13 Vacation Rental Advertising Strategies for Increased Success

Running a short-term rental business without incorporating vacation rental advertising is like throwing a party and forgetting to invite any guests. Not a good idea.

Advertising goes hand-in-hand with the success of your business. You can’t have one without the other. It helps build your vacation rental brand and keeps your property visible to your target audience.

With all the marketing noise floating around online, it can be difficult to sort out the good ideas from the bad. That’s why we’ve put together a list of our top ideas for how to market your vacation rental property.

Read on to find out what exactly these strategies can do for your business.

Why Is Vacation Rental Marketing Important?

The benefit of a good vacation rental marketing strategy goes way beyond just getting your property seen by guests. It has multiple benefits that will boost your business revenue in both the short and long term.

A sound vacation rental marketing strategy can help you to:

More bookings

The more your property listings reach your target audience, the more bookings you will attract. When running a successful vacation rental business, your bookings should take priority. It will make up the majority of your revenue and will determine the success of your business.

Vacation rental marketing strategies will help build your online presence and promote your property listings to a wider audience. In this way, you’ll be able to draw in more future guests looking for a property like yours and increase your bookings.

Gain credibility and trust

The longer your vacation rental is consistently visible to a wide target audience, the more you’ll gain credibility in the industry. Increasing your brand awareness by providing an exceptional guest experience will also build trust.

Trust and credibility are crucial in an industry where your guests have the luxury of choice. It can be the difference between booking your own property versus booking your competitor’s.

Build relationships with other businesses

Once you’ve established yourself in the vacation rental market, other local businesses will get to know you too. They may be interested in building a partnership that could benefit both of you.

This is fantastic for offering an enhanced experience to your guests. You could negotiate special discounts, free gifts, or special activities for your guests. Not to mention promoting other businesses in the process.

Grow your client base

With effective vacation rental marketing, you will be able to reach a variety of brand-new potential guests.

Through social media campaigns and online marketing, your client base could grow exponentially. This means more eyes will be on your property, making your future marketing much easier.

Scale your business

It’s safe to assume that there are no vacation rental owners out there who would be against growing their business long-term. One vacation rental property could turn into two. Then three. Then perhaps a whole franchise. The possibilities are endless when marketing your vacation rental business effectively.

Read on to discover our top marketing tips for boosting the reach of your business.

13 Ways to Master Your Vacation Rental Advertising Strategy

Vacation rental marketing does not need to be overly complicated. In fact, choosing to do a few things well, rather than a lot of things poorly, will be more beneficial for your business in the long term.

Here we list 13 different ways to market your vacation rental, with a few tips on how to nail each one. However, you should not feel pressured to incorporate all 13 at once, especially if you’re just starting out.

1. Create an eye-catching listing

If you’re just starting out with your online marketing, one of the first steps to take when advertising your vacation rental property is to create an attractive listing.

A property listing’s job is to represent your vacation rental as accurately and attractively as possible. It needs to communicate your vacation rental’s features and amenities, display photos of what guests can expect when they arrive, and make sure the most important information and house rules are known. Here are some expert tips for getting your listing just right:

Create a catchy title

The main goal of your listing headline should be to grab the attention of those scrolling through listing sites. Your title should accurately represent your listing, while still sounding enticing enough to encourage visitors to click on it.

Try to avoid basic titles like “Two-bedroom house in Boston”. This gives no insight into any unique features of your property and does not highlight anything exciting.

Instead, try to use descriptive words in combination with the highlights of your property to make your title shine. For example, you could use catchy phrases like “dazzling views”, “beach paradise”, or “luxury escape” to tantalize site visitors.

Write an interesting and informative listing description

The description forms the lion’s share of your property page listing. When done right, it can turn a mildly interested visitor into your next paying guest.

Your description should detail exactly what guests can expect. It should also convey important information that guests need to know. Make sure to include where the vacation home is located, how many bedrooms and bathrooms it has, and facilities on offer, like free Wi-Fi, or a swimming pool.

Try to use descriptive words to make your place sound appealing. It also helps to give prospective guests an idea of what activities they can do while on holiday, like going to the beach, hiking up nearby mountains, or visiting a national park.

Although listed separately on most listing sites, your description will also display your nightly rate, the check-in and check-out times, and the house rules for your vacation rentals.

Invest in quality photos

The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” may be old, but it’s still true. When prospective guests are scrolling through listings online, their eye naturally goes to the featured image of your listing. From there, one of the first things potential guests will do after clicking on your listing is scroll through the rest of your photos. High-quality photos are worth their weight in gold.

So what does this mean? The quality of your photos could make or break your listing. Potential guests could even abandon your listing if they find your photos underwhelming. This makes high-quality photos arguably one of the most important things.

