Do not lose bookings to anxiety!

There is tremendous uncertainty about incomes, jobs, and personal wealth among our target market.  In order to avoid losing potential vacationers, that will not book a vacation just because they are uncertain about their future income,  we can address that anxiety by offering travel insurance.

We have all positioned travel insurance for the purpose of helping travelers in case unforeseen events prohibit them from taking their vacation.  Well, the most likely unforeseen event for many travelers is the involuntary loss of income and inability to pay for the vacation.  Some insurance companies will guard against this loss of income due to the loss of employment.

Take the time to find out the details about the employment requirements the insyrance company has – could be 1 year employed or even 5 years employed at the current company.  Also be aware of other potential conditions.

Once this information is clear to you, offer it to customers to help them ease their anxiety about booking their 2009 vacation home.  This can also become a differentiators for you and make you stand apart from your competition.

Ralf
LiveRez.com

See a recorded version of the webinar via our site:  http://liverez.com/downloads.asp

LievRez Email Marketing Webinar:  Bookings with Email Marketing 10 Must Do’s (Plus – What NOT to put in your Subject Line)

Here is a list of 100 words that you want to avoid in your email subject line:
 

All the best.

Ralf VonSosen
www.LiveRez.com

This tool is a must have for your online vacation rental marketing and online booking efforts.  Keyword Spy will will show you exactly which keywords your competitors are bidding on in Google AdWords and how much they are spending.  It will also help you learn which worked work well for different players in certain parts of the country.  Helping you to design a more effective PPC strategy.

For example, enter the phrase “sun valley vacation rentals” and discovered who is bidding and who is coming up naturally.  When you click on a website name, it will show you what words they come up for.  The first 10 search results are free and a great source of some base info.

http://www.keywordspy.com 

This is a must-know reconnaissance tool for Internet search engine marketers.

To help you make the most of your marketing dollar and utilizing the internet marketing tools available to you, come join us for a 30-40 min presentation.  I will discuss successes and not-so-successes that I have seen in the vacation home rental industry and in eCommerce when going after niche markets.

Follow the loink below and register today.  Space is limited and I promise you will walk away with some new ideas.

This is one of the things that scares them away from the vrbo and sends them towards a property management company that is experienced and equipped in dealing with the unforeseen things that happen during a vacation.  A good property mgmt company will be there to ensure they have a great vacation – from booking to check-out.  That needs to be you – their best friend.

How do they judge you to be that friend:
A quality website to get a feel for your company, the property, and the service you provide.

Clear rules - check-in/out, smoking policies, or pet policies

Good online pictures are also important.

Amenities are important (pool, hairdryers, computers, etc.)

Location information – map, attractions, etc.

Booking details – charges, taxes, etc. – Clarity is Key!

• Some questions you should anticipate:
  What if my flight comes in after your office has closed?
  What is the cancellation policy?
  Is housekeeping available?
  Is there a deposit or will charges be billed to my credit card?
  How many parking spaces are available to me?
  Are laundry facilities available?

Be their best friend, and they will be your best customers.

Ralf
www.liverez.com

Tood Folandsbee, of WebMarketingResources.net explains the best use of flash and animation on your website in a recent article.

While conducting usability testing with many people as they visit different websites, we hear lots of complaints about the use of Flash or JavaScript to cycle images and messages on homepages. We wonder: Is Flash truly a killer app? Or is it a sales killer?

I’m not talking about the Flash site introduction pages, which fortunately have nearly disappeared. I am talking about an increasing number of small sites which are cycling images, changing messages, and sending offers across the screen — generally causing havoc among people trying to understand an often complex webpage.

This is not a tirade against Flash or JavaScript. It is an appeal for improved usability.

Problems with Scrolling Messages

Here are the problems caused by changing messages and scrolling offers:

1. Distraction. A large percentage of people, especially those with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), find them incredibly distracting. It is difficult to read — let alone comprehend — a webpage where dominant images continue to change and distract.

   The first rule to get conversions is: Convey your value proposition. Make clear what business you are in and why it is of benefit to the reader. But Flash often distracts viewers from understanding this essential mess age.

   Eyes are naturally attracted to motion and light. If your visitors don’t finish reading a paragraph, they won’t understand the value proposition. And unless they understand your value proposition, nothing will happen. Our user testing constantly reveals this pattern of distraction.
    

2. Disappearing messages. Some sites cycle images and messages a few times and then stop. However, once the cycling has stopped, it is impossible to go back and look at the messages. Visitors become frustrated when they can’t review them.
    
3. Ineffectiveness. Flash does not seem to increase the effectiveness of messaging. Flash images alone convey little beyond an attractive look and feel, but these displays often consume 10% to 30% of valuable homepage real estate.
    
4. Transitoriness. When we allow test users 8 to 10 seconds to view a homepage — and then hide the page — they rarely remember the content of the Flash messages. Far more often they are able to remember simple static headlines.
    
