation of travellers.

When it comes to consumers and traveling, the Millennial Generation is one of the most tech savvy generations. They book online more so than they book anywhere else, and that is important to know because you want your ads to be where the consumers are.

Another thing that is good to know is that the new generation goes off  word-of-mouth quite a bit. If they hear that something works and it works very well, there’s a good chance they are going to use it. That’s how websites such as Amazon and EBay got their popularity. Someone told someone else about how reliable and cheap it was and then that someone told someone else and so on, the cycle continues. For vacation rental owners, it’s important to get good testimonials from past guests and publish the comments on your website so the younger travellers have a source of testimonials to refer to from past travellers.

Apps are something to look into, young travellers are owners of smartphones and the smartphones do everything for them and more. They can be used for pretty much anything in daily life. There’s booking hotel/motel apps made for smartphones especially and that’s another way to get your brand off the ground and hit the consumers you want to hit.

The Millennial Generation or Generation Y  download all kinds of apps, especially if they’re free. They are constantly on their phone and it’s rare when they are not. Today’s generation also trusts social media quite a bit, they are huge on Twitter and Facebook and things that cause us to interact with a company personally. As long as they don’t have to talk on the phone, or drive to a destination, the Millennials are up for it. Whatever they can do in the comfort of our own home, or on the comfort of their own phone, that’s the way to get to them.

Vacation rental Apps are important because it’s something the new generation is constantly into. A way that a vacation rental, or hotel, or even motel could get that kind of demographic traffic would be to create a business app.

An app that lets the new generation buy and check out your business while on the go. They should be able to see and make a reservation with the vacation rental or Breakfast and Breakfast owner, and they should be able to contact the owner directly through the App as well. That’s something that the Millennial traveller really enjoys.

There have been apps that let you do all the above and it has been shown to really help. Sometimes consumers don’t necessarily book hotels, or bed and breakfasts’ in advance, they wait until they get to the town or city they are going to and then do it.

An app is perfect for that because they can do it right when they are in the city/town/country and they don’t have to call or go to the hotel and risk them not having a room. A good App would be one that shows you if there is availability and then the consumer can choose if they want to continue or not to contact the accommodation.

Learn how to transform your rental property into the money making machine it can be! 

Get the Top 10 Marketing Tips for Vacation Rental owners sign up for our tips at: http://realwealthvacationrentals.com

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Marketing in the 21st Century for Vacation Rental Owners

Posted on August 26, 2015 by Maria Rekrut

Marketing for Vacation Rentals, Bed and Breakfast, Inns, Accommodations, 2nd home owners in real estate, motels and hotel owners.

Marketing in the 21st century for Vacation Rental Owners is something quite a few businesses should look out for—especially ones not originated in the 21st century. A lot of things have changed. From the way you do things globally and socially, to the way you get information across.

It’s in tune with social media, something we like to call ‘social media marketing.’ Social media marketing has been around for years, maybe even decades—but, it has changed drastically. There’s not really much of newsletters, or mailing out ads to get your business out there. Nowadays, you put your ad on socially used websites, so the current era can see them faster and easier.

The modernized era is the internet era, teens and twenty year olds spend quite a bit of time on the internet, as well as websites such as Amazon, EBay and most importantly Google. You even have the use of blogs such as WordPress, which is becoming popular by the second. Writing platforms being used and other social websites.

Speaking of WordPress, which brings me to the blogging aspect of the modernized era. The importance of social media marketing is also in tune with blogging. A blog means a weblog and what a blog essentially does is create a faster revenue for word-of-mouth for marketing and businesses.

The modernized era’s word-of-mouth tactic has been used widely since the beginning of the era. The current era talks a lot about what they see, what they hear and if it catches their interest they tell other people to check it out as well; which, leads to more people getting information and the cycle continues. Blogging can also be noticed easier by the media, which can lead to interviews by high people. Such as, if you aren’t in any sort of business and you are just starting out, a major company may see your blog and you could potentially have a job lined up.

