Digital marketing strategies for vacation rentals to boost bookings
How to effectively market your vacation rental to draw in guests
The competition for bookings is intense. Effective digital marketing is essential—it can be the deciding factor between your vacation rental remaining vacant or booked throughout the year. Our marketing strategy is customized and focused. We prioritize reaching the right people, in the right places, at the optimal times, rather than simply maximizing exposure.
What truly distinguishes our approach to vacation rental marketing is our emphasis on local nuances. Each destination is unique, so we adapt our digital marketing strategies accordingly, whether it’s for desert locales, lakefront villages, or coastal towns. For example, our tactics for marketing homes in Capri, Italy differ from those we use in Colorado. This local specificity makes Plenty of Rooms digital marketing strategy exceptionally effective in the industry.
Marketing short-term rentals involves extensive work to establish a compelling online presence for your home.
Take a closer look.
Why Digital Marketing is Essential for Vacation Rentals
In today’s world, travelers extensively research their destinations online. Digital marketing is crucial for engaging potential guests where they are most active—be it on their smartphones, in their email inboxes, or across their social media feeds. But the stakes are higher than simply boosting bookings (although that’s a significant part). Here are the key advantages of digital marketing, particularly when it’s locally focused like Plenty of Rooms approach:
- Expanded visibility among potential guests in specific target markets
- Increased chances to attract repeat guests
- Access to real-time results and data analytics
- The ability to reach particular demographic groups
- More efficient use of marketing budgets
- Enhanced recognition of your vacation home and its distinctive features
Why Local Focus is Crucial in Digital Marketing
Our marketing approach is tailored to fit each unique destination, from Canada to United States to St. Barths, recognizing the distinctiveness of both the places and their visitors. Here’s how we ensure our marketing strategies are as individual as the guests who travel:
- Collaborating closely with the local Plenty of Rooms team in each destination, many of whom are local natives, to develop bespoke marketing campaigns.
- Gaining a deep understanding of the local vacation rental market, including average performance, competitive landscape, seasonal fluctuations, and more.
- Analyzing the local tourism market to grasp which attractions, activities, and events attract visitors.
- Forming partnerships with local tourism bureaus to boost visibility.
- Utilizing data from past guests to gain insights into booking behaviors, allowing us to craft personalized, targeted marketing strategies.
How does Plenty of Rooms promote your vacation property?
Our team of storytellers, strategists, creatives, analysts, and local staff work tirelessly behind the scenes to showcase Plenty of Rooms vacation rentals to millions of potential guests.
Here’s a glimpse into our comprehensive and targeted strategy, included with our full-service vacation rental management services, to give your vacation home maximum exposure:
Channels
More visibility = more bookings. The equation sounds simple, but managing your vacation home across multiple listing sites is complex. Ensuring all your home’s details and availability are consistent from Airbnb to Vrbo and everywhere in between is crucial. Here’s how we set up your vacation home’s listing description for success:
Create the Perfect Vacation Home Listing
Our vacation home listings are meticulously crafted to boost bookings, featuring expert copywriting and professional photography. We highlight nearby attractions and local experiences to attract visitors.
Place Your Home on Top Booking Channels
For maximum exposure, we publish your home on the platforms where guests are actively searching and booking, including:
- Airbnb
- Vrbo
- Booking.com
- HomeToGo
- Our own platform, PlentyofRooms.com
Select properties are also listed on Homes & Villas by Marriott International.
Sync Calendars and Rates Across All Channels
We ensure no double bookings or inconsistent rates by keeping every detail accurate and uniform across all platforms.
Maintain Strong Channel Partnerships
Thanks to our key connections, Plenty of Rooms properties gain more visibility, are often listed at the top of search results, and receive dedicated support.
Search engine optimization
SEO works behind the scenes to help you organically secure top spots on Google and Bing searches—leading to more clicks to our website and more bookings for you.
Our Plenty of Rooms team continuously fine-tunes our SEO strategies to keep up with the latest Google algorithm and search result updates (hint: Google likes to change things up a lot). This ensures Plenty of Rooms homes gain more visibility than their competitors time and time again.
