Heads In Beds Show - Showcasing Vacation Rental Properties To Get MORE Bookings

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

In this episode, Conrad and Paul focus on vacation rental marketing strategies at the property level, particularly optimizing property detail pages for increased bookings and revenue. They also dive into the art of optimizing property detail pages to drive more bookings and boost revenue. They break down the essentials—high-quality photos, engaging videos, and strategic branding—to make any vacation rental stand out, even in competitive markets. From design choices to must-have amenities, they explore how to position properties for success. Plus, they discuss why investing in property assets should be a key part of the owner onboarding process and how social media and email marketing can amplify visibility.Enjoy!⭐️ Links & Show NotesPaul Manzey Conrad O'ConnellConrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental MarketingConrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101🔗 Connect With BuildUp BookingsWebsiteFacebook PageInstagram🚀 About BuildUp BookingsBuildUp Bookings is a team of creative, problem solvers made to drive you more traffic, direct bookings and results for your accommodations brand. Reach out to us for help on search, social and email marketing for your vacation rental brand.

Welcome to the Head to Med Show presented by Buildup Bookings. We teach you how to get more vacation properties, earn more revenue per property, master marketing and increase your occupancy. Take your vacation rental marketing game to the next level by listening in. I'm your co-host Conrad. And I'm your co-host Paul. All right, Paul, morning. How's it going? level by listening in. I'm your co-host Conrad. I'm your co-host Paul. All right, Paul, morning. How's it going?

You know, after our brief technical difficulty, I think we've got things as covered as they're gonna be here. And you know, this is, it feels like all of these the last oh, probably two and a half, three months we've been recording whenever there has been some type of technical difficulty. It has been on my side. So I assume I need to get a new machine here at some point. So that is my guess, Q2 goal. We're setting two Q2 goals for marketing. My Q2 goal is replacing my outdated software here. But how are you, hardware, excuse me. How are you doing, sir? How is the slightly different recording time day going for you? How's the week going for you? How are we doing?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'll go to my side. No complaints, no issues, at least hardware wise at the moment. Although that can change at a moment's notice. Hardware and software can be very unreliable, particularly when we rely on so many different tools and systems to kind of work together. One little outage can sort of create a cascading effect. I always find that's funny when CloudFlare goes down

because half the internet goes down when CloudFlare goes down because it's so popular and so used by so many different systems and networks that when it goes down, it's just like this cascading effect across hundreds and thousands of websites, many of which people here use. So yeah, hey, tech issues, it's all good. We will dive into the fun bits here, which hopefully can be issues,

but hopefully we have some good responses for people today on what they can do about these issues. So I'll set the table here and let's dive into it. So we talked a little bit about this idea previously. Obviously this is like, you could make the argument this is one of the most foundational things that we talk about, which at the end of the day, we talk about all these different channels and networks and marketing strategies, but at the end of the day, we talk about all these different channels

and networks and marketing strategies. But at the end of the day, where does it always end up? It ends up for a vacation rental manager on a property detail page. Or in some situations, of course, multiple property detail pages, people doing shopping. And that is where someone makes the decision. I'm gonna take on my credit card

and I'm gonna book this thing, or I am not gonna book this thing and I'm gonna go somewhere else to a competitor, I'm gonna go to an OTA and so on and so forth. And it's been a while since we've done like, we did one of the descriptions a while ago. And that's one part of it. Maybe we'll touch on that a little bit today. But just to revisit on the property itself, are we setting ourselves up for success as much as possible on the property itself? Because the more I kind of do this, run this business, the more I kind of work with these

occasional managers, I realize that that is probably responsible for the overwhelming majority of your success at the end of the day, right? You can take okay properties, wrap them in really good operations and marketing and make a good business. But, you know, it's a lot easier wrapping really good properties in good marketing, you know, and good operations. And that leads to a much greater business. And you know, the more like we get a lead form, for example, the first thing I do is just, yeah, I look at the website, but I'm looking at the properties.

I go right away and I go, what are you actually marketing? What are we promoting here? the more like we get a lead form, for example, the first thing I do is just, yeah, I look at the website, but I'm looking at the properties. I go right away and I go, what are you actually marketing? What are we promoting here? And I find that that's the right outcome or that's the right thing that we should be focused on. So yeah, maybe any thoughts on like focusing in on this idea, obviously with homeowner acquisition, like this is the thing we're after as the inventory.

Let's talk about this a little bit more, and then we can dive into some of the more specifics. Yeah, I mean, I think this goes back to like pre vacation. I mean, this this goes back to when we were focusing back on resorts and watches.com. I mean, that was a this is not just the unique to just vacation rentals. This is any any way you're presenting your business. And I do think that we'd go on to these beautiful resort websites. And we'd say, hey, look at all these images.