You don’t come off on a blog as your preaching to your audience, it’s more on a friend level instead of a client level. One important thing about blogging amongst many others is the fact that search engines use blogs for key wording and specific topic content. Blogs are generally a community of people with similar interests, it allows people to comment on what you say and create a conversation from it.

There are some cons that come along with blogging, as with most things in life. Blogging is state of constant attention, it’s required that you spend and take your time to create daily postings.

You don’t want to clutter your blog, but you also don’t want to make too little postings on the opposing end either. In the marketing of the current era, blogging seems to be the top runner when it comes to marketing other than internet ads. So maybe this is the route to start going. It will take some time and much needed research, but we will adapt nonetheless to the present-day’s media marketing adventure.

Yes, I know it takes time to blog, but since google is looking for new material, you can add an activity blog on your vacation rental’s website, that way your website will move up Google’s listing sites.

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Adding Value to Your Home with Green Updates – By Tim Smith

Posted on February 14, 2015 by Maria Rekrut

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Adding Value to Your Home with Green Updates

By Tim Smith

Today’s home buyers are more environmentally conscious than ever before; as such, many prospective home buyers look for houses with energy-efficient upgrades. Not only do these upgrades tend to save homeowners money on energy costs, but they can also help to reduce a household’s carbon footprint — which is a must for anybody who’s trying to live a “green” lifestyle.

If you’re looking to sell your home, then, there are a few “green” updates you might want to consider making to increase your resale value while adding sales appeal in the process.

Install Energy Efficient Windows

One of the best upgrades you can make in terms of your return on investment is to install new, energy-efficient windows, such as double-pane windows filled with argon gas or innovative low-E windows. Yes, you’ll spend a little bit more on these windows, but they’ll be a huge selling point for your home and save you money on your heating and cooling bills in the meantime.

According to Care2.com, homeowners can see as much as a 65%-75% increase in home resale value with such an addition.

Upgrade Your Heating and Cooling System

Another excellent upgrade for homeowners to consider is that of upgrading their home’s existing HVAC system. This is especially recommended for homes with HVAC systems that are more than about 15 years old. A new system may include a new furnace, central AC unit, and even insulated duct work. To top it all off, a programmable or smart thermostat can help make the most of the home’s new equipment.

According to GreenBlizzard.com, homeowners could add as much as 30% to their home’s resale value by upgrading to an energy-efficient heating and cooling system. Of course, homeowners should also be aware that this is a substantial investment, as new energy-efficient HVAC systems can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 (or even more, in some cases).

Invest in Energy Efficient Appliances

Finally, today’s homeowners expect a home to have upgraded appliances. So if you’re going to be replacing your appliances before selling anyway, why not look into replacing the existing ones with energy-efficient ones? Specifically, replacing ovens, refrigerators, washers, dryers, and dishwashers with Energy Star rated appliances can help you add up to 18% to your home’s resale value, according to GreenBlizzard.com. In the meantime, you’ll also get to save yourself some money with these appliances in your home.

As you can see, there are plenty of “green” updates worth considering that can substantially increase the resale value of your home. At the same time, you can enjoy the peace of mind in knowing that the next people to live in your home will enjoy a reduced carbon footprint on your behalf. For more energy efficiency as well as other home ideas visit Modernize.  http://modernize.com

Real Estate Tip 3: A picture is worth a thousand words. Attractive, high-quality pictures really do sell houses! Share on X
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How to Generate More Valentine’s Day Bookings This Year

Posted on January 16, 2015 by Maria Rekrut

Paveya > Blog > How to Generate More Valentine’s Day Bookings This Year

Posted on January 14, 2015 by Abby Stewart
https://www.paveya.com/generate-valentines-day-bookings-year/

generate-valentines-day-bookings-for-vacation-rental-companiesThis year, Valentine’s Day is on a Friday and President’s Day is on the following Monday. This is a PERFECT circumstance for planning a Valentine’s Day getaway, as this will be a long weekend for many people who get President’s Day as a paid holiday off of work. Want to grab a few extra Valentine’s Day bookings for your vacation rental company this year? Then be sure to point out this message wherever you can – your social media accounts and email blasts are a great place to start. Check out more tips for generating Valentine’s Day bookings below. After all, $18.6 billion dollars was spent on Valentine’s Day gifts and celebrations in 2013. Grab more of that revenue this year for yourself!