Some Ways We Achieve That:
Keyword Research We dive deep into the exact terms guests search for when looking into vacation homes in your area, then place those terms strategically throughout our site and your listing—giving you a higher chance of being seen.
Leveraging Local Lingo We tailor different pages on PlentyofRooms.com to over 5,000 different keywords, from “Aspen ski chalets” to “Napa Valley vineyard retreats,” so our marketing reflects the popular lingo in your area.
Local Google Business Listings Plenty of Rooms manages and optimizes hundreds of Google business listings (with the help of Google My Business) to market our local destinations. Every local Plenty of Rooms Google business listing:
- Provides a direct link to vacation rentals in that area on PlentyofRooms.com.
- Boosts exposure by incorporating local keywords.
- Promotes open communication. Potential guests can engage directly with Plenty of Rooms local teams by including a local telephone number and address.
- Builds trust. Guests can post photos and leave reviews after their stay.
Continuously Create Fresh Local Content Google loves fresh content, so we feed it with a steady stream of blog posts promoting travel to our regions—all built around local search terms that travelers are currently looking for. People often search for the best Blue Ridge Parkway road trip route, so we wrote about it, featuring our vacation homes along the way. When people wonder where to stay for Oktoberfest, they’ll find our recommended vacation homes in Munich.
Paid advertising and PPC
Have you noticed how some links at the very top of Google results say “Sponsored” next to them? We do those, too. Plenty of Rooms invests heavily each year in search engine marketing (SEM) to purchase pay-per-click advertising and draw visitors to our website. Here’s how we achieve that:
Aiming for Specific Local Keywords We start by understanding the exact terms travelers use in their searches for vacation rentals in each of our destinations and deliver ads matched to those terms.
Targeting Specific Audiences We don’t believe in marketing to everyone and anyone. Instead, we focus on travelers who are most likely to book a stay in your specific destination. Platforms like Facebook Ads and Google Ads allow us to target audiences based on their web history, search behavior, past bookings, and demographics such as age, gender, household income, interests, and more.
Working with Multiple Platforms We place our PPC ads on all the platforms that matter and where your potential guests are most active. This means our Plenty of Rooms ads will appear at the top of Google searches, as well as on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more.
Email marketing
A well-thought-out email marketing strategy can build relationships with future guests and drive repeat bookings. We send over 1 million emails each week, all targeted to specific audiences or promoting destinations relevant to the user. For instance, we can show guests vacation homes within driving distance of their address or suggest a last-minute weekend getaway near where they’ve stayed before.
The result? Our vacation homes collectively earn tens of millions of dollars each year. There are strategies behind every email, including what we write about, when we send them, and who we send them to. Some factors include:
- Seasonal Themes: Such as ski season, spring getaways, or shoulder season deals
- Local Events and Holidays: From Christmas to sports events to concerts
- Guest’s Previous Booking Behavior
- Guest’s Recent Plenty of Room
- Demographics: Including where our email subscribers live, their age, activities, interests, and more
Our team also manages an automated series of messages to help guests before and after their stay, including emails that suggest local activities and post-stay emails encouraging guests to leave a review.
Social Media
Your potential guests are already on social media looking for inspiration for their next getaway. By joining them there, we interact directly and build meaningful relationships while showcasing the Plenty of Rooms experience. Our main aim: to keep our audience intrigued, engaged, inspired, and informed.
Here’s how we achieve that:
- Consistent Content Flow: We keep Plenty of Rooms destinations and vacation homes top of mind with a steady stream of content.
- Daily Engagement: We actively engage with followers on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and X (formerly Twitter).
- Inspiration and Expertise: We position Plenty of Rooms and our local team members as regional experts, providing travel tips and inspiration.
- Highlighting Experiences: We focus on the unique experiences and special moments of a Plenty of Rooms vacation rental, including the amenities and services that make it all happen.
- Diverse and Entertaining Content: We create varied and entertaining content to engage a larger portion of our audience and attract more followers.
- Collaborations: We engage with the media, as well as diverse influencers and content creators, to highlight in-home experiences for new audiences.
Blogging
Every Plenty of Rooms vacation home—including yours—has a unique story to tell. Our frequently updated, expertly crafted travel blog showcases these stories and offers a wealth of benefits for Plenty of Rooms homeowners, including:
- Inspiring Travel: We entice people to visit your destination by offering local insider guides and tips.