Now look at your listing over here and tell me what the difference is here. And I think that that's half the battle is that you can spend, spend, spend on the advertising side of things. But if you don't have these optimized listings on the backside, if your listing is not being presented in the best possible light and you know we're gonna hopefully give us as many hints and tips and tricks and how to do that but if you're not

setting you mean there are some I'm not gonna say simple ways a very straightforward and basic ways to set yourself up for success and and you know when a couple of lighting staging, composition, it comes down to that sometimes just in the images that you're taking and the videos that you're taking and again, talking about using the words that people are using to actually do the searches as you're building out that content. But in my time, I've seen people spend a lot of money on paid ads and not have the success they wanted. This was a pretty big driving factor in it.

When they made improvements on showcasing their property, the overall performance of the website improved. I think it is. I mean, there's some tangible examples of, you don't need to redo the whole property. You just need to highlight what of the properties actually going to bring eyes bring travelers to that property. And again, find a way to paint it in the best possible light and give people a way that they can, you know, it's going to capture their attention, build trust, and ultimately get those bookings in the window for you. So I think your sentiment is spot on

with painted in the best light, because sometimes you do have inventory that's not necessarily, you know, jaw-droppingly amazing. It doesn't have the stunning ocean views. It doesn't have the, you know, the amenities stacked up, you know, on top of each other. But if you can present that property in the best light, you know, what's the expression? There's a seat, there's a there's a butt to fit it, you know, I'll say the curse word. So we keep our clean tag in Apple Podcasts. But I think there's a lot of opportunity out there. But yeah, the even the person looking for the budget property is going to pick what they perceive to be the best budget property. Let's say they they can only afford to spend $225 a

night $200 a night 175 a night, whatever the case may be, they're still going to try to find the best bang for their buck, they're still looking for value. And I think the way you present the property represents its value, you know, of course, the price is part of that, but the overall package. So yeah, I've got some initial thoughts here. So, you know, we've got some structure and bullet points to go off of, but it's almost more of an exploration

of kind of this idea. The first thing is that obviously the property description matters. Actually, it's so funny because we did this outline before and then I had a call yesterday with a client and he said, okay, how much does that matter? And I was like, my gut reaction is that it matters.

Probably 15 to 20% of your success will come down to the description. Like if you could, if you had awesome photos, awesome reviews, you can have a pretty poor description and be just fine. You know, like you'll do some level of bookings, you'll be okay. But that being said, like you'll probably do better when you have a better description and when you work more on the, the text layout of that, you know, presentation of the property. But one thing you can't overcome, in my opinion, is you can't overcome bad photos. It's very challenging, let's just say, to overcome bad

photos. And you really can overcome bad reviews once they'll start to flow and maybe one, you know, one is like a, just like you could take one punch most of us could, depending on the person doing the punch, you know, bad review, you certainly can overcome five, six, seven, eight, 10 bad reviews when you've only got 20 or 30 reviews, right? So I think those are the things that are like, stop, you know, roadblocking your way, you cannot do not pass go, do not collect $200, go straight to jail on OTA platforms. And I think the description, like I said, is kind of a part of it. So the first, with that sentiment in mind,

the first thing I said, which is that I kind of believe, and I'm telling a lot of clients this, that video assets are not really a nice to have anymore. I almost feel like they're a need to have. They're becoming a need to have for me and the work that we do in the agency, because the video assets, you know, it used to be, and this is, a lot of our clients kind of think this way and I understand it. Well, of course,

I sent a professional photographer out there. That's what you do. It's like a given. They wouldn't ever, you know, consider listing a property without photos. But then I say video and it's like, I'm crossing into this new zone and this new area that they're often a little bit uncomfortable with that they don't really want to proceed with. So I'm beginning to tell clients, well, when you go and get the property shot, why are we going back, you know, and trying to consider this two things? It's just one thing. We're going in doing statics photos, and that'll be the primary function. But then we're also doing video assets in that same shoot. Like, if you're not hiring someone that can do both, maybe you do have to hire two people. I certainly

hope not. I certainly hope you could hire someone that could do both. And even if you're not doing a lot of editing, I think that's sometimes what people get caught up in. And I'm trying to work with clients on that, which is like the editing can be done remotely. The editing can be done more inexpensively. You don't have to hire the local photographer at a hundred bucks an hour to do the editing necessarily. We do need him or her for the video shoot, that's for sure.

