Welcome to January of 2021, the perfect time to analyze your digital marketing strategies and tactics.
NB: This is an article from TravelNet
There might have been a few curve balls handed out in 2020, but four things that continue to stay the same are the biggest challenges in hospitality digital marketing. Warning, this article might open up your mind to statistics and challenges you didn’t even know existed in your vacation rental management companies marketing department. So buckle up as we dive deep in the complexities of digital marketing, the cost of human resources, guest acquisition costs, and the domination of OTA’s in the vacation rental industry.
More Complex Than Ever
Think back to 2000, or even as recent as 2010 and what marketing tactics sufficed as above average and return on investment generators. It was as simple as banner advertisements on a local website, basic search engine optimization (SEO), and a manually sent email blast once a month. Your phones also were ringing consistently with inbound phone reservations and you did not rely heavily on website bookings. Isn’t it crazy to think your website didn’t need to be mobile optimized, let alone mobile friendly?!
Utilizing marketing campaigns and website structure on mobile devices is one of the hundreds of marketing strategies your vacation rental management company should be utilizing and that is just the beginning. Moving past 2010 to most currently, 2021, there are hundreds of hospitality marketing tools created for a variety of goals such as brand awareness, direct bookings, guest retention, employee experience, increased revenue, and more. A few examples include conversion optimization, automated email marketing, advanced SEO, cart abandonment, retargeting, paid social media, organic social media, and paid search.. Your vacation rental management company might be wondering where to begin? That is where hospitality digital marketing services come into play. Your marketing department does not need to know the Cost Per Click (CPC) on the Google Advertisements or the top keyword in your region. What your marketing team, revenue team, and management needs to know is that your website is getting increased traffic, reduced guest acquisition costs, and increased revenue. (We don’t mean to scare you here, we just want you to be aware of the real life scenarios.)
Did you know that the industry average of a traveler putting their email into a pop up on your website is between 1 to 3 percent? If you didn’t know that or know what your conversion optimization rate on your website pop up is, that is okay. Different metrics matter to different companies, some vacation rental management companies would find more value in a statistic in the last 30 days their website pop up captured 637 guest emails. The benefit of a website pop up capturing guest data means it is putting the guests email into the CRM where your vacation rental management company will be able to stay top of mind with brand awareness and discount offers straight to the guests email to entice them to book.
