In the current economic climate, the temptation is to cut back on marketing and promotion. While this may seem like a sensible course of action, it has the potential to harm your business in the long term.  If possible, now is the time to put space between you and your competition.  Travelers are still out there.  They are just looking for different ‘values’ in a vacation and have changed their decision process for booking that next trip.  Invest in adapting your business and marketing efforts to these new Values and Vacation Planning Process.

Following are several specific online marketing activities to focus on.  None of these have to cost much money, they just have to be executed diligently and with very specific goals in mind.  I will cover each of these items in more detail in future posts.  For now, use this as a checklist for your online marketing activities:

• Focus on Campaigns/Specials Be specific with your marketing activities, making them value based and targeting specific events or seasons.
• Flexibility in your Rates, Offline&  Online Do not limit your travelers in the # of days they can book for and adapt pricing to different demand levels.
• Invest in your Website  Create and update content to be engaging and useful.
• Optimise your Web Site  Search engine optimization, page layouts, and click-paths are all areas toi look into.
• eMail Marketing  Use email campaigns to promote special offers and collect new email addresses at all possible opportunity.
• Protect your Brand Online  Make sure your brand is visible online and becomes something travelers trust in and can recommend to friends.
• Monitor Online User Reviews Continually monitor reviews posted on popular travel sites
• Use a good Analytics package Do not fly blind, make sure you know your traffic, clicks, and conversions information.
• Respond to Market Conditions Look what is happening in the world, country, economy and respond to these changes.

In summary, challenging times lay ahead for the vacation home rental industry, but if your website and online presence are in order, the internet sales channel can be an area of revenue growth for your business in 2009-10.

LiveRez