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. “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.
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.
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/
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. “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.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 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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