Choosing the right Channel for your Vacation Rental Business?

When looking at channels to increase the advertising of your properties there is a minefield of websites and management systems to choose from; HomeAway, TripAdvisor and Rentals United to name a few. How do you decipher which channel is best to get the most out of your efforts?

Let us help you, with our 3 top tips to choosing the right channel.

1 – Understand your Holiday Rental Business
When starting to decide what channels are best you need to know your target audience, your current customers and your properties.

Looking at the current demographics of people who are placing bookings, will help you paint a picture of who you are currently attracting to your holiday rental.  Are they the audience your properties are set up for?

Knowing your current audience think about, what new markets and customers are you looking to attract? In the UK, inbound tourism is a big opportunity with number of visitors from abroad increasing each year. Do you have properties which offer tourists a central location? Advertising on networks such as Ctrips or Ostrovok will give you access to overseas customers from the countries they specialise in.

Some channels allow you showcase your properties features, while others are specialised in advertising a certain type of property. Do your properties have unique features or selling points? Discovering what you can promote through the channel will enable you to assess the return on investment once you have started to promote to them.

2 – Costs
All businesses have different models of pricing their properties and so does advertising on each channel. Researching the terms of the booking on the websites will make sure you are not going to be charged more than you expect for your property being listed, booked or canceled.

Keeping a track of how much you are booking via a certain channel will allow you to work out if the money you are paying to advertise is giving you a return on your investment. When connecting using our Booking Management Solution we offer you intelligent reports to give you analysis on enquiries, leads and bookings.  Our bookings by source report, allows you to see where sales have been generated from. This provides the information you need to calculate the ROI from each channel.

3 – Tools to help you
iPro has partnered with a number of channel providers, like Rentals United to allow you to push your availability calendars, property details and images directly from our booking management system. This save you time and work to get the most out of marketing on these channels.

Still wondering where to place your adverts? A tool we have found useful is the  Channelizer Quiz from Rentals United. The quiz helps you works out what collection of channels will reach your ideal customers. We haven’t found any other tool like it!

Still not sure on where to advertise? Give our team  a call today – +44 (0)1380 819474  
We are on hand to help you choose the right channels for your holiday rental business.