Top photographers know that the easiest ways to get your photos top-notch are to:

1. Make sure there’s good lighting, preferably natural light.
2. Take wide shots from corner angles to accurately show off each room’s features and size.
3. Make sure the area photographed is neat and clean, with some cozy touches (like a blanket draped over the sofa).
4. Hire a photographer to take professional photos.

Make sure all information is up to date

Having a potential guest contact you to make a booking, only to find out that your listing information is outdated could lead to a bad guest experience. This is more likely to happen if crucial information like your availability or pricing is not kept up to date.

For example, if a potential guest wants to make a booking, only to find out that your prices are higher than advertised because you forgot to update your listing, they may feel scammed and decide not to make a booking at all. This could result in lost revenue and bad reviews.

2. List your property on several online travel agencies (OTAs) for better exposure

Listing on several popular online listing sites reaches a wider audience compared to listing on just one. And once you have created a show-stopping listing, it’s simple to just copy and paste them onto different listing sites.

Having active listings across the leading OTAs like Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, and Tripadvisor means that you can capitalize on each website’s traffic and audience. By doing this, you can extend the reach of your listing.

3. Automate tedious tasks to have enough time for your marketing efforts

An outstanding vacation rental marketing plan for marketing your vacation rentals does not just happen overnight. It requires time and effort. There are a few options, one of them is hiring a property management company. However, vacation rental software can make the job of vacation rental hosts and managers easier and faster.

Vacation rental software tools can free up your time by automating all your repetitive tasks. This way you can focus on what contributes to your business growth.

iGMS offers you all the necessary tools to scale your business, at your fingertips. This software keeps your marketing and operational tasks on track.

4. Let your glowing reviews speak for themselves

Nothing elevates a listing like glowing 5-star reviews from past guests. It shows that your listing isn’t just for show and that you deliver an amazing guest experience too.

Make sure you give no reason for a negative review by keeping your vacation rental spotless, perfecting your guest communication, and making sure the check-in and check-out process is flawless. Once the guest experience is perfected, it’s easy to leave your guests reviews and ask them for ones in return to make your reviews section shine.

5. Leverage social media

Social media is a game-changer when it comes to vacation rental marketing. It’s an excellent channel to reach a wider audience. It also gives you fantastic opportunities for marketing your vacation rental for free.

Here’s a breakdown of the best social media sites for marketing vacation rentals, with tips on how to take advantage of each site:

Facebook

As one of the first social media platforms to gain a mass following, Facebook offers one of the largest audiences for social media marketing. One of Facebook’s most useful features is the many groups and communities, where people with common interests are able to gather online.

A vacation rental owner can find Facebook groups and communities interested in short-term travel. They can use these groups to market their vacation rental properties. This way, they can be sure that their social media audience is genuinely interested in the advertising.

For hosts with a digital marketing budget, it may be worthwhile looking into paid Facebook ads too. Facebook ads target specific audience groups on the social media site to boost your reach even further.

While it is more of an investment, vacation rental property owners and managers have found the tool to be effective in driving traffic to their listing site.

Instagram

Instagram is the ideal social media platform for shining a spotlight on the aesthetics of your vacation rental property.

Instagram is highly focused on photos and videos, rather than lengthy text. The best method for advertising on Instagram is to use the beautiful images on your property page to fill up your social media pages and stories.

You could even hire a professional photographer to take updated photos for social media every year, or when you host any special events.

It is quickly becoming the go-to social media platform for rental owners to showcase their properties. Use an infographic maker to ensure your post stands out and reaches specific audiences. With its engaging visuals and sleek, easy-to-use design, it is the ideal way to capture attention and emphasize the attractive aesthetics of your vacation rental property.

Another smart idea is to keep an eye on your guests who post their own photos at your vacation rental property and tag your account. By sharing these posts on your own page, you will always have fresh content. You will also open up yet another way to engage with previous guests.

YouTube

YouTube is the king of video content. It’s the ideal place to post video tours of your property to give guests a better idea of what to expect if they book a stay at your vacation home.

While it’s possible to create video tours yourself to market your vacation rental, hiring a videographer to shoot and edit your video may produce a more professional result, especially if you do not have much experience with video production.

Pinterest

Pinterest, like Instagram, is also an image-focused social media site. Although it features lots of DIY and how-to ideas, it can also be an effective social media channel for advertising your vacation home.

A smart tip to advertise your vacation rental business on Pinterest is to do some research into what Pinterest visitors are searching for that applies to the vacation rental industry and your property specifically.

For example, potential guests may be searching for “best vacation rental getaways near the beach” so it will help if you use similar titles in your posts. This will help your images appear in these search results and draw in more organic traffic to your listing site.

TikTok

With all the rage among Gen Z, TikTok is the ideal social media channel to market to a younger audience. This is especially beneficial for vacation rentals that have amenities that will appeal to a younger crowd. For example, if your property features a home theatre or game room, or is in an area with exciting nightlife.

