How to Develop and Execute a Digital Marketing Strategy for Your Vacation Rental

How to Develop and Execute a Digital Marketing Strategy for Your Vacation Rental

Marketing your vacation rental nowadays is a walk in the park as long as you know two crucial things: who your audience is and where they live online. 

If you have these two pieces of information, you've struck gold, friends.

By developing and executing your digital marketing strategy based on your ideal customer, you can make sure you’re doing everything you can to become a magnetic powerhouse for them. 

And that’s the goal, right?

If you’ve been aiming to come up with a digital marketing strategy for your vacation rental but are stuck on where to start, we’re here to help. 

In today’s article, we’ll walk you through how to develop and execute a digital marketing strategy in line with your ideal customer’s needs. 

Ready to learn how to draw them in?

Let’s begin.

1. Identify and understand your target audience

The first step to creating a strategy that sells is to understand your target audience, profoundly. 

What does that mean exactly? You have to understand your audience’s problems and core needs so you can swoop in and solve them. 

So think about it. What does your audience typically look for when searching for a vacation rental? What bothers them and how can you help? Why have previous customers chosen you in the past? What pain points do you solve?

Then get down to the details. What amenities and features does your audience look for? For instance, maybe they like extended check-outs so they can get a little more beach time in. Or maybe they value quality TV packages so they can relax and watch their favorite shows after touring your local town.

Whatever the case may be, be sure to always highlight how you cater to your audience’s problems and core needs in your marketing copy. 

2. Discover where your audience lives online (and focus on building a community there) 

Do you know where your audience lives online? Are they avid Instagram users? Do they binge TikTok videos? Do they love Twitter?

You can use this information to your advantage by focusing the majority of your marketing efforts on the platforms they use most. 

Need inspiration? Take a look at Umar, the co-founder of all-in-one trading journal, TradeZella. Since his audience lives on Twitter, he focused his efforts there and has since built a community of 71k followers. 

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His strategy? Sharing and retweeting the progress his platform users are making. By choosing a platform his audience frequents most and integrating social proof, Umar has found the magic cocktail to community building.

And you can learn from Umar, too. 

Whether you decide to grow your Instagram account or whether you’d like to focus on other channels, like Facebook, be sure to build your own dedicated communities on the channels your audience frequents most. Bonus points if you can share stories of previous customers that were happy with your rental!

3. Create an email list 

Creating an email list is a great way to stay in touch with customers old and new. 

By keeping them in the loop with vacation rental updates, recent news, and check-ins, you can continue to remain memorable and build a loyal customer base.

Bonus points if you also email them value-driven content, such as ultimate guides or tips and tricks. For instance, “5 mistakes you don’t want to make when looking for a vacation rental”. Or, “The ultimate guide to Florida’s best beaches”.

4. Take beautiful photos and videos to keep as digital assets 

Build up your digital asset inventory by taking plenty of beautiful photos and professional videos of your properties. 

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Keep your assets organized by name so you can easily pull them when you need to create your video marketing strategy and marketing content. 

You can also create professional, gorgeous posters with poster templates showcasing discounts and special offers to nudge your prospects closer to conversion. Be sure to also keep these well-organized so you can simply post them or schedule them into your content batches. 

And speaking of batches …

5. Batch and schedule your content but leave room for spontaneous check-ins 

Stay ahead of the game by planning, batching, and scheduling your content in advance. 

Marketing automation tools can help you automate processes like welcome or promotional emails and social media postings while you focus on more pertinent tasks. You can also use social media calendar templates to plan your posts and stay and stay organized.

We also recommend leaving room in your calendar for spontaneous check-ins and updates. For instance, to notify your audience that a particular rental just became available again. Or to brag on yourself after a customer just left a glowing review.

6. Enlist the support of an SEO agency and content writing service 

Expand your online reach even further by getting your hands on a solid blogging and link building strategy.

You can also use content writing services to develop publish-ready content to share on your vacation rental platforms and blog. 

7. Become memorable by keeping your branding consistent 

As soon as they visit your website and social media profiles, your ideal customer begins registering queues related to your brand. For instance, they may later remember that your logo was a bright Christmas red or that all of your photography was moody and rustic. 

Or, they may remember that your company mission statement was in line with their values — or, they may remember how positive your customer testimonials were. 

That’s why it’s essential to pay special attention to your company’s branding across all of your marketing channels. 

To become memorable, you need to create a high-quality website and social media profiles that have a consistent tone, style, and design. Your profiles and site should also highlight who you serve and how you add value to their lives.

Take Tailor Brands as an example. Tailor Brands does a great job at displaying a trustworthy image to their existing and potential customers by making good use of reviews.

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Jasmine Star is another great example of a brand that keeps its look and feel consistent and places a huge focus on its ideal customer by sharing free resources and even free gifts.

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By keeping your image consistent and professional and by highlighting how you serve your ideal customer, you can become a memorable vacation rental that customers will want to visit again and again. 

Wrap up 

And that’s it for today!

Are you ready to execute your new digital marketing strategy? 

Remember to:

1. Identify and understand your target audience 

2. Discover where your audience lives online (and focus on building a community there) 

3. Create an email list

4. Take beautiful photos and videos to keep as digital assets 

5. Batch and schedule your content but leave room for spontaneous check-ins

6. Enlist the support of an SEO agency and content writing service

7. Become memorable by keeping your branding consistent

Now, it’s your turn to create and execute a digital marketing strategy in line with your ideal customer’s needs.

To your success!