Step 1: Create a Special Blog Post

Construct a blog post that will attract, inform, and persuade potential renters to choose your vacation rental company for their Valentine’s Day destination. For example “Why (insert your destination here) is the Perfect Valentine’s Day Getaway,” and “5 Places For a Romantic Valentine’s Day Dinner in (your city)” would grab the attention of those who are in the decision-making stage of the buying process; people who know they want to head somewhere for Valentine’s Day, but are just unsure of exactly where. Your blog post could be the catalyst they need to book their holiday in your city, and with your company, so be enticing, engaging, and creative with your descriptions to create allure for your destination on Valentine’s Day.

Be sure to include a Call to Action (CTA) at the bottom of your post with a graphic that draws readers’ attention, tells of your Valentine’s Day renting specials, and that links to your website where those specials can be found.

Step 2: Distribute it Through Email Blast

One way to get your blog post out in a timely manner, as Valentine’s Day rapidly approaches, is to send it out in an e-blast to your list of contacts and leads. Be sure to include information on your Valentine’s Day Specials within the email, but make the main focus be the advantageous blog post, not the deals, to avoid sounding too much like a sales message and less like the helpful source of information you want to be for your potential guests. Follow these tips for a successful Valentine’s Day blog post e-blast:

  • Include an excerpt or summary of your blog post, plus a link to the post on your site. Don’t include the whole blog post because then the recipient will have no reason to click and visit your website.
  • Include an image if possible.
  • Ensure your email template is mobile friendly. If you use a service like MailChimp or ConstantContact, your email template is likely already mobile friendly.
  • Include a link to your Valentine’s Day specials.
  • Include a message that this year Valentine’s Day is the Friday before the President’s Day long weekend

Step 3: Post/Advertise in Social Media

Be sure to post your blog post in your social media networks, like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and others, for maximum exposure immediately.

You can also create Facebook Ads out of the posts once you post them to Facebook and target them to the people who are most likely to visit your area on Valentine’s Day using Facebook’s ad management system. Facebook ads are great if you have a limited budget. Just determine how much

So go ahead and get started by following these steps to generate more bookings for your vacation rental company this Valentine’s Day. For more information or for other helpful marketing tips for your company, visit Paveya’s Vacation Rental Marketing blog.

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6 Steps to Painless Social Media Self-Promotion

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Maria Rekrut

Maria Rekrut here from Niagara on the Lake Cottage Rental.  I came across a great Blog on Self Promotion on Social Media that I wanted to share, with all of my Baby Boomer/Zoomer followers on my Social Media networks. As a Baby Boomer/Zoomer, this concept of self promotion goes against the very grain of how we were taught to view and do  business marketing.
Business Marketing was in the  3rd person person plural “We” not in the first person singular  ”I”  and the actual owner of the business was promoted by other forms of advertising and people.  Now all of the business strategies that I learned are changing over into using Social Media as a vehicle to Brand and Market your business product, whether you’re the brand or your product is the “brand”

I came across this great Blog by Marsha Collier that has a different perspective to self promotion that I found of great interest and wanted to share with you.

 

6 Steps to Painless Social Media Self-Promotion

A common topic for discussion is promotion for small businesses and personal brands. When it comes to social media, the responsibility for promotion falls on the shoulders of the own(chief cook and bottle washer). Even though my books are published by one of the top 10 publishers in the world, I still need to take responsibility for my own brand.

I’ve personally been promoting my work and books in the real world and online for over 15 years and it’s the most difficult task on my plate. Even on the “About” pages of my websites, I am loathe to blow my own horn. I might consider myself an introvert, or I might just feel the mere act is bragging.

To be fair to those who do it well, it takes nerve to think there are thousands of people waiting around to hang on to your latest words or hot new project. We may have products, businesses or books to promote, but not everyone has a similar promotional style.