And that quality can be excellent if we get the right footage and we can then pass it to one of our editors and get that content, you know, put into something more formal. I actually kind of like to see the pre-edit anyways. I like to see all the raw footage, even if we were getting an edit from a local videographer,

because then we can mix it up, reorganize it, remix it different ways, and use that property for more marketing. No one wants to see the same video over and over again. People are actually okay with seeing the same property over and over again, edited 10 different ways. So that's kind of an interesting learning I've had. So that's my first reaction,

which is I kind of want to encourage clients going forward in that property onboarding checklist, you know, that they're going through what they're getting photos done, we're just getting videos on alongside of it. Why are we complicating it? Why are we making those two different things? It's so foundational to what we're doing marketing wise nowadays on social, it just feels like the necessary piece. But what are your thoughts

there on kind of video and broadly, that side of it? I think there was a time where you had to hire a videographer because they had different equipment, you know, I think fundamentally than say a photographer would have. And I think that day, I mean, that that day is just not exist anymore. And that turn, I mean, I think it turned with when smartphones had better cameras than a lot of the cameras that were I mean, when with when smart phones had better cameras than a lot of the cameras that were, I mean, when that's matching the quality of a DSLR camera, yeah, it becomes much easier to capture high quality video,

but I think it is. I mean, a lot of people are, I mean, I know professional photographers that are using their phones as their primary, picture taking, video taking method. And they've got the bells and the whistles that are on their phone, And they've got the bells and the whistles that are on their phone as opposed to having the bells and the whistles that were the extra lenses

and the telephoto this and the drone type of footage this. Now, I think that's where it is. It's just a different time. Now I think there's still probably people who do focus on the photography side and do focus on the video side. But I think it's one of those things that you do have to just see it as a necessary upfront investment. That is one that it's maybe,

it maybe won't feel like you're getting that ROI. That is an ROI that truly will pay itself off. Investing $1,000, $500, whatever it is, it's worth it because you are going to have a better visual that you're presenting to travelers. You're going to have better overall content for your website. Just because you're using these photos or these videos for your listing doesn't mean you can't use it on other aspects of your website as well. I think that that's something that we do get kind of just pigeonholed into. It's just got to be on the property and we do have to get it on the property page. We have to make sure that it's enhancing that description. But at the same time, you can use some of that

B-roll footage for, you know, try a commercial, try a video ad, try a whole bunch of other things. I love that sentiment of, I love getting that raw footage. That was some of the things where, when we did testimonial shots, yeah, we'd get 30 minutes of really good testimonials from the software user or the agency user, but it was the videographer going out and kind of experiencing the area. And I think that that's something that tying the experience into it as much as you can, not just highlighting the kitchen and the deck and the bedrooms and everything like that.

But the experience around that rental and I think that can be difficult to do because you do you have to kind of tell that story. But again, a powerful story that you're telling about an experience that someone can have on property. Holy cow, that can be done so much more effectively and efficiently with video. So that's where I think there's just a whole lot of power there. And those who think of it as it does have to be photos or it does have to be video or a 3D tour, you know, going down that path a little further, it doesn't have to be an either or.

You should be able to really bring it all together now in a more modern age. It doesn't have to be an influencer doing it, but a professional in your area, or even if you have to pay a little travel cost to have, I'd be willing to pay the travel cost just to make sure it's a higher quality, a higher value asset that I can use more long-term. It's more of an evergreen.

I think that's the other side is that a lot of this video content is evergreen content that you're not going to just use for one thing. You're going to use it over and over and over again. Yeah, I think that's very true. Yeah. And the way that I thought about it, I've said this to clients before and it's something that is always problematic once we get going because of the nature of what I'm about to say here,

but it's not always a problem upfront, which is that, you know, it's the budget comment will come up. Well, you know, like, you know, we're doing all this stuff and I'm trying to figure out what's the most well-placed dollars. Totally understand. which is that the budget comment will come up, well, we're doing all this stuff and I'm trying to figure out what's the most well-placed dollars. Totally understand, small business has always limited resources in terms of marketing, advertising, budget.