5. Trained avoidance. Our testing indicates that Flash is becoming like banner ads that people have trained themselves to ignore.

A Better Solution — User Control

Let others continue to run Flash and lose conversions, while our clients implement this simple and effective solution: On every instance of Flash on your site use the common video icon controls for play and pause (and mute, if you use audio). Start with your primary message and let people move through the display if they choose. Such controls allow users to:

·  Run a display if they want to. ·  Stop on any message they are interested in. (Hint: Hyperlink the image to take users to an appropriate landing page.) With this approach you avoid annoying anyone. Flash can be an engaging, entertaining, and impactful tool if you simply yield control to the user and end the forced distraction.

If you watched users get frustrated day in and day out with cycling images and messages, you might lose patience — as we often do — with sites that don’t spend the time to determine exactly the kind of impressions they generate. As you explore new and supposedly engaging website technologies, be sure to test them before fully implementing them on your site.

Take the time to understand how your customers shop for their vacation rental property.  What information do they want to spend time on, and where the best place is to utilize animation.  I really like the concept – users want to have control.  I know my wife always does. : )

Lets talk about some different kind of matching available with Google Search Marketing to help you with both market your vacation rental home using pay-per-click and SEO:
1.  The exact match – an exact match of the terms you place inside brackets when you enter keywords into your account. If you were adding an exact match keyword to your account it would look like this: [beach house]. Ads associated with this exact match would only show up for those specific keywords, that is, for “beach house” but not for “rental beach house”.

2.  The phrase match – terms are entered with quotes around them. The phrase match “beach house” term would allow ads to show when a searcher put in “rental beach house,” “beach house vacation,” or “California beach house”.

3. Broad match – is a bit more complicated. With broad match, you simply enter your phrase with no special characters.  This is Google’s default way to add keywords. With “beach house” into your account as a broad match, your ad would display for any search query containing “beach” and “house”.

Broad Search has morphed into Expanded Broad Match.  Now for example, account could end up displaying an ad based on your broad match keywords of “beach house” when the searcher entered “sand” or “sunshine”.

Over time, Google has stretched the relationship between the broad matched terms to the point that it is often difficult to see any logical relationship between the searcher’s term, your account’s keyword, and the displayed ad. This often results in the ad displaying for terms that are not relevant.

There are several approaches you can take to minimize the damage.
Avoid the use of broad match altogether. Exact match and phrase match often bring excellent traffic while avoiding Google making questionable expanded match choices. If you decide to run with broad match:
Avoid using one or two word keyphrases. Instead, adopt a practice to only run broad match on terms with 4 or more words in the phrase. This will minimize the chances of the Expanded Broad match algorithm misapplying your ads.
Identify non-relevant terms that the ad displays for and add those terms as negative keywords. If a searcher enters a keyword that is included in your negative keyword list, your ad will not display. The negative term negates the ad from showing. Developing a negative keyword list is an on-going effort. Don’t be surprised if over time your negative keyword list becomes quite long. Tools like the Google Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal), a good analytics program, and specialized tools like PPCProbe (www.ppcprobe.com) can help you identify negatives.Broad match can be very effective, but use it very carefully.Ralf
www.liverez.com�

Their latest publication:  Search Marketing 2008 Benchmark covers all the latest trends in Search Marketing.  See an excerpt:  http://www.marketingsherpa.com/exs/Search08Excerpt.pdf

Couple of immediate take-aways:
 - About half of online seller will increase their PPC and SEO budget by over 10%.
 - Only House Email Marketing has a higher ROI than SEO & PPC
 - SEO and SEM positions are very hard to fill
 - Long URLs are not good.  Short ones are.

If this is an area you plan to invest a lot of time and energy, the ME Benchmark could prove to be a very valuable resource for you.

Ralf
www.liverez.com

The PhoCusWright Consumer Travel Trends Survey Tenth Edition

What does this mean to you, the vacation rental manager?  You better be online – in a simple & pleasant way.  Have an online experience that is similar to what travelers will find in booking business travel.  Vacation homes are right in the sweet-spot of the trend that people need a change of scenario to vacation.  Know your target customer, and niche – because you will get outspent in marketing by the big online travel agencies.

Ralf
www.liverez.com

OK – nothing new so far.  But here is the new statistic – the Average Google search has 4 words!!  One place to check out how different keywords, and keyword phrases compare to each other is in Google Trends:  http://www.google.com/trends

That means your target vacationers are not thinking about which word they should search on, but which phrase to search on.  Shoppers are no longer inputting single words or a couple of related words.  They are searching on meaningful phrases that define very specific target content.

So my advice is, think in terms of meaningful phrases that define what your target prospects are searching for.  Not ‘New York’ or ‘Skiing’, but ‘New York Family Ski Vacation’.

Happy booking!

Ralf
www.liverez.com