1.  Social media is a bit like Dish Network’s Auto Hop. A feature which enables viewers to jump past commercials and get back to the show.

Especially when your promotional messages become too overwhelming — folks will just tune you out and unfollow. Your job is not to leave people feeling spammed. not what you plan to do. You are your brand. Your message is your topic.

2.  Promote others: Even if it chokes you a bit to give a hat-tip to the competition, social promotion is symbiotic. Helping others with pure intentions builds your social credibility.

3.  Stay on topic! If you have a business audience, keep the kitten and puppy pictures to a minimum and save the emoticons for your personal friends.

4.  Curate the best content that ties in with your online community; whether photo or product.

5.  Tell stories! Storytelling about successes is a favorite read. Do you personally have any? Perhaps stories of those who have benefitted from your work?

6.  Build trust by not sharing topics out of your wheelhouse just because they are trending. But do sprinkle personal posts, they bring humanity to your brand.

Lose any feeling of entitlement — no one is required to follow (or listen to) you. You need to romance your customers by engaging in conversations and commenting.

This has worked for me. If you’re into technology, e-commerce or customer service, you can also find me on Twitter, Facebook, or my website. I may not always be posting about the same topics, but I try to engage in the topics in which I think my customers are interested.

I’d love to hear from you about how you’ve grown your business.  How you are  using social media to grow your business.  What social media strategies have worked for you the most?  Make sure that we touch base on my social media channels.

Happy Investing
Maria Rekrut

The ideal social media sharing mix includes testimonials, links to other people’s content, and self-promotion! Share on X
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Wanted Student Interns – A Win Win for All Businesses

Posted on December 1, 2014 by Maria Rekrut

 

11-26-14 - InternsI have my first international student intern’s placement with Niagara on the Lake Cottage Rental coming to the end of her “virtual internship” Brianna is from an American University and she’s done exactly what I always wanted my interns to do.

What I always mentored to my student interns is that they get accustomed to work “virtually”. Brianna, is doing her 2nd internship placement, she didn’t need to do this she wanted the “international” experience. Brianna understands that she needs all that extra training in order to become competitive and she looked at us to give her the competitive edge.

I had a student at Niagara College, his name is Fernando Delgado who also did an extra placement with me to get more work experience. I know that both Fernando and Brianna will be successful because they did what they needed to do to get the competitive edge!!

That’s what the world will be demanding and expecting in the future from their “employees” or “contractors”.

I always wanted to give my student interns a head start into what the working world will look like in 2020.

By 2020 1 out of 2 people will be working as “contractors” from their homes, coffee shops, or where ever you have internet. The students who understood what I was trying to teach took it to heart, the others will be left behind looking for a “job”

It warms my heart that some of my student interns understood and embraced what I was trying to teach them.

I starting with my first business in New York City in 1982 and at that time my business and the contractors who worked for me were all virtual, here we are in 2014 and still the local colleges and universities are sending students out to look for a “job” when there are less and less jobs, while there are more and more “contract” work.

Even the placements are on a job site is a waste of time and energy it would be so much simpler to have the students “work virtually” like Brianna is doing.

Working virtually you wouldn’t need workmen’s compensation, plus all that wasted and precious travel time to get to and from the job sites.

By working “virtually” the students will really be getting the training they need to find “jobs” in the real world and get the “leg up” on their competitors.

These trainees will finally deliver to the people they will be working with or for, some quality of work and will be already trained to start producing excellent work. After all they got trained by a business owner who knows what is needed in the “real world”.  To Schedule a free consultation go to: http://ht.ly/F7eRi

Business Tip 4: Follow your passions. If you work hard, you can make a successful business out of anything. Share on X
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Blogging Your Way to Success!

Posted on August 9, 2014 by Maria Rekrut

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What is Blogging?

First off, blogging falls under the category of content marketing. Content marketing is a strategy geared towards using content (such as articles, blogs, social media, videos, etc…) to drive traffic to your website or business that will eventually convert into sales (or bookings for vacation rental managers and owners). Content marketing really isn’t the easiest thing to do, and it takes a lot of time and effort.  You won’t see results immediately and it can take years before blogging converts into bookings.