That being said though, I've told clients this before, well, if we don't have the right assets, our ads won't be successful. So let's wait a month. Instead of starting on March 1st, we'll start on April 1st, but let's go and take that budget that you were gonna spend anyways

and let's go get all the assets in better shape. Let's get better video, let's get better photos. So then when we start the marketing, it's gonna work better. Like that hurts my pocket, but it really doesn't long-term because I know that the impact and the outcome of that work

is gonna be better on the property level. So I'm foregoing one month of work, but I'm actually gonna probably extend my relationship with that client a long time period because I'm looking at it as, yeah, we're stopping for one month and then we're gonna go spend that few thousand dollars on getting photos and videos done. And now when we started in April 1st, we're going to have the right assets to be

more successful. Half the success is kind of like how we set up the ads, the targeting, you know, the text copy, some of those things. And then half the success, yeah, it's like the landing page itself. Like what are we sending them to? What creative do we have? Those kind of things are tied together. So if you have one of those things working against you the whole time, like it's not going to work. Like I think when I look at people that haven't had much success doing direct booking, and I look at it, it's either the property itself, you know, we'll come back to that in a second, you know, not being something that's actually

desirable to people, basically. Or yeah, they just actually haven't put in the propertor like their ads just aren't good enough to put it, you know, to put it simply. And you've got to at least give it, you know, a fair shake a fair try, you can't put out very low quality stuff and then expect people to be like, Oh yeah, let me go ahead and book this right now. Like there's just too much competition noise out there, not even from other companies, but just like too much competition noise in general to actually capture someone's attention in that way.

Well, I mean, I think you can even flip it over to the owner side. And this is something I mean, this was a big perk that I recommend to people. It's called an onboarding package. Like this is part of your you know on the owner side You want to get the most out of your home? You want to get the drive the most ROI this is part of the onboarding package and you know in some cases We'd say okay valued at $2,000. We're gonna do the locks. We're gonna do the this We're gonna do but photography is part of that the 3d tour is part of that the video tour is part of that if you Don't want to incur that cost,

make it a part of the onboarding for the owner so that they see, I mean, ultimately that's an investment that they should feel comfortable making to ensure that they are seeing higher ROI, the higher gross book. If you said it was a gross booking revenue of 50,000, maybe it's 60, you can point out that these homes that have higher quality assets, whether that's written assets, visual assets, and property assets we'll talk about, all of those are going to help you out in the long term. That may be a 10% lift, a 15% lift. It's definitely something you can sell to those owners. And I think that's part of the conversation here as well,

is that you want these owners to be getting the most out of their home because for, let's say, 75, 80% of them, that's what it's all about that ROI. Yeah, let's give them some ideas as to how their home can perform better. And certainly, it's going to help you as well. There. It's so simple, right? Like, when you open a vacation rental ready for bookings and saying, Hey, it was not, it was not available. Now it's available. You're opening a small business.

If you were to open any small business, if you were to open a lemonade stand, you would be like, Oh, I'm going to have costs associated with starting that business up and running, right? I'm going to have costs associated with opening a restaurant or opening, I mean, a nail salon, right? Like we get any small business, there's costs associated with opening it. I do I do worry about that a little bit that sometimes our property management clients are incurring so much cost to get a property on board. And you and I've talked about this before, when we talked about the LTV, you know, ratio, peace commentary that we had a few episodes ago, where it's like the LTV is there. But how much are you spending in the short term to get that? Like, and we talked about

it more from the marketing side, like acquiring the person. Yeah, once you sign them, imagine you're having to dedicate like we have clients who have dedicated onboarding specialists, where they're paying someone 50 to 100 grand a year, depending on the market to basically go in there and onboard homes, well, you got to make that into the cost of, you know of your overall expenses of getting a home ready for rent. So I do worry a little bit about people that have like, oh, no onboarding fees. Like we'll just get going right away. We'll get the listing up and running. I'm sure that can help increase your inventory count drastically. Don't get me wrong. But I don't know if that's necessarily the optimal outcome for like enforcing a really high brand standard. So having some kind of onboarding cost or fee, I think it's a line

that some aren't willing to cross because yeah, the guy down the street's high brand standard. So having some kind of onboarding cost or fee, I think it's a line that some aren't willing to cross because yeah, the guy down the street's not doing it. So they look, well, why would I spend three grand with you to get onboarded? That's silly when the guy down the street will do it for free. Like it's really hard to argue against free. So, you know, credit to the property managers

using that strategy. A lot of our clients don't charge for like onboarding, but I do wonder if that's a bit of a fundamental flaw. And to your point, you know, it's how you present that to the homeowner. Maybe it's something where you make some concessions on, you know, some of your other pieces of the puzzle, you know, around that and say, Hey, this is everything we do to get your property ready for ready to rent. Maybe you have to do some kind of assessment or initial review

