Online vacation rental marketing tips for a recession

admin — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:11:44 +0000

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

Now THAT is TARGETED Marketing – Travelocity pops my trip up on a Music Site

admin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:50:50 +0000

Earlier this week I was researching some travel information on Travelocity for my trip to Charlotte, NC for the Eastern VRMA show at the end of this month. I got some flight and hotel information for my budgeting plans. I will make the actual reservation a bit closer to the travel date.

The next moring, while I was spinning on my trainer in my garage and listening to music on songza……SURPRISE!!!……up pops a Travelocity ad about going from Boise to Charlotte.

Personalized Travel Ad Based on a Previous Search

This is truly amazing marketing.

Targeted marketing from Travelocity on a completely different website, on a different day, and at a different time.

: Trip is Based on a Search I did a Day Earlier

This is amazing stuff and is setting the expectations of travelers as to how they will interact with their vacation provider.

Kudos to Travelocity.
LiveRez.com

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Online vacation rental marketing tips for a recession

Now THAT is TARGETED Marketing – Travelocity pops my trip up on a Music Site