Conversion

How to build trust, convey expertise and convert your inquiries into life-long customers.
My mother is a brain scientist who has earned an incredible array of accolades over the last few decades. Becoming a scientist wasn't common for women in her generation so (with the help of great mentors) she chose to blaze her own trail. My father was a shopkeeper whose family business served as a keystone to the community of Princeton, New Jersey his entire adult life (he has since retired and the shop...
From the young age of two, my family begin hosting exchange students from all over the world. My mom was a...
IDEA An inside joke is humor that requires information only available to a group. It can be as small as a joke between you and your guest. And when pulled off, it forms a connection that deepens the relationship: making you more than just another place to stay, but a true insider friend. @StacyW recently shared with me this text message interchange between her team member Lacey and a Guest: Lacey: Good...
I first met this guest on the trail in front of our house while it was under construction for remodeling. As he was chatting about his vacation stay there, I mentioned I too had a house for rent and invited him to come to tour our house for his next vacation. His 4 yo and 2yo...
This week’s discussion all about niche marketing ideas comes directly from the golf course! @CJ sent me the following photo of a vacation rental owner who scatters golf balls with contact information around the backyard of his golf course-front vacation home in Georgia. This is a cheap, creative, and focused way of speaking directly to his target audience. QUESTIONS/COMMENTS Where are your niche guests...
What a great idea! A previous guest painted encouraging messages on small rocks and left them all over the farm - it was fun to find them. I always left them for another guest to discover, and some made their way to the houses. There are certainly plenty of rocks at eh...
Note: Thanks to @ToonTownRob for posting this mini-revelation about the power of starting your email responses with a twist. It inspired this week's Motivation (and I decided to record it in podcast form too below). Listing sites like Airbnb and Vrbo rank as the top pound-for-pound allocation of your time to generate inquiries. All the various listing sites make up Stage 1 of Listing Site Independence...
#3 from the Guest point of view. We wanted to rent a dog-friendly house in a specific beach community for three months during winter 2023. We're two adults and two golden retrievers. I first looked for local rental agencies and found...
Hey @EBadia -- what do you think about the word “boutique” to describe what makes vacation rental companies great? Used in all of our marketing materials and in our day-to-day, could "boutique" successfully convey what makes vacation rental companies great in ways that other words (we've come up with) can not? Side Note: For those of you who haven't listened, Evelyn and I are on a mission to define the word...
I added the word "boutique" to my listing title on Airbnb when this thread first came out. My summer is filled. However...

Welcome to VRMB!

I’m Matt Landau, the founder of this forum. It was created in 2016 when a group of us wanted a safe space to discuss our growing STR businesses.

Today, you can join our community of 1,000+ creative, thoughtful, and generous members who believe in a better future.

Go Premium

Spotlight

Discover "Unlocked: The Intermission" - a captivating 6-part podcast series featuring the individuals who have shaped Matt Landau's horseradish in the past 6 months.

Listen now.

Back
Top