process to say like, your property is not ready to rent. And here's why it's missing a hot tub is missing this is missing that. And if ultimately, the property doesn't meet your standards, I think that's a really hard thing in this business to do. And it's it's in it flies in the face of a lot of what people say, which is like, get inventory, get inventory, get inventory. Yes. But also, you've got to have something that makes sense on the brand standards. What is your brand actually stand for? What kind of properties are you willing to tolerate? And then, yeah, how do we decide a fair split of who's doing what to get that property ready for rent? And who's paying for it? And then how do we make sure that math works out long term? So everyone's got kind of a different approach there or different strategy there. But I

do think this idea of, oh, everything is done for free by the property manager is actually a little bit of a hindrance in some cases. Because then they Yeah, to be to be frank, for the property manager side of things, then they do want to cut corners a little bit. Well, I don't need video assets. I like video assets, I don't need them. So I'm going to cut them because I don't want to spend another $500 $1,000, whatever for pro videos, you know,

whatever. We'll get it going, like we'll kind of do more at the bare minimum, and then maybe down the road we can convince an owner to do that or something. But that kind of stems this whole idea of like, what kind of results do you want to? So, all right, the next question to kind of go through here. Do you brand the property or does the property have a brand? I think that's a really important question. We've touched on it before, so we don't need to rehash all these points in a lot of detail. But does the brand have a clear and obvious, like, basically throughput or voice or value proposition that someone would actually be drawn to? So, for example, like, in this, we'll talk about this in a second, this idea of commodity property versus specialty property.

But the more specialized and unique a property is, the more a brand, I think, matters and can be very memorable and drive a lot of interest and demand. Or the more commodity a property is, the less a brand does matter, but it helps versus having nothing. Like I think doing nothing and calling it like unit 107, you know, if it's a condo was like the worst thing possibly to do, I think giving it a fun, unique name that other people haven't taken before, by the way, that's a challenging thing nowadays, but you can do your best there and then making sure

that brand is there from basically from click to checkout, like all the way through the process of what they see. Like, like I was working with a client yesterday, talking about the branding at the property level. And I'm like, well, if I walk in the property, will I know who I'm staying with? And he's like, what do you mean? I'm like, where's like the physical signage in the property

to remind me the name of the property and the name of the property manager? You are saying at property name, or like it's common here in beach markets. I know other beach markets, that's the case. There's a little sign in front of the property. Hey, welcome to Conrad's Cool Beach Shack, that sort of thing.

And then once you get in the property, there's little things that remind you of that. Those all matter, I think, because then you are not marketing just a random, you know, 123 Main Street listing, or, you know, 107 listing. You're marketing something that actually has a brand to it. But I do think that it does matter significantly,

or the quality of the brand recall matters a lot if A, you're consistent with it, B, it's all the way through the process, including before you check in all the way through the checkout process. Yeah. And then you're doing it on a specialty property. So I'll come to special property in a minute, but what are your thoughts on the branding side of it? I know it's something that you and I have kind of agreed on before. Yeah. I mean, I think you've hit it pretty, pretty close there. Now, granted there are markets where being in the resort itself

and being very plain Jane with it, we'll say resort name 301 is more important than having your own individualized rental. I mean, that's the reality in some of these markets. I'm sure in some of those Myrtle Beach resort, you've got a lot of onsite managers there where that's more valuable than having probably something a little more we'll say gimmicky. I think that's in every market it's a little different in every with every unit obviously that's commodity versus these specialty properties you know in in in Myrtle Beach it's there's there's there's not the specialty it's easy it is it's the volume it's the volume game so I think it's still important to highlight as much as you can that does differentiate it

but the reality is is that in some cases your brand is not what's selling it. It's a higher level brand or it's a different metal metal level brand or some some mid-level brand in there that you're vying for with other property managers and things like that. I think of that Orlando Resort Market, Soltera, Solera, Winsong, all these notable names that we know them at that level and that's kind of where Travelers build them. They know Greater Orlando, they know Kissimmee, but those are the six or seven resorts that they've gone to and they know are of the level that they're looking for. They don't necessarily need to go down to 301, 302 or a specific Mickey theme, this

or that, you know, something that's a little further down there. They know that level. So I think it's having the awareness within your market and understanding with a specialty versus a commodity property, what is going to turn the tide? We'll see what's going to perk someone's ears up, what's going to draw that additional attention, you know, inspire them at a slightly higher level there. But that's over on me. I think you've, you've hit it really hard there. So you've, you've, you've got it in good shape. Yeah, I mean, I think so we just had been Wolf on the Art of Hospitality podcast. And I think he's someone who I followed for a

while. And it was really interesting to kind of hear his perspective on this, because I let him into it. But I didn't know if we'd come to the same outcome because he's someone if you haven't seen his projects go check out like onera do a google search day onera you'll see some of his stuff that he's down there um he's got one in Fredericksburg and then one in Wimberley at the moment and then he told us the podcast at length about um future projects he has coming in Arizona and Miami and other places that are that are pretty interesting but long story short every property is completely unique so he'll go and buy he bought a plot of land in Fredericksburg and designed like 10, I think it's nine or 10, completely unique properties. Every single one of them is unique.