Similar to YouTube, TikTok showcases video content. The main difference is that videos on TikTok are only up to three minutes long. This short video style suits advertising vacation rentals very well because you could create short, punchy video tours that highlight how exciting your property is.

You could also use your photos taken by a professional photographer to easily create a slideshow video in minutes with free video creation software like Lumen5.

6. Create a business website for guests to book your vacation rental property directly

Once you’ve got your property listed on all the popular online travel agencies and you’ve perfected your social media game, it’s time to start thinking about creating your own website.

Having your own website opens your vacation rental business up to even more digital marketing opportunities. With a website of your own, your vacation rental has a chance to be found by more guests through search engines.

Another added perk is that you can start attracting direct bookings for your vacation rental. This means you’ll be paying less service fees to third-party listing sites — and taking home more profit at the end of the day.

The best part of creating your website is that you don’t need to hire web developers or a web development services company. There are many website builder options available, like Wix.com or WordPress, to help you create your professional website in a few simple clicks.

Even better, iGMS offers a website builder on the Beta version so that hosts can manage every aspect of their vacation rental in one convenient place.

7. Take advantage of Google My Business

Google My Business is a handy feature that allows you to create a free business profile. This means you can be more easily accessible to loyal guests and curious travelers searching for your business directly.

Search engines like Google are massive, with approximately 175 new websites being created every minute! So any chance to make your business and website stand out from the crowd is one you should take.

8. Invest in pay-per-click advertising

Investing your hard-earned money into advertising can seem a bit daunting at first. Especially when exact results can’t be guaranteed and when there are many free advertising options to explore.

However, paid advertising like Google ads is effective when it’s executed well. It can help advertise your vacation rental more directly to your targeted audience. Google makes this possible by analyzing the search patterns of potential guests and sending your property ads to those most likely to be interested.

9. Incorporate search engine optimization

Search engine optimization, better known as SEO, is a professional digital marketing tactic. It has been proven to be effective in attracting organic traffic to your listing or website. Good search engine optimization practices can help your website rank highly on search engines like Google so that it can be found easily.

A powerful SEO strategy means investing time and effort into the long-term success of your marketing strategy. SEO is also one of the most cost-effective strategies for building a successful business. As costs for Google and Facebook advertising are constantly increasing, it’s becoming more expensive to break through the competition.

Read this guide to master the basics of SEO and fill your website with relevant content that ranks highly in search results.

10. Set up an email marketing strategy

While SEO, paid advertising, and social media are effective ways to draw in new guests, email marketing is a fantastic way to stay in direct communication with previous guests and maintain a loyal following. You also don’t need to be as informed in email marketing as professional vacation rental marketers. You just need to understand the unique selling points of your vacation rental listing.

Through email marketing, you could send out monthly newsletters and promotional discounts to keep your vacation rental company at the forefront of your guest’s minds. By keeping your loyal guests engaged with email marketing, you could encourage repeat bookings.

11. Foster local partnerships

The vacation rental industry is made up of more than just vacation homes. Local restaurants, entertainment establishments, and cultural sites all contribute to the fabric of the larger hospitality industry.

Forming partnerships with local businesses will give your vacation rental business a major advantage. Through these partnerships, you’ll benefit from mutual promotion. You can also organize special discounts to provide the ideal guest experience. This would be especially useful to do during local events and festivals when tourism is boosted in the area.

Another way to network would be to join vacation rental forums. Here you’ll find like-minded hosts and business owners who can help support you by sharing knowledge and their experiences.

12. Offer specials and discounts

Everybody loves a good saving. During off-seasons, most travelers may hold off on making a booking until a discount is on offer.

Use this to your advantage by advertising regular discounts on your website, listings, and social media. Travelers will be more inclined to book a stay at your vacation home if they are getting a good deal.

This does not mean you have to slash your prices in half. Even a 10% discount during a low season will help draw in a booking you may not have had otherwise.

Dynamic pricing tools can assist with discount management, as their advanced data analysis allows for greater insight into pricing strategies. Many property managers, property owners, hosts, and co-hosts make use of dynamic pricing services and they often speak to the success they have seen as a result.

13. Stay informed about the industry trends in vacation rentals

The vacation rental industry is constantly evolving. New trends like hosts needing a vacation rental website emerge as old ones die out. New technology continues to disrupt the industry and win hosts more bookings.

Luckily, there are tools that help hosts and property managers stay informed with the latest market insights on the short-term rental industry, like Transparent and AirDNA. With this insight at your disposal, your business will be able to stay ahead of the competition in the long term —  the ultimate goal of any business. You can also use these market insights to inform your vacation rental marketing plan.

About the Author

Callan Riddles is the Content and Social Media Specialist at iGMS. Callan has a passion for finding new ways to help vacation rental businesses thrive. In her free time, she loves to travel, read, and experience all the new things that life has to offer.