Your # 1 Asset
(And The Top 3 Tools Nobody Is Telling You About)
There is a bottom line making the Vacation Rental World Summit the most important online educational event of the year for progressive property owners and managers worldwide. And this bottom line is the determination to ensure your business keeps thriving year after year, despite all sorts of ‘conspiracies’ rowing against.
Kickstarting VRWS Agenda
As host of VRWS and successful property owner myself, it’s fair enough that I kick start the agenda of the event, by anticipating what my keynote session will be about.
My #1 Secret (Yet Not The Only One…)
Last year, I showed you the system I created that’s making me stand out from the crowd.
I’ve been using it for years to convert now up to 90% of the inquiries I get into solid bookings.
It is basically a Bespoke Reply I send out to each prospective guest minutes after they email me their requests, which follows a precise, proven structure I tested and refined over time and takes me seconds to prepare. Here is the recipe for higher conversions:
- an appealing header
- followed by a short, compelling video introduction of yourself, the owner personally greeting your prospect, showing the property and the area they'll choose for their holiday
- then a personalized copy addressing your prospect's needs and expectations
- a 3D floorplan of the property
- 3 Video testimonials to reinforce trust and credibility
- a "Book Now" button or Call to Action to entice them to reserve directly on your site and placed strategically three times within the reply
- the instant notification you get when your prospect opens your message so you can follow up with further steps I explained during the session
- Your front and center contact information and invitation to connect
- 3 further videos of your properties (if you have more than one unit) and
- 3 testimonials followed by the Call To Action to secure the booking.
This is an extremely quick wrap up of some of the tips I shared last year that inspired some of you to model on this system and increase their conversions significantly.
Your #1 Asset (and the top 3 tools nobody is telling you about)
My training session this year will revolve around your #1 asset, the major tool you have to be fully in control of almost every aspect of your business: your own property’s website. And it will be based on my personal experience and that of some of the owners I’ve been working with that witness how harnessing the power of a near to perfect VR website can make all the difference in getting great results and regaining control.
Where Do You Fit?
Surprisingly enough, there is a pretty large number of you though who rely solely on a listing on their sites of choice, thus waiving control goodbye and missing out on the opportunity to get even more bookings while putting themselves at the mercy of whatever decision corporations make that eventually affects your business big time. Think about hiding your prospect’s contact information until after a booking is secured for example, forcing you to adopt a Book It Now option you don’t necessarily want to use, or having to wait for payments until after your guest checked in your place, let alone sending out post-stay requests for reviews without giving you any control over what your guests will publicly display and penalizing your listing if you don’t adhere to all sorts of rules.
Then there is another pretty big part of you, who do have a website yet don’t give it justice and do not exploit all the huge potential for lead generation, customer acquisition, brand development, reputation management and bookings collection, as well as direct payments to name just a few of the key aspects your business may have not fully considered.
VR Web Design Makes A Big Difference
In the first training session of the Vacation Rental World Summit this year, I’m going to focus on the core elements of a truly stunning and converting VR website.
I’ll explain the whys, the does and don’ts of web design for Vacation Rentals and I’m going to show you a pretty powerful way of conceiving, designing and building a stunning website that wows viewers, gets them passionate about your property, about the area around it and ultimately makes them want to make instant contact with you, if not even book your property right away.
I’ll share with you 3 awesome tools that will improve your site’s design and performance by showing you where to act and what to change so you respond exactly to what your viewers are looking for and therefore increase the odds of receiving more inquiries and more bookings.
Win-Win
I think those of you who watched the Summit last year agree that the amount of invaluable information, actionable tips and proven tactics we all shared was well worth attending and gave those of you who applied them significant results.
We want to repeat the same success but in doing so we need your help this time.
If you remember, last year attendance was free and we offered the opportunity to purchase the recordings to watch at leisure and digest content over time.
And super owners like Amy, who just left an awesome comment on last week’s post highlighted and summed up perfectly the benefits of the choice she made:
This year, we’ll adopt a different format to ensure the Summit pays for all its costs and keeps delivering great content, so we’ll require a small commitment on your end, or let’s call it an entry fee, like the one you’d pay to attend any conference out there, yet we’ll grant you all the benefits you had last year, your satisfaction guarantee and more Bonuses I’ll be sharing in the coming weeks. Just like Amy and many others did.
So if you haven’t signed up yet to learn about the speakers the topics and the agenda we’ll reveal weekly, do so below and please share this post with all your peers through FB, TW, G+ and your favorite Social Media channels.
Leave me a comment below, tell me what your most important takeaway was last year and what would you like to learn this year. I’ll reply to every comment and I’ll see you next week with our next speaker.
Hi Antonio – I’m so excited to see Year 2 rolling around! Last year my biggest takeaway was the email communication process overall. I made numerous changes to my communication methodology based on content from several speakers.
This year, I’d like to see more discussion on the financial and book keeping side of the business. This can be either overwhelming or time consuming for some individuals working alone in the business. With multiple properties to manage, it becomes important not to let such tasks take control. But accurate records are important and so are the statistics they generate so quality and balance is key!
I’m ready to mark my calendar with the date!!
Making notes there too Jenny! And if I’m not wrong I think it was the same topic you mentioned earlier…am I right? I Think we do have the right Speaker (maybe even two) to address the issues. Stay tuned and thanks for jumping in 😉
Yes it is :). Looking forward to those speakers and all others!!!
Glad to see I have a god memory!