And they have a very, very, I guess I'll just say one of a kind architectural style. I think that's a fair way of describing it. And then once you're there, there's of course additional things that he went into on the podcast, but it stands out right away because it looks like nothing you've ever seen before. And of course, this is not necessarily a new idea. I mean, going Airbnb and I think of Christy Wolf starting this trend years ago with like the whole viral potato listing. I think she did the hobbit listing as well and some of these other things. So these are not new ideas necessarily or that new of ideas in the grand scheme of things. But the way that I kind of talked about it with Ben is this idea of, is it a spectrum? And I think we agree on that, which is that if

commodity is all the way over here, really special and unique is all the way over here, on the right side, the listener can't see my hands right now. But there's two different things on either side of the spectrum. And then it's kind of a slider, right? Like Ben's stuff is way on the specialty side here that he's done. Really, really unique. Something that you really won't see anywhere else. Even if he goes and does 10 properties in the same area, the same lot, everyone is unique. Everyone has a different architectural style. Contrast that with some of those Disney properties that you're highlighting, Paul, and those are in a way completely commodity on the outside. Every home from the outside looks the same. Now I think where you can specialize in those types of situations is

what's in the property, what are the amenities in the property. So if the location is not unique, if the exterior and architecture of the property is not unique, then we have to go inside the property and say what are the amenities and the design elements that make people, you know, want to book a rental? And that's where I think this kind of mural trend came from. Oh, I'm going to paint something really unique. That's going to pop on a thumbnail, that sort of thing. And it's, you know, it's indisputable. If you go look at some of the top rated listings or top performing listings on OTA platforms, Airbnb notably, and you pick a popular market, like you will find some of those properties typically showing up near the top when you do an undated search. So that's a good indication that that's what Airbnb is pushing.

Therefore, it's a good indication if that's what many of the OTA platforms like Airbnb are reporting, is these properties that have a little bit more visual unique look to them interior-wise, even if they're not unique architecturally. So I think that's part of it too, is that how you... If there's a few different factors basically in how unique is it the look, how, if there's, if those are a few different, you know, factors basically in how unique is it, the look, how unique is the architecture of the outside of the property? How many amenities do you have? How many boxes are you checking there? And then how are you doing on photos, rates and reviews? Like, I think those kind of all sum together to the right outcome, you know, as far as having a property that's very highly booked versus having a property that's out there and kind of flopping around on the deck and struggling. that's out there and kind of flopping around on the deck and struggling. And I do think that a property can be more specialty, even if it's not that geographically unique and it's not that architecturally unique by doing like we had an idea of things that we talked about here, like Brooks

talked about the set length on, you know, I talked about this before having an EV charger. That's a specialized amenity that for some people, that is like one of the more valuable things you can provide in the property. Oh, sweet. Like when I get there, I can plug in my my electric vehicle. Awesome. Other people may not care about it, but the people that do, they might choose a property only for that reason. Pet friendly, we don't need to beat that one up. It's been said a million times, but it's like, there are people who, when they go into a OTA platform or your own website, they're bringing their pet with them. It's not a negotiable, right? Like they're checking pet friendly,

and they're not even going to see the listings or want to look at listings that are not pet friendly. Then I think you get more into a lot of judgment calls and a lot of is it worth it kind of conversations, right? So like hot tubs and saunas come to mind are just two examples. And I mean nowadays I would argue that the you know, all the all the cool tech bros are doing the cold plunges. I feel like that's gonna be like the third thing that you're gonna have to do. You're gonna need the hot and the cold in these properties to get enough bookings. The hot tub is more a better thing for you know, probably a few decades now at this point.

We have a client in a condo area and this this is harder to do, where he'll only sign condos or only work with condos that have enough space in the back deck to put a hot tub in there. So I think in one complex, he's got like nine units, and he doesn't want any more because he has a can no other units have a hot tub space in the back of them. And I want to make sure there's a hot tub in there because all mine get the most bookings because the hot tub. So even in a condo that was enough demand, there's enough demand for that specific amenity for people to want it. The sauna thing is popping up more and more.

I'm kind of seeing that, you know, trend-wise, like it used to be maybe you'd see one out of every 100 listings having that. I'm seeing now it's more like 10 out of every 100, depending on the market. So that's kind of there. And then, you know, we could spend a whole podcast doing all the amenity ideas.

