8 Proven Strategies to Increase Direct Bookings for Your Short-Term Rental
Optimize Your Website for Direct Bookings
Your website is the first step towards increasing direct bookings. This is the first place potential guests will go to learn about your rental business. Before booking a stay, people want to know about your property and your location. They want to know about your amenities, costs, and payment methods. If your website isn’t set up for direct bookings, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to increase your bookings! Your website should display your calendar and rate information, as well as direct booking links to your preferred booking sites, like Airbnb, HomeAway, or FlipKey. With a few tweaks, you can make your website more booking friendly. Here are some tips to get you started.
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Use Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) Strategically
Online travel agencies (OTAs) are big players in the travel industry, and they can be very beneficial to your short-term rental business. OTAs have the power to increase your bookings, but they can also decrease your direct bookings. How? By offering your guests a price-match guarantee. OTAs price-match guarantees are meant to help consumers find the best deal on the market, but these guarantees can hurt you as a short-term rental host. If someone finds your rental on an OTA, sees the price, and then goes through the price-match guarantee process, they can get your rental at that lower price. OTAs can be great for increasing your bookings but do so strategically. When listing your rental, opt out of the price-match guarantee. This will ensure that your rental is not displayed at a lower price on the OTA.
Increase Exposure with SEO
Your website is essential for increasing direct bookings, but it’s also important for SEO (search engine optimization). SEO is a proven way to increase your exposure and drive more traffic to your website. When done right, SEO can help your rental business get discovered. When you optimize your website for SEO, you’re improving its discoverability. This means that people can find your rental business through a variety of mediums, like Google, other search engines, or travel-related websites. When people can easily find your website, they can also easily book their stay. And why wouldn’t they? If your website is optimized for SEO, it will be clear about your pricing details, amenities, and payment methods.
Take Advantage of Email Marketing
Email marketing is a powerful way to increase direct bookings and build your rental business. It’s important to start building a mailing list as soon as possible. This can be done easily with a tool like Mailchimp. When you start building your mailing list, don’t sell to your subscribers. Instead, give them valuable content, like tips for short-term rental hosts. The more your subscribers learn about short-term rental hosting, the more likely they will book with you.
Collect Reviews and Testimonials
Reviews and testimonials are powerful ways to increase direct bookings. But these aren’t just nice to have; they’re required on some booking sites, like Airbnb. When a guest books your rental, they might want to see what previous guests thought about their experience. If your rental doesn’t have reviews or testimonials, they may decide to book elsewhere. By collecting reviews and testimonials, you’re increasing your exposure and building trust with potential guests. 90% of consumers say that online reviews influence their purchasing decisions.
Utilize Automation Tools
For many short-term rental hosts, marketing and managing their properties can be a full-time job. Fortunately, there are automation tools that can help you streamline your marketing efforts. For example, one of the best ways to automate your marketing efforts is with an auto-responder. An auto-responder is an email sequence that is sent to your subscribers on a set schedule. By setting up an auto-responder, you can control your marketing efforts. You can automatically send welcome messages, request reviews, and send out informative content. By automating your marketing efforts, you can reduce the amount of time you spend on marketing. This means that you can spend more time growing your short-term rental business.
Build an Engaging Community
Building an engaging community around your short-term rental business can help increase direct bookings. With the right community, you can get more referrals, collect more reviews, and increase your overall brand awareness. For example, you can create an Instagram community, called an Instagram hashtag campaign, around your location. These campaigns are meant to engage the community with a specific topic or theme. To kick off your hashtag campaign, select a theme that is relevant to your short-term rental business. Try to select a theme that isn’t too specific, but also one that is unique to your rental business. Now, encourage your community to post photos using that hashtag.
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Build an Engaging Community
Building an engaging community around your short-term rental business can help increase direct bookings. With the right community, you can get more referrals, collect more reviews, and increase your overall brand awareness. For example, you can create an Instagram community, called an Instagram hashtag campaign, around your location. These campaigns are meant to engage the community with a specific topic or theme. To kick off your hashtag campaign, select a theme that is relevant to your short-term rental business. Try to select a theme that isn’t too specific, but also one that is unique to your rental business. Now, encourage your community to post photos using that hashtag.
Utilize Property Tools
Property tools are another way to increase direct bookings and build your short-term rental business. Property tools include things like welcome letters, maps, and welcome baskets. These tools help your guests feel welcome and appreciated, which can lead to higher ratings and more direct bookings.
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Conclusion
Your rental business can’t thrive if you don’t get direct bookings. Direct bookings are an important part of any short-term rental business. With the right strategies and tools, you can increase your direct bookings and make your rental business thrive. From optimizing your website to leveraging social media, these strategies are sure to boost your bookings.
