The First Step in Effective Marketing for Your Vacation Rental: Knowing Your Guest

As a short term rental owner or property manager, you’re ready to get your properties out there and drive bookings. You know you need to market your rentals the right way. 

You have a plan in place for:

• website copy for your direct booking site
• blogs to drive traffic
• property descriptions to highlight your amenities
• email marketing to build relationships
• newsletters to provide value
• social media to promote your business

But you may be missing the pivotal first step that you need before any of that can happen: getting specific about your target audience.

The Biggest Mistake in Marketing

Every time I chat with a vacation rental owner or property manager, I ask them the question: Who is your ideal guest? 

And so often, I hear property managers say something like this: Well, we really want to be fully booked, so we’re marketing to everyone. 

This is the biggest mistake you could make when it comes to marketing your vacation rental.

Yes, you’d love to be fully booked. But if you’re trying to appeal to everyone, you’re doing it at the expense of clear, focused, targeted marketing.

Why It’s a Mistake

Here’s the thing. Your home or brand is NOT ideal for everyone. A home that’s perfect for families with young children might not be perfect for a bachelorette weekend. Multigenerational families are looking for different amenities than digital nomads. 

When you try to appeal to everyone, your messaging ends up being vague and meaningless. It doesn’t really speak to anyone in particular. 

People need to be able to picture themselves in your properties. They need to feel like you’re talking to them when they’re reading your words, as if your home is meant just for them. That’s what’s going to make them want to book.

And if you think about it, if your messaging attracts the wrong guests, they may not end up loving your place when they stay with you. This could lead to negative reviews, zero referrals, and disappointed guests. 

But when you attract the right guests, they’ll love your property, be wowed by its features, and rave about how perfect it was for them. 

Knowing Your Guest

So before you step into your vacation rental marketing and content creation, get to know your ideal guest. Who are they? 

Gathering Information

Let’s look at what you could do to gain a little clarity on your target audience:

• Do some research. Who typically travels to your area?
• Think about your features and amenities. Who will love them?
• Look at your past guests. What are they like?
• Read your reviews. What did your guests love (or not love)?
• Send out a survey. Ask guests for feedback.

Getting Specific

Once you’ve gathered some general information, it’s time to get more specific. Here are some questions to consider.

Market – Who is your target market? This can be families, leisure, business, last-minute travelers, digital nomads, pet-friendly, wedding crowd, etc.

Demographics – What are the demographics of your target market? Think about their age, gender, and where they’re traveling from.

Interests – What are your ideal guest’s interests and hobbies? Think about who they are and what they value.

Travel preferences – What are their travel preferences? Is it important to them to have hotel-like amenities, strict cleaning, ease of communication, dedicated workspace & wifi, or proximity/walkability?

Budget – What is your ideal guest’s budget? Are they looking for a deal or are they happy to pay a premium for luxury accommodations?

Reason for visiting – What is their reason for traveling? Are they in your area to relax at the beach, visit all the theme parks, hit the national park, or be close to the convention center?

Feelings/emotions – How do they want to feel on their trip, or after? Do they want to relax, reconnect, feel less stressed, feel inspired, feel invigorated?

Putting it Together

After doing a deep dive into your guest’s persona, compile the information to reference as you plan your content, and share it with your team so everyone is on the same page. 

I love using this information to create an avatar. This involves giving your person a name and writing their story based on the information you’ve collected. You can really get creative here and have some fun.

Here’s an example: 

Becky is a 40 year old working mom of three. She and her family love to explore new cities when they travel. They love checking out museums, sampling local cuisine, and having an authentic experience that goes beyond the typical tourist spots. It’s important to them to stay somewhere clean and modern with multiple bathrooms, and it needs to be close to the action so they can easily walk or hop on public transportation to get where they’re going. If it means paying a little extra, Becky is game. She wants to make sure she’s staying somewhere with high standards. Becky wants to leave her trip feeling inspired and reenergized. 

Creating an avatar allows you to picture a specific person when you’re creating your messaging and content, almost like you’re talking to a friend. It can help make your words more conversational, personality-driven, and specific. Give it a try!

Why We’re Doing This

At the end of the day, we never want to waste an opportunity to make our messaging clearer and more specific. If you appeal to the specific market that’s perfect for your rentals, you’ll attract guests who love their experience, write five-star reviews, and recommend you to all their friends.