I think what you should do is again, go to the OTA platforms for about Airbnb, go do an undated search in your market and go look at what people are doing. I think that's like the fair thing to be like, these are all ideas. Now it doesn't, I think you gotta be careful with that because it can be a correlation

or it's not causation set up there. Just because they have a mini golf thing in the backyard doesn't guarantee that adding a mini golf thing in your backyard is gonna lead to the right outcome. That's where you've gotta use your own judgment and frankly, just do some testing. You may not know right away exactly what's gonna work and what's not gonna work,

but I do think it's one of those examples where, again, to kind of recap, commodity and specialty are a slider. It's not one outcome. This is kind of what Ben confirmed with me when we talked to him. And the best thing probably is that you have property that has unique amenities, that has a unique location that people desire, and has unique architecture. That's like the trifecta of amazingness. But in lieu of that, you've got to decide, what can I control? You probably can't control the architecture once you sign a home if you're a vacation manager. Not much you can do about that.

It kind of looks the way it looks. Maybe you can make it look nicer, you can paint it or something like that, but it is what it is at that point, right? So I think then you have to turn inward and say amenities and design and photography and videography like we're talking about, those are the things that actually matter quite a bit more.

So yeah, your ideas on that and then we can maybe close, go over to marketing channels after that. I mean, let's just think of a time not that long ago where high speed Wi-Fi internet was really, really critical that some people that I mean, it is that when worker from home work remote all those things, it was incredible to see how many people who were in, we'll say backwoods-ish markets.

The Smokies were a great place to travel, unless you were looking to work remote, because there wasn't a whole lot of Wi-Fi boosters that were up in the mountains. And I think in the preceding years since then, you've seen a lot of infrastructure updates there. But that is, I think you do have to kind of, play with the times there a little bit. There was a lot of people who are installing little personal kids desks and more. I mean,

think about the rental that we stayed at at Darm. You had a full desk set up with multiple monitors if you would have been able to make the technology work there. That is something that knowing your market, again, understanding why people are traveling to your area. If you have a lot of business travel that you're kind of fostering, you should be building in the amenities for that. It's the same way if you've got the family travel. It's understanding why people are using that rental. So I do, I think that the EV Chargers, the pet friendly, yeah, we have a big 70 pound dog when we travel.

So we end up doing a lot of doggy boarding and stuff like that. But every time that I'm actually looking to travel in state or within a road trip type of thing, that is the first filter that I take on or put off because I know that that number of total accommodations available is going to go from about two, 300 to 20 or 30. So if you have amenities that are going to stand out, or you understand, I think that's another reason where, or another area where doing the keyword research, doing the search trend research, that can help you kind of help inform your decisions of people who are traveling to my area are looking for these types of amenities and making sure that,

again, just knowing what's available, what's out there, and making sure that you're covering what you're actually presenting. I think it's really important there. I think that's why you have to take a look at your full amenity list, what you're offering there, because there may be some things that you are offering that are of value to people that you're just kind of not thinking about it, it's just an afterthought. No, do a good inventory of your rental and make sure that you're highlighting what is there and not trying to emphasize things that are not there.

That's the other thing is that don't put something in if it's not something that you have in the property because I've also seen, I mean, that's how those negative reviews pop up where they said it was this, it didn't have this, or it wasn't exactly as they described it. Well, I think we know that that downward trend is not one that we want to continue on with.

So yeah, I think that those are just things to consider. We've seen recent examples of it, and I'm sure there will be other examples at different times where there's going to be another EV charger type of new and improved technology that people are going to want to have as a part of their vacation rental and their travel experience moving forward. Yeah, yeah, can I hear you more?

Well, let's come to a close here then on marketing channels, because I think obviously that is our always our topic de jour. So we don't need to spend, you know, maybe as much time on it. But I think so to kind of recap where we stand so far, we talked a lot about visual assets, having more visual of the assets and having better quality visual assets of the property will increase your results, right? So better photos, yes, high quality photos, but even better photos, having videos, having 3D tours, those are the visual assets that you can take that will make your property work better.

Consider editing those photos with different editors, considering having, if you can, I have a client, I've told this story before in the podcast, but I have a client that markets really, really high-end homes, sends two photographers across two different days to take pictures because he goes, I end up using 10 or 15 from set one, I end up using 20 or 30 from set two, I end up using 20 or 30 from set two,

and the combination together, they're both awesome photographers, they just see things a little bit differently. This one sees it a little bit differently than the other one, and I end up using a composite of both of their shots. Doing editing, if the weather's not great on the day you take the photos, improve that.

