Matt Landau
  • Founder, VRMB

Text to Join

If repeat guests are the holy grail of vacation rental marketing: and if repeat bookings are directly proportional to the size of your email marketing list: then increasing the size of your email marketing list will increase your repeat bookings and lead you to the holy grail.

When it comes to repeat bookings, one of the biggest untapped goldmines are the guests who stay in your vacation rental with a group, but whose email address you do not acquire. It could be a group of 10 adults, but if you only get one email address (the person who booked) you are leaving 9 potential repeat guest email addresses on the table.

IDEA: "Text to join” is something we were introduced to recently here by Crafty Crafty. “Text to join” is now a feature of many email marketing platforms that allows people to sign up for your email marketing list by SMS text messaging you a code. When a guest sends the codeword (CRAFTYS) to the number (22828), it then asks them (in the SMS interface) which email address they would like to use to sign up. POOF. Email added. List increased. Repeat bookings pending.

JoinListSign.jpg

Here’s Crafty’s Example: Janet Bowen, has her annual girl's trip at Crafty's. There are 12 BAGS...that's what they call themselves...BAGS is for Bad Ass Girls...and they are a hoot. Anyway...because Janet makes the reservations...hers is the only email address that I would normally have on record. But with 'Text To Join' on the back of my business cards, in the condos, I'm able to add the rest of the BAGS to my list as well. As a result, several of the BAGS visit us with their families and/or other groups.

ACTION: Activate "text to join" to watch your email list grow and your repeat bookings soar.

  • Investigate whether your email marketing platform has “Text to Join” functionality (Mailchimp, ConstantContact do have this built-in).
  • If it does not, consider a service like https://www.joinbytext.com/ which synchronizes with almost all the other email marketing platforms.
  • Get comfortable editing the template sent to individuals upon joining
  • Create several “text to join” campaigns (Note: it is important that these campaigns deliver something of value. Instead of “text to join my list” try “text to receive XYZ")
Campaign 1: For guests in-house: Could deliver access to personal contacts in the area, passwords and promotional codes, directions to find a special welcome gift

Campaign 2: For people you meet out and about: Could deliver access more information about your vacation rentals, special discount or bonus gift offer, a link to your favorite blog post

Campaign 3: For other property owners/managers in the region: Could deliver an overflow-bookings proposal, ideas to share the cost of local marketing initiatives, information about regulation and government affairs

Texting! It's all the rage!

If you like this idea, please hit reply and let me (and Crafty) know!

Oh and if you don't yet have an email marketing list, that's OK too! Take our Listing Site Independence Self-Grader Experience to determine when that step is appropriate: https://community.vrmb.com/index.ph...s-of-listing-site-independence-workshop.1712/
 
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Great idea, wondering if this works with Active Campaign? Is it worth getting a business card reprint for? Is there a much bigger take up compared with guests going to the web site and joining the mailing list?

I have been thinking about if it is possible to get guests to sign into our WiFi network, before being granted access, like you do in a hotel. That would be a guaranteed way to extend you emailing list, but is it possible in semi domestic WiFi system? That way everyone who wants to use the WiFi would have to sign in, thus instantly extending your emailing list.
 
ROster ROster ...actually, that's a template that Constant Contact generates automatically
OK cool. I like this so much I already signed up!

Question: what are some examples of incentives IC members offer for people to join their mailing list? I'd like to provide something with perceived value without costing much money. I have logo golf balls, but a sleeve of 3 costs $12 plus postage. I think that's too much for each email address. Thoughts?

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If you like the graphic from Constant Contact that Crafty Crafty provided, it's possible to make your own. The attached file was created on Microsoft Word (after a search, the original was moved to my desktop), saved as a pdf file, cropped and then saved again as a png file. If I can do this, you can too!
 

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OK cool. I like this so much I already signed up!

Question: what are some examples of incentives IC members offer for people to join their mailing list? I'd like to provide something with perceived value without costing much money. I have logo golf balls, but a sleeve of 3 costs $12 plus postage. I think that's too much for each email address. Thoughts?

View attachment 2744

This is the current incentive I'm running. It's a landing page via Mailchimp- which can be edited or updated (I just added the second exhibition of the artist who relates directly to our location)
https://mailchi.mp/113c4a08d822/otbkza34yi

I link this to my Instagram FB, Twitter & tumblr accounts. I also include it in my response to inquiries to assure they voluntarily sign up for the email list.

17 clicks with 9 subscribers since I started in Dec 2018.

Total cost: $220 for ten tickets (@bulk pricing). Have a few nibbles 17 clicks with 9 subscribers since I started in Dec 2018, but no bookings and no takers for the tickets...yet.
They are valid through 10/19/2019...and if no takers for the tickets, they will be given to friends/family as gifts.
 

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