The act of blogging is simply writing a series of short to medium length articles (300-1000 words) on your website. There are many blog platforms out there that you can either add to your website, or build your website around (WordPress, Blogger, and Tumblr).

Why Should You Blog

1. Blogging is good, because if you have a great strategy, and actually publish good and interesting content, you might actually get a couple of articles to rank on search engines and generate traffic to your site.

2. Google likes it if you’re constantly updating the content on your site. Therefore, blogging is good for your website’s overall SEO.

3. If done properly, your articles should help to establish authority about your region. Which will in return help to establish credibility and earn trust with your readers.

 

Why it Might be a Waste of Your Time

 

1. For blogging to actually work, you need to write very helpful content, and write a lot of it. Realistically, one post per month probably won’t do anything for you. Writing a lot takes time. And if you’re not a good writer, or you don’t particularly like to write, creating good content will be even more difficult and more time consuming.

2. If your articles don’t generate any real traffic, what’s the point? Great question! If your articles don’t generate organic traffic, no one sees them, and you’re doing all of it for nothing.

On the other hand, you are helping your site a little in terms of SEO. But the chances that the effects are significant enough to improve your search engine rankings is debatable at best.

3. Writing just for the sake of writing is borderline useless, and most probably a big waste of your time. You need to real strategy behind your writing. Even if your articles do in fact generate some traffic, is the traffic just there for the article? Or is the article helping to convert readers into bookings?

4. You will only start seeing the traffic way down the line. We’re talking three to six months at best (excluding exceptions to the rule). And that’s if you’ve been doing everything the right way!

 

Conclusion about Blogging

More exposure is always good. There’s no arguing that. But when it takes three to six months before you start to see any significant traffic, that’s a hard pill to swallow.

Three to six months of blogging every week, about local news, attractions, restaurants and stories. Then maybe, just maybe you’ll start to see some traffic to your blog.

And how much of this traffic will actually turn into bookings? More realistically, how many of these readers will even sign up to your newsletter to receive future discounts?

Blogging really isn’t as “easy” as most are making it out to be. It has literally become it’s own industry, with it’s own conversion science behind it and high paid professionals that are hired just to do that one job.

At the end of the day, it’s a pretty big risk to take if you’re going at it alone. It’s a lot of time and energy that’s being focused on something that just isn’t a sure bet.

What I’ve found from blogging,  and what really counts in getting more followers to your blog is the frequency of  producing more blogs and posting them on all your social media network.  This is the way to reach your target market.

My audience finds my blogs on all my social media sites.  I’ve gotten more followers because of  both my blog content and frequency.   I’m blogging every day a few times a day and since I started to blog this frequent….guess what?  I have many more followers reading my blogs.

Whether you blog or not is entirely a personal choice and only you can decide if Blogging is worth your time and effort.

 

Happy Blogging,

Maria Rekrut

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Answer 10 Questions – Voila! You Have A Rental Marketing Plan

Posted on July 31, 2014 by Maria Rekrut

What a daunting thought of getting a Vacation Rental Marketing Plan started and how utterly boring and a waste of time.  Why do I think it’s a waste of time?   It’s  a waste of time because you probably don’t know anything about marketing,  or have a fuzzy idea about it, (as I did years ago ), you also probably don’t know where to start, and what will the end results be?  You’ll keep asking yourself……Is this the best use of my time?

Writing a Vacation Rental Marketing plan will be one of the boring parts of you business!!  None of us like to do it and if you’ve had any corporate experience in the process, it’s no wonder.  But planning is an absolute necessity if you want to be successful in your vacation rental business. So how do we reconcile our need to succeed with our propensity for procrastination?

Just re-frame how you look at planning. We hate planning because we remember the endless meetings, hours of research that doesn’t seem to get you closer to an answer and documents the size of An Historical War Novel.  But it doesn’t have to be that way. Developing a Marketing Plan is nothing more than setting goals and making a to-do list that will get you there. It’s really not much different than planning a party.