You can improve that nowadays. We use a service called Box Brownies, the service that we've used with clients before to edit and take out clouds or take out small things. Obviously, don't mislead people about the condition of the property. I think you can do that if you want to, and that's the line that I draw. But you can make it look like it's a nice sunset. If it happens to not be a day where there was a nice sunset, you can do some of that stuff in post. And I think that could work well. Written assets. So we talked about that at length, right? Property descriptions do matter. Are they the most important thing? No. But do they matter? And if you're struggling, do you want to look at it?

Absolutely. Guest reviews and then other written content on your site may support that listing. So having a blog post about that property may not be a bad idea if it's a really notable property that people are going to look for and search for. Having a blog post and the property detail page may not be a bad idea if done well.

In property assets, so having signage, physical reminders of both the brand of the property manager and the brand that that home has, making sure that brand is unique and easily searchable and accessible, I think is such an underrated part of the puzzle, particularly in more specialized properties. People will search for the name of individual listings or individual homes in that context. So I think having, again, from that initial time they look at the property detail page all the way to the time they check out and close that door and drive home or fly home. You want that in property experience brand to be consistent throughout measure, you know, in multiple ways throughout signage, physical reminders, that thing matter

quite a bit. And then, yeah, then all the marketing stuff works a lot better. So on social media, right, you can take the videos that you've shot, and you can then put them out as organic posts and paid advertisements, you could send them to an individual listing, or you could just send them to your, you know, overall listings page. But if you have video assets of multiple properties, that gets people interested. Hey, here's what it's like to step inside and stay in one of our ocean friend, five bedroom vacation rental homes in Turks and Caicos.

That's a lead we got the other day. Unbelievable video assets can be generated from that location, right? A lot of locations are like that. A lot of beauty out there, right? The people want to see their craving that. They want that. That's what they're consuming.

But you got to give it to them. You can't say, like, it looks good. You got to show them, it looks good. You gotta show them that it looks good. And then get that out through social media and you can spend a lot of money promoting that content and it'll do quite well. Email marketing, we haven't touched on it yet.

So maybe I'll touch on that here, kind of bring us to a close here. We have a few clients who are doing this now. They're onboarding enough inventory where this makes sense. Hey, it's Friday. We're gonna go ahead and do our new listings added this week thing. Or you could do it maybe a little bit less regularly if

you're not adding as many listings. Reminder, here's the new listings we added this month or, you know, in the past two weeks or something like that. You know, these are all ideas that you can do on the email marketing side of things. Your guests that love staying with you, particularly in a drive-to market, like to see new listings, particularly if they're new, interesting, viable listings that people want to book, right? You can do that through email marketing. And of course, you could just do a newsletter where it's like feature listings or, you know, check out our listings still available You can do that through email marketing. And of course you could just do a newsletter where it's like feature listings or, you know, check out our listings still available for Easter

and that sort of thing. Those are always viable ideas. Well, one kind of little sidebar or like boost idea here, you can give away a few nights at one of your rentals when it's early on, your chance of getting, you know, your calendar completely stacked early on or relatively low. So you could say, hey, if you stay between now

and let's say a month or two from now, I'll give away three free nights or two free nights to someone, but you got to follow me on social media and you have to sign up for my email list. Those contests are super valuable in that way. And then finally, yes, search marketing. Again, you can run PPC on it or you could just have the page ranking in Google when people are searching for that brand name.

That really bottom funnel intent can convert really well. So once you got the right property, once you got the right mix of marketing, you know, things going, you know, it's hard to fail. Can you fail? Of course, you know, but it's hard to fail if you got the right, you know, you know, supply and you have the right demand in the market looking for it. So that's kind of my final thoughts here before we bring it to a close. Anything else, Mr. Manzing? I think you wrapped it up nicely there. Put a nice little bow on it. Yeah, awesome. Well, thanks for listening. If you made it all the way to the end, that is kind of our 35 minutes thoughts on kind of revisiting just that core thing, that core idea of property marketing,

marketing that listing, getting more people to check it out, getting more people to book it. I think that's one of the more foundational things that we do here on the Heads of Med show that you're probably doing if you're listening and you're a property manager. So one more thing before you get out of here for today,

please leave us a review on your podcast app of choice, iTunes, Spotify listeners. You gotta click follow, you gotta click subscribe. That's sort of task number one. And then task number two is leave us a review. Give us five stars, of course. Hopefully we give you a five-star listening experience, give you an idea or two that you can execute in your own business. You can grow, get bigger, get awesome. We appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and have an awesome rest of your day.