The rental business is booming. People are traveling more and shredding away the COVID-19 fears.
With the right strategies, your rental business could be the best in your neighborhood (and it’s not that hard).
You simply have to ensure each step of a visitor’s journey is smooth as butter. You can of course start by looking at the best vacation rental websites.
Throughout this piece, I’ll discuss more ways to elevate your rental management.
Table of Contents
Diving into comprehensive software solutions
Imagine an automated software that does most of your repetitive tasks without you having to lift a finger. This of course starts with automatically listing your property for the correct date so you don’t over/underbook yourself. Then, listing it across various platforms at once is another superpower you can enjoy. Then you get to manage communications if you want to. Regardless of the booking platform, the right software lets you access all your communications at one place.
When a guest arrives, you can make your software automatically send them welcome messages, rules, discounts for extension or anything else.
Did you know you can make your software automatically adjust your prices for you? Depending on how frequently the user looks at your property, what’s your current demand, competitor pricing, etc. software may help you book higher profits.
Of course, other features include being able to lock/unlock your doors, lights, and shades remotely if your home has smart equipment.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. When a user searches for anything on a search engine, the best-optimised results show up on top. It directly impacts your bookings, revenue, and the entire business. Do note that SEO isn’t something that takes effect immediately. It’s a long-term process but has the best and most beneficial and passive results.
Similarly, you can also help your business by expanding your social media exposure. Social media lets you reach customers and showcase your property better. You can include videos, photos, reviews and so much more.
A good way is to collaborate with other influencers and pages in the same industry. They’d share your content either for some money or a barter share with you if your page has good metrics.
You can of course simply use your page to page to post educational or relatable content that may get shared organically.
Crafting a user-friendly website
We just discussed SEO, but that isn’t exactly profitable without a website. Moreover, there are other benefits to having a website.
For starters, bookings made through your website will help you save platform commission. This directly increases your profits.
Then, it of course helps build brand visibility. You’re in control of what and how to show. This means you can showcase your features, reviews, and everything else.
Now there are a few ways you can make your website better than your competitors. Make sure it loads fast (<2 seconds), is responsive and is well-optimised for SEO.
The unsung heroes: automation tools
I mentioned AI earlier, well, automation tools are more or less similar to AI. Of course, not all automation tools use AI but their powers are still magical.
Imagine sending the right welcome message as soon as your door is unlocked, or sending in some food late at night at a fixed time!
You can also automate a review request at the time of checkout.
The fact that guests wouldn’t have to interact with you adds to your conversions as well. You can simply ask guests during signup if they’d like or not like interactions. If they like it, you’re free to go meet and greet, if they don’t, these tools are a blessing.
From start to finish: ensuring a memorable guest experience
I guess that’s about it. Do note that there’s no one proven, ultimate, do-it-all strategy. If you wish to elevate your rental business, you must make use of multiple strategies at once.
It’s a multi-edged sword. You’ve to do a lot of things right, but also know when to stop. Eg. sending a dozen “welcome to our home” messages isn’t exactly welcoming.
Also, always be ready to experiment and explore. You do not necessarily have to stick to one software or tool just because you signed up first for it.
Go play around with others for a broader experience that gets you more bookings as well.
You can simplify it by breaking down the entire process into parts. There’s the user’s search for a rental > they find you (website/third-party platform or anywhere else) > making the booking > checking > stay > checkout.
Your goal is to simply list out everything you can do right for each of these steps, and then implement them.
Do note that while you may know how to get things done, I’ll recommend partnering up with experts to set your website up, optimize SEO, speed or even set up listing apps!
