3 effective strategies to boost your bookings
It’s no secret that the short term rental market has shifted dramatically this year. Although as an entrepreneur for the last 5 years, I can honestly say that I think our industries are just normalizing after the crazy spike we’ve had since 2020.
Nonetheless, the conversation inside many STR circles seems to be: “Airbnbust or…”
If you’ve landed here, my guess is that your bookings aren’t exactly ideal, but you’re freaking in this for the long haul so here you are, trying to figure out what to do next.
I’ve been a branding and marketing strategist for 10 years now so that part of me wants to tell you that if you don’t have a recognizable, memorable as hell, trustworthy brand that guests connect to and you aren’t marketing your property outside of Airbnb or VRBO… the next couple of years are only going to get more shaky for you. But, for purposes of this, I wanted to give you some insight on what we do to help boost bookings across all our properties.
Step 1:
Actually optimize your listing
I think many property management companies and co-hosts include this as a perk to working with them, but it’s really just the initial listing that’s halfway optimized.
What we mean by optimizing your listing is the work that happens on a weekly basis when we look at what the data is telling us.
Initially it’s about:
- High-quality, captioned photos with a focus on the story of the property.
- Engaging, skimmable description that emphasizes key features guests care about.
- Accurate, detailed amenities.
- Great Guest Reviews.
Then on a weekly basis, we review what Rankbreeze is showing + insights on the platform and we make subtle adjustments accordingly and track to see what works and what doesn’t.
Step 2:
Enhance the guest experience
We are competing with hotels for business. Hotels that offer room service, extra towels delivered to your door, someone always available to help you, cleaning team on site, the ability to move you to another room if the TV doesn’t work…
And then of course you’re competing with the other Airbnbs around you. So how are you differentiating yourself? An easy way to do this is through guest experience.
When it comes to guest experience you want to think about everything from the time a guest finds your property, books it, stays, and then reviews (and hopefully rebooks).
Have a great cleaning team, incorporate unique touches, provide local recommendations, and have stellar communication… just a few ways to make sure you have happy guests. Also think about what guests might comment on in their review… what do you want them to say about their stay and experience with you? Make sure you incorporate this.
Step 3:
Strategic pricing and promotions
For the love of all things holy, please don’t just “set and forget” your pricing. Example: Taylor Swift is coming to Indy next November and when she announced her dates, the hosts that had their calendars open got screwed because their rates were normal.
PriceLabs suggested $500 per night for our 4 bed, 2 bath property just 5 minutes from the concert venue. I knew we could get more so I priced us at $1000 per night for all 3 nights of her concert and $500 the night before and after. I opened just those dates and within 30 minutes, we were booked.
Also, if your bookings are down, you can play with pricing and test out special offers that Airbnb offers.
This helps boost you in search results and can give you an advantage to refresh your visibility. You could even try lowering your cleaning fee by $5-10 to see if that makes a difference for you.
Airbnbust doesn’t have to be your story.
If all of this seems like a ton of work for you, we’d love to support you. We offer co-hosting services for hosts who want to be hands-off, maximize their ROI, and get more 5-star reviews. We actually care about your properties and your guests plus we only take on properties that are a fit for our brand too. It’s not our goal to be a massive management company with rentals that aren’t actually managed at all. It’s our goal to provide quality service to our hosts and guests at properties that are set up to provide a great experience.
Send me a text!
Learn more about our co-hosting services here and send me a text at 317-431-8968 if you want to chat about how we can further support you.