Marketing your success

The first thing important for your marketing success is learning to write your home description. Say something about the location as well as the property in the very first paragraph. People tend to choose location first, accommodation second. You need also to write a compelling headline. Keep paragraphs short, if possible with one idea per paragraph - it makes it much easier on the eye when you are reading from a screen.

The Internet is a visual medium, and when your customers trawl through websites searching for a holiday, many will only be looking at photos and price. It is the single most important part of your listing.

You are rightly proud of your pool and the view of the near beach. Describe them in your photos. You have spent out on a walk-in shower or a hot-tub. These are your key selling points and you should make sure you feature them in your photo. Owners find that the use of a good selection of colour photos makes all the difference in terms of attracting potential clients.

Try to use a digital camera if possible. This will allow you to check what is in the frame and will give you high quality shots, from which you can choose your final set.

If your holiday let is near a decent beach or close to a tourist attraction, then include a photo of that in your set. A golf course or gorge or a family fun-park could help to sell the idea of a holiday rather than just holiday accommodation.
Pictures are very important for your marketing success. People read picture captions, so use them well. A descriptive caption can alter a picture's meaning. Remember, when it comes to writing: less is more. Go through your copy and delete superfluous words - words whose absence does not alter the meaning can go.

Give it a human voice, because people like to be reassured that you really exist - there is still a distrust of the internet for important transactions. Bring yourself into the copy, use 'I' and 'we' to personalise it.

Don't be afraid of humour. Humour is one of the best ways to get a reader to trust you and respond positively.

Use complimentary comments from your guest-book - if it works outside theatres it can work for you.

The most important question for a new owner of a holiday home, is how to attract holidaymakers. Look on your advertisement as an investment – one that will hopefully repay you handsomely with maximised rental income over many years to come.

A postcard is relatively cheap but will obviously be seen by fewer people than a multi-page colour listing with a prominent rental-listings site. That’s why it is important you to find several directories you can advertise on.

We suggest you to include some nice clear information about the local area, what is available for the holidaymaker to do, local events or fiestas, facilities and their distance from the property.

In order to make your holiday let stand out, focus on one or two key selling points and highlight them. If you offer complementary membership of a nearby golf club, feature it in the advert. If a local restaurant offers your customers discount, make that a key point.

You can have the most desirable property in the world - but you won't get the clients if you don't have the right advertising strategy. If you're using a rental agency, they will handle the marketing of your property for you and their advertising costs will be built into their commission. Some agencies have brochures with colour photos of each property for rent - but in many cases properties are not advertised individually.

Visitors want to know exactly what they're getting for their money. If you want all-year-round bookings for your property, check that your agent has a marketing strategy that will bring you clients outside the high season. Some rental agents only target high season visitors because of the higher commissions they receive in peak periods.

There are various forms of print media you can use to advertise your property. The problem here is that you're not reaching a specific target audience - it's unlikely that many readers have bought a particular newspaper specifically with a view to finding a vacation property to rent. If you decide to try newspaper advertising, choose your newspaper carefully - decide what kind of customer you want to be attracted to your property, then advertise in the newspaper which they are most likely to read.

Before making your decision, phone a few of the big circulation papers and ask the advertising department for ad prices, circulation figures and a readership profile.

You will have to select your target mass carefully before advertising in print media. Again, the costs are high and it's not a particularly well targeted form of advertising. Effective advertising needs to reach as wide and as targeted an audience as possible.

You can also prepare posters with your holiday home to place it in travel agencies and tourist offices. That will give you additional exposure. Use quality color pictures that will attract visitors’ attention.

The Internet has quite literally opened up a whole new world in terms of marketing, giving advertisers instant access to a vast but highly targeted global audience. Internet advertising offers a wealth of opportunities which are simply not possible with traditional marketing methods. It is considerably cheaper, especially when you consider what you get for your money.

You can display full details of your property with colour photos & comprehensive description and promote it to a global audience, 24 hours a day all year round for free with us at HolidayHomes.org.

One of the great advantages of this form of advertising is that you have a vast market and one that is also highly targeted. People only tend to visit web sites advertising rental properties if they're seriously looking for a rental.Also a good web site will be attracting thousands of these potential clients each week.

Make sure your property web page includes full contact information so visitors can get in touch with you quickly and easily. If you're on email, you'll want an email link so visitors can send you a message directly from your property web page.

Another thing to bear in mind when using the Internet is that your property "ad" is probably going to be on-line for many months at a time.

A good on-line property web page should answer nearly all the questions a prospective client might want to ask - so the majority of your enquiries should be from people only interested in checking the availability of your property for certain dates.

By advertising on the Internet you are: 1. getting a good deal price wise and 2. saving time and therefore money by not having to answer enquiries about the property.

Surveys show that up to 85% of Internet users rely on search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.) to locate relevant information on the Web. You can create your own web site and invest in search engine optimization or look for quality web directories with already well established search engine positioning.

With Internet you can be almost anywhere in the world as long as you have an internet connection. Your business is open 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
By far the fastest, cheapest and most effective way to advertise your holiday home is by utilising the power of the internet. In todays modern high tech world you have the ability to advertise your holiday home to thousands if not millions of people from all corners of the globe in a matter of seconds.

Paid Listings- These are the holiday rental listing sites that charge a yearly or monthly fee to advertise one or more of your properties on their website. Prices can range from as little as $25 to $150 per year with extra reductions for every subsequent property that you add. Features include the ability to control your ads 24hrs a day, ability to upload numerous digital pictures to your ad, and availability calendars to keep track of bookings.

Commission based - These are the holiday home listing sites that charge around 10% for each booking that is made via the website.

Free sites – These as the name implies are free for you to list your holiday homes on. No commission or percentage of commission is normally charged. Sometimes these sites offer a free service with the option to upgrade to a paid account which will include extra facilities and benefits.

Ask a realistic price. If an identical or even better home is on the market up the road for $1000 week then why waste everyone’s time by trying to give yours for $6,000?

Invest time to refurbish your holiday home. Renovate it and soon you will find that the investment deserved.

Cleaning and maintenance for your vacation rental property is probably the most demanding task. Perhaps you live too far from the rental property or are too busy to clean it yourself and keep up with maintenance. If that's the case, you will benefit tremendously by hiring a rental property service to handle this for you.