One of the best low-cost marketing methods for your vacation rental company is email marketing. One of the most successful marketing endeavors, email earns $42 for every $1 spent, or an astounding 4,200% ROI, according to the 2021 Hubspot report.
But starting is always the most difficult part. But don’t worry—we’ve got you covered. In this post, we’ll walk you through 10 approaches to put a productive email marketing strategy for vacation rentals into practice and increase bookings. Let’s start now!
1. Establish concrete objectives for your vacation rental emails.
When composing your vacation rental newsletter, you should have a goal in mind. Any work that lacks a clear goal runs the danger of alienating readers. So, consider why you are composing your emails.
Create short- and long-term objectives, and use them as a roadmap as you create material. Do you wish to inform visitors about your location before they come? Is it your intention to foster trust or advertise an exclusive deal at your rental? Your newsletter will be more focused and efficient the more clearly you have stated your purpose.
2. Don’t only send announcements; include content in your emails.
Writing a newsletter is simple, but creating one that potential visitors will want to read can be difficult. More than just news and promotions should focus on your vacation rental emails.
Concentrate on producing some engaging and worthwhile material. Provide compelling reasons for your subscribers to open your emails when they land in their inboxes. Include content that benefits your guests’ and potential guests’ lives to keep your vacation rental emails engaging and pertinent.
3. Expand your database via a public WiFi network.
First, having a sizable database is crucial whether you are just starting in the vacation rental industry or have been doing it for a while. Keeping track of your guests’ emails once they make a reservation for your hotel is the simplest approach to expanding your email contact list.
Sadly, customers will only have that choice if they make a direct reservation through your vacation rental website. You wouldn’t be able to gather their email address if the reservation was made via an OTA site, such as Airbnb or Vrbo.
But hold on—all is not lost!
You may still capture their email addresses by setting up a guest WiFi network on your premises. How does it function? It’s quite easy: visitors will be directed to a homepage where they must provide their names and email addresses to access the Internet after connecting to your WiFi when they arrive at your property.
Installing a guest WiFi network in your vacation rental will allow you to get emails from all of the other visitors and the person who made the reservation.
4. Encourage any potential visitors to travel.
There are innumerable places for visitors to stay around the world, from opulent resort hotels to luxurious mountain lodges. With so many choices, it can occasionally be challenging for people to decide.
Through impressive vacation rental email marketing campaigns, you can aid potential guests in making that choice by demonstrating why your property is the ideal option for their getaway.
Do not be afraid to provide lovely pictures of your property and its features. Feel free to post pictures of the surrounding landscape if your property is close to a beach, mountain, or hillside. Include pictures of past visitors taking part in any activities that visitors can participate in.
Sharing these experiences and photos will help you rapidly grab people’s attention. Potential visitors will find it simpler to picture themselves having fun and unwinding at your house.
5. Determine the frequency.
Set a frequency goal for your email distribution before concentrating on consistency. Will you distribute your rental newsletter on a weekly, quarterly, or annual basis? The best course of action is whatever serves your needs and is something you can fully commit to producing.
Do not rush the creation of a newsletter because it can take some time. Create a practical plan for distributing your newsletter, and set a reminder so that you can always fit composing it into your hectic schedule as a vacation rental owner.
6. Make emails using images
Limiting text to a minimum when designing emails for the travel and hospitality industries is essential. Despite how important words are, they frequently fall short of correctly describing what potential visitors can expect when they stay at your establishment.
This is why you ought to pay more attention to pictures.
Include good photos in your communications, but stay away from stock photography. Actual images of your vacation rental are much preferable.
Prospective visitors will find it much simpler to picture the experience when they see these pictures in your emails. As a result, there will be a higher chance that they will make a reservation with you.
Finding a template with a pleasing appearance will also improve your consistency. If graphic design is not your strong suit, don’t panic; free email services like Mailchimp can assist you.
Here are some additional pointers to assist you in producing a stunning and captivating newsletter:
- To help readers connect your rental with the publication and its caliber, place your logo at the very top of the page.
- As you would if you were writing an article for your vacation rental blog, use headings to break up the material.
- Look for some appropriate, high-quality photographs to include in your discussion.
- For a more polished appearance, make sure you maintain components like font size and style throughout each issue of your newsletter.
- Include a Call-to-Action that directs readers to your website so they can make reservations at your hotel.
7. Welcome all new subscribers with an email.
Sending welcome emails pays off. Compared to other sorts of emails, welcome emails earn 320% more income per email and may also boost open rates by 86%.
So, give your new subscribers royal treatment and treat them like special guests. Send them a welcome email with a greeting and a customized subject line.
By providing them with high-quality images of your home and a summary of the activities they may take part in while staying at your rental, you can persuade them to make a reservation.
8. Construct some intriguing subject lines
Simply getting people to open the email in the first place is one of the hardest problems every newsletter writer has. Every day, travelers looking for lodging receive a ton of emails. If your subject line is uninteresting, many individuals won’t bother to open your email, and you may lose the chance to book them.
Remember the four “U” words: unique, urgent, ultra-specific, and useful when creating your subject line. With eye-catching subject lines, you can stand out from other email senders and convince your audience that they might miss out on something truly special if they don’t open your message.
9. During the off-season, present limited-time offers.
Whether you own a beachfront home or a ski lodge, the vacation rental sector is subject to seasonality. While you do have peak seasons, you also have off-peak seasons when just a small number of visitors stay at your hotel.
The low attendance shouldn’t deter you. You have the ideal time during the off-season to develop original email marketing ideas. By keeping your company in the minds of your subscribers during the off-season, off-season marketing enables you to create momentum for your next peak season.
Offer potential guests a limited-time discount to stay at your vacation property during the next high season to create enthusiasm. For instance, if a potential guest books within the next 48 hours, you may generously discount their entire stay by 40%.
Setting a short deadline appeals to customers’ worry about missing out (or FOMO). To avoid missing out on such a terrific price, prospective guests will likely book within 48 hours.
To further emphasize the sense of urgency and that time is running out, you can even include a countdown in your email, similar to the example above. This will further motivate potential visitors to book soon!
10. Use “mobile-first” email design principles.
Your potential customers are likely to open your emails on their cellphones because almost 50% of all email opens take place on mobile devices. Additionally, launching a mobile-responsive email design can raise the number of unique mobile clicks by 15%, according to a thorough Mailchimp analysis.
For this reason, you must ensure that your emails display flawlessly on mobile.
But don’t worry, it’s not as difficult as it seems
To create mobile-friendly emails, you don’t need to be an expert in email development. All you require are mobile-responsive email templates. Free email marketing solutions like Mailchimp provide optimized templates that render on a range of devices, allowing you to quickly and easily send beautiful, mobile-friendly emails.
To conclude
There you have ten efficient strategies to promote your vacation rental home via email! There is a lot of competition in the congested vacation rental market, so that’s a given. You’ll not only stand out from the competition if you successfully implement these suggestions into your email marketing approach, but you’ll also experience more visitors to your vacation rental.