- Boosting SEO: Our blog improves your rankings in search engines like Google and Bing, making your home more likely to appear in search results.
- Building Trust: We position Plenty of Rooms as a reliable alternative to self-managed short-term rentals, building trust with travelers.
- Attracting Potential Guests: Our blog draws potential guests to PlentyofRooms.co, encouraging them to explore our vacation rentals.
Here’s how we achieve that:
- Consistent Content Flow: We keep Plenty of Rooms destinations and vacation homes top of mind with a steady stream of content.
- Daily Engagement: We actively engage with followers on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and X (formerly Twitter).
- Inspiration and Expertise: We position Plenty of Rooms and our local team members as regional experts, providing travel tips and inspiration.
- Highlighting Experiences: We focus on the unique experiences and special moments of a Plenty of Rooms vacation rental, including the amenities and services that make it all happen.
- Diverse and Entertaining Content: We create varied and entertaining content to engage a larger portion of our audience and attract more followers.
- Collaborations: We engage with the media, as well as diverse influencers and content creators, to highlight in-home experiences for new audiences.
Remarketing
Our remarketing strategy allows us to target specific ads to individuals based on their browsing history. If a guest has viewed your home on PlentyofRooms.co or similar properties in the area, we ensure they see your home repeatedly across various websites and social media platforms. On average, our remarketing ads generate twice the number of guest bookings compared to other online advertising methods.
Why Choose Plenty of Rooms?
Digital marketing can be complex and overwhelming, with countless moving parts, channels, and technologies to manage. Yet, it’s essential for attracting as many guests as possible to your vacation rental.
At Plenty of Rooms, we simplify this process for you. Our dedicated in-house digital marketing team focuses on driving guests to PlentyofRooms.co, encouraging them to book a stay at your home, and ensuring they return to Plenty of Rooms for their future vacations.
When you trust us with your property, we ensure it’s visible everywhere your target guests are online. The result? A steady stream of bookings year-round.
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Vacation Rental Marketing FAQs
Advertising your vacation home can seem overwhelming with so many options available. At Plenty of Rooms, we blend creative thinking with proven marketing strategies. Here are some tips for DIY vacation home owners:
- Identify Your Target Audience: Focus on the type of guests most likely to be drawn to your home.
- Utilize Multiple Platforms: List your property on various vacation rental and travel sites like Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com, rather than relying on just one.
- Leverage Social Media: Use platforms like Facebook and Instagram to promote your home and its destination.
- Optimize for Search Engines: Write listing descriptions and blog posts with relevant keywords to ensure your vacation home appears at the top of Google and Bing searches.
- Invest in Pay-Per-Click Advertising: Advertise on sites where your audience spends time researching travel options, such as Google, Facebook, and Instagram.
No, Vrbo and Airbnb don’t offer digital marketing services beyond listing your vacation home on their platforms. But don’t worry! You have the power to make your listing shine and attract more guests. Here are some tips to help you stand out:
- Showcase what makes your home special, from its unique amenities to its prime location.
- Write snappy and engaging descriptions.
- Craft a headline that highlights your top amenities right away.
- Hire a professional photographer who knows how to capture stunning, attention-grabbing images of vacation homes. Be sure to stage your home to look its absolute best before the photo shoot.
With these strategies, you’ll make your listing irresistible!
Plenty of Rooms integrates local insights into every aspect of our digital marketing strategies, setting us apart from other vacation rental management companies. As a company with a hyper-local focus, we ensure our marketing resonates with each destination. Here’s how we do it:
- We delve into the unique nuances of every destination, including seasonality, guest demographics, top attractions, and more.
- We use local lingo in our messaging and keywords, directing visitors to specific pages on PlentyofRooms.co.
- We regularly create fresh content dedicated to individual destinations.
- We target lookalike audiences—people who share traits with guests who have previously visited vacation rentals in your area—in our ads and social media campaigns.
- We send tailored marketing emails to guests likely to book a home in your area, such as those within driving distance or those who have previously booked a nearby home.
With these strategies, we ensure that our marketing efforts are not just effective but also deeply relevant to each location.