You’re basically creating a plan for inviting more people who want to spend their money staying at your vacation rental and  ( your guests will) tell other people why they should give you their money too.  Sounds like a great idea to me.  How about you?  Are you ready to join the party?

I’ve included a set of 10 questions that will help your process of creating an easy marketing plan.  Use this guide when you have 2-4 hours available so  that you can concentrate and answer these 10 questions:

Answer these 10 Questions and Voila! You’ve Created a Vacation Rental Marketing Plan

1.   Marketing Strategy: How will your marketing plan support your business goals?
2.   Mission Statement: What are you trying to accomplish, and why?
3.   Target Market: Who are you trying to reach with your marketing activities?
4.   Competitive Analysis: Who are you up against, and where do you rank?
5.   Unique Selling Proposition: What makes your business unique?
6.   Pricing Strategy: What will you charge, and why?
7.   Promotional Plan: How will you reach your target market?
8.   Marketing Budget: How much money will you spend, and on what?
9.   Action List: What tasks do you need to complete to reach your marketing goals?
10.  Metrics: How are you implementing, and where can you improve?

Once you have completed each step, you will have a marketing plan that you are ready to use as a blueprint for your marketing activities regarding your vacation rental business. What are your thoughts on the list?  Do you have any additional tips on how you developed a marketing plan? I have a simple marketing form I’d love to share with you, just comment below your interest in the form and I’ll email it out to you.  Please share your thoughts and advice below.

Happy Investing,

Maria Rekrut

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You Never Get A Second Chance To Make A First Impression

Posted on July 4, 2014 by Maria Rekrut

You never get a second chance to make a first impression when it comes to your vacation rental’s curb appeal, make sure your guests find your vacation rental inviting to their eyes and senses.

 

First impressions count when it comes to having guests choose your property over another vacation rental property. A majority of guests will not even get out of their car if they do not find the exterior appealing. The best way to improve your exterior should include washing windows, pressure washing roofs, vinyl siding. sidewalks, and driveway. Repairing and replacing shutters, gutters, and window screens are a must just a painting your siding and shutters.

If you are going to spend any money on renovations, the one area where you will see the greatest return is in the kitchen. Replacing light fixtures, installing under cabinet lighting, replacing cabinet doors and hardware. Replacing outdated shelving with pantry and cabinet organizers to maximize space. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on kitchen renovations, seek help from a professional who can guide you on your renovations and keep a budget in mind.

The front door to your home should invite guests to enter. Placing a new welcome mat and a group of seasonal potted plants and flowers are the first thing your guests will see. Cleaning or replacing the door knocker, locks, and handles, also painting the front door in a glossy, cheerful color that compliments the exterior color will make the first impression that much more appealing. Repair screen doors, porch light and house numbers are a few ways to improve your front entrance.

People associate the condition of your lawn and landscape with the condition of your home’s interior. Sweeping and weeding the street curb along your property, removing trash especially along fences and underneath hedges. Adding and planting colorful seasonal flowers in existing plant beds along with weeding and mulching plant beds. Mowing, seeding, and weeding the lawn should be done on a regular basis in order to keep up the appearance of your yard.

The cleanliness of your home is vital when owing a vacation rental. Eliminating house odors, especially if you have pet, can be particularly offensive to your guests. Cleaning carpets, area rugs, and draperies. Removing stains from carpets, floors, counters, sinks, and baths is also vital. The appearance of the kitchen and bathrooms will play a considerable role in your customers feeling comfortable in your vacation rental.

Your main goal when your guests first see your vacation rental is to be impressed by your curb appeal. Once they enter your home that impression should continue up to and including their bedrooms. You will never get a second chance to make a first impression. If they don’t like what they see outside, they’ll never walk inside. The view from the street can net you more traffic than you might think, make sure you make it work to your advantage.

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Real Estate Tip 4: Declutter, downsize, and deep-clean! Your buyers see what's there, not the “potential.” Share on X
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