This article covers 10 different ways to promote your listing on Airbnb that will result in more customers paying higher prices and staying for longer. This is an in-depth article of all of the things that most Airbnb hosts don’t do. They’re leaving money on the table. If you do these things, I would bet money you will see results!
Some things might sound obvious, some things not so obvious. I’d really appreciate it if you’d leave a comment in the section below as to what you’ve found new, useful and interesting.
Okay, that sounds obvious, but it’s an easy thing that anyone and everyone could and should do, but most people don’t do!
Of course, you need to get your guests’ permission to do this and be GDPR compliant (see GDPR definition here), however, once you have email addresses they are like gold dust, and can drive engagement and traffic for your listing (and indeed traffic back to your own website) and generally promote your listing on the internet.
Here are six ways ways to collect email addresses:
Here’s an example of the sign-up form I use:
One of the main purposes of a website is to collect leads/contacts/email addresses. I can build you a website. Please see Site in a box for more information and get a stunning website for a very low fixed fee. Please see this link for more information. Here’s an example of a website I built for a client recently:
The benefits of your own website are huge. Let’s have a look at a few of them:
This goes hand-in-hand with having a website. However, even if you don’t have a website you can still make great use of social media by posting really superb images of your property. The saying “a picture tells 1000 words” doesn’t come from nowhere! Here’s an example from Instagram of a really stunning post:
“If you are regularly posting great pictures of your property that really make it shine, this will build trust with your audience that they will be staying somewhere high quality.”
In addition to pictures, I also post screenshots of reviews, particularly on Facebook. This “social proof” shows people real-life evidence of other people who appreciate your property. And of course, if you link back to your page on Airbnb, Booking.com, TripAdvisor etc, people can then go and read those reviews for real, and the more engaged they are with your property, the more likely they are to book it.
Going hand-in-hand with that, many of the more sophisticated online travel agencies (booking.com, Expedia etc) Use what’s called re-targeting. This means if you have visited a particular property page on their website, they will send you emails about this property and it may well pop up on Google search results. You can read more about retargeting in this video (It’s worth watching):
Credit: Surfside PPC
In your property leave marketing literature with your branding material and most importantly business cards, but also a welcome letter with your headed paper, and a nice branded “house manual“. (Please see my separate article about branding your Airbnb).
There’s a good reason why retailers have Black Friday sales. They work. Booking.com does them, so you can too!
If you give people a limited period of time in which to book something, this creates urgency and a desire to make a decision quickly if the discount only lasts for 48 hours, for example.
Also, on a very simple level special offers are a good reason to reach out to people, and is something which would be a great subject for a mailshot. (I recommend you use Mailchimp (they have a free plan for up to 2000 contacts) for sending mailshots with the email addresses you collect.
Mailchimp is one of the most competitively priced providers on the marketplace, and you can view real-time information about who has actually opened your emails and who hasn’t, which links have been clicked, and which haven’t. Essentially enables you tweak and target your further mailshots in the right way (i.e. Great marketing intelligence).
Put (very) simplistically, the more “noise” there is about your property on the Internet (this applies to any website) the more exposure the website, or in your case, the property will get.
Therefore, although harder to measure, it will not do any harm at all to mention your property on Pinterest, Cora, other Facebook pages, blogs, and really any other online resource that you can think off. Again the more mentions you get (in appropriate and relevant places) the more interest in your property there will be.
If you have your own website, and once again we can create this for you, you can add blog posts.
Great examples of blog posts about your property would include things like:
Essentially, anything that’s relevant to your property is useful. Blogging can get complicated, and there’s literally million of internet and youtube posts about it; but for this purpose let’s keep it straightforward:
The two Golden rules to follow are that the article (blog post) is useful to the reader, has a couple of images in, and references your property once or twice (don’t go crazy). Once again “a picture tells 1000 words” and pictures helps it with engagement.
If you look at this website (satisfiedsleepers.com) for example, The more content I publish, unsurprisingly the more traffic I have to the website. The same applies to your property.
Facebook ads are great because they can really target the people you want to reach out to. For example, if you want to target people who live within a 10-mile radius of your property, you can do this. This might be relevant to – for example – promote your page to people who have relatives who might want to stay at your property whilst they’re visiting people in your area.
One thing to be aware also with Facebook ads, is not to go crazy. Be very careful with the budget, and create several variations of your advert. Now, to the newcomer this might sound really complicated, however actually isn’t. Here’s a video of how to create Facebook ads that you might find useful:
Credits: Ben Heath
We’ve talked about pictures and reviews already, however there are other things to point out in your promotions of your property that are really important. These include the following:
One of the most important lessons I learned when I started my sales and marketing career was that one promotion is not enough (this could be a mailshot, phone call, or these days and Internet advert).
Xerox the photocopier company in the late 1990s did a survey which suggested the customer needed seven “touches “(i.e. contacts of various sorts) for them to close a deal. My personal view is that you don’t need seven contacts to insure someone, but don’t send one newsletter or make one Facebook post and expect to get a flood of bookings. It doesn’t work that way.
People take notice when they have repeated contact from a business, ideally in multiple forms. So keep going, and keep promoting.
OK no, I’m not sponsored by Nike (!) but the fact is that if you don’t take action on these points, nothing will happen, whereas if you do take action, even if it’s one step a day, then you’ll for sure see an uptick in your results.
One of my business mentors used to use this quote, which I found highly inspirational: “Good things come to those that wait, but only the things left behind by those that hustle”. Isn’t that the truth?! (Original quote by Abraham Lincoln).
Good things come to those that wait, but only the things left behind by those that hustle.
Abraham Lincoln
A great video I found for taking action is here, and is an awesome resource for getting going:
(Credits TedEx Talks)
I hope you found this resource useful. If you have I’d really appreciate if you shared it on your social networks. If you’d like to contact me about this please feel free to reach me via email to [email protected] or contact me via our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/satisfiedsleepersblog/