Hi Antonio: As a long time fan and subscriber I look forward to the 2015 Summit eagerly, last years was invaluable. I haven’t implemented as many of the techniques as I would like since I’ve been ‘distracted’ improving my website in conjunction with a 3rd party, in addition to a few other personal issues. Its not where I would like it to be yet and the # 1 issue is the calendar, reservation data collection and booking capability. What I need to hear about in upcoming Summit are suggestions/recommendations about how to fix this and which res. mgmt system is a favorite and is tried and tested. I am using a system, that I won’t name, but works well to do everything except bookings and cannot be integrated with my current website – 2 big negatives that can only be changed by going elsewhere. My website builder is developing such a system but reinventing the wheel is not going well!!
So look forward to hearing the dates in October which I’m sure will coincide with holidays planned but I can always catch-up if you are offering replays quickly. Thanks for all your effort to help escape the clutches of the listing sites!!
Thank you for sharing your pain points, Ralph. I’m making notes and will do my best to come up with a satisfactory answer in October. If you don’t mind, you can private message me at an****************@me.com and tell me a bit more about the situation, so I can investigate it further (you can tell me which system you’re using if you want) and understand where the problems lay and which solution could suit your specific case.
Don’t worry about the Summit being around the same time you’re on holiday in Italy! You said you should be here (by the way, if you’re anywhere near Lake Maggiore, want to meet up for a chat?) beginning of the month. The Summit will be held towards the second half of October and like I mentioned in the video and up here in the post, you’ll get unlimited access to all the replays and all the bonuses we have should you decide to make the small commitment we’ll ask and get the ticket to attend.
The Bespoke reply is my “secret weapon”!
Thanks your suggestions Antonio, I increased my conversion rate a lot.
It takes me just a few seconds to setup the bespoke reply, I have just to insert 4 datas: the client’s name, date-in and date-out and the price.
Here’s an example of my bespoke reply:
http://liguria.holiday/villailpoggiolo/bespoke-reply
In the latest version, I added a mechanism that sends me an e-mail whenever the prospective guest opens the message.
It’s a very useful system to track customer activity.
I often see that the customer is consulting my reply 1, 2, 3, 4 times …. and then, usually after a quarter of an hour, he/she makes the payment for the booking!
It’s really a great idea!
Mauro Bricca
https://www.facebook.com/villailpoggiolo
Great to see variations of what I send out to all inquiring guests. And even greater to see how well it’s working for you, Mauro. I’m super proud of your results and happy that I could help you out as well. It’s awesome how a group working together can refine an idea to seek perfection – and in this specific case I mean the owners who took the leap and followed my Fully Booked Formula online training, who gave me advice and suggestions along the way. In fact, I owe you the automated notification system explained in the Bespoke Reply, which helps making FBF even more powerful than what it used to be in the beginning.
And if you allow me a little praise, Mauro is not only an accomplished property owner, who started with a property and ended up becoming a successful property manager, he’s also the mastermind behind the awesome 360° Virtual Panorama Tours I proudly display on our property’s website AND the author of the technical improvement we mentioned above, that allows who’s using the latest version of my ‘Bespoke Reply’ to send you an instant notification whenever a prospective guest opens your reply. Thumbs up, Mauro! Love your improvement.
As a matter of fact, I saw this in action with the latest inquiry I got yesterday. A lovely lady from the UK seeking the last two weeks of October and opening my Bespoke Reply nine times in the last couple of days and allowing me to kick in with a few more juicy info I gave her to follow up. Definitely a sign she’s pretty interested in what she got. We started a small chat, and she’s supposed to confirm the booking pretty soon.
I’m using this system for six months and, in my experience, I can tell you that if the customer reads the Bespoke reply more than 5 times you have 90% chance that he rents the house!
Obviously, not always a booking is made in a quarter of an hour… sometimes customers take three or four days.
But, in the meantime, you see that the Bespoke reply continues to be consulted – maybe they show it to wife, sons, relatives, friends, they re-read it following the provided links, watching the videos… it’s a positive sign: they are very interested in your information and they are seriously evaluating the features of your property – the booking is coming!
On the contrary, if they read the message only once, the chances are very low.
Ps: thanks for your nice words, Antonio!
Correct, Mauro. Depends on several factors we can influence to a greater degree. And the high percentage of conversion is a sign that the system goes into the right direction.
I usually tend to leave some great features or surprise gifts for a follow up short email I send immediately after they click on the Bespoke Reply the first time. It starts the conversation with them or gets them to reply as well. For example, I don’t tell them in the BR that I will offer a complimentary fridge stockage with their favorite delicacies and some local awesome produce to kick start their vacation in the best possible way upon arrival. I tell them in the follow up message and that contributes to wow them and secure the booking.
What do you do in that sense?
Nothing at the moment…
I remember your suggestion, in the Bespoke reply lesson…
But I give all the information with the first, complete, Bespoke reply.
I don’t send any further message immediately when I see they have downloaded the page.
If no action happen, I send the email for a second time after some hours; sometimes they missed the first one (spam folder? message lost between too many replies also from other owners?)
Your technique (sending some appetizing additional information as soon as they open the message) is good to start the conversation and grab their attention even more.
I will think about it, maybe I could tell them about the new Home-Cinema system in the second message…
I noticed that another good way to get a booking is to give the client a phone call 30 minutes after they have read the Bespoke reply.
I’m doing this only with some Italian clients at the moment, because my spoken English is not so fluent…
If they speak in person with the owner, this greatly increases the trust.
If you are able to keep the conversation in a friendly and pleasant way, you can quickly establish a direct relationship of trust with the customer, and this may lead him to choose you instead of another property.
What do you think about it?
“I noticed that another good way to get a booking is to give the client a phone call 30 minutes after they have read the Bespoke reply.If they speak in person with the owner, this greatly increases the trust.”
Love this, Mauro! So true. As a matter of fact, Rex Brown shared last year how he reaches even 100% conversion rate with the follow up phone call. That’s a pretty personal thing and I sometimes feel a bit embarassed to pick up the phone and call them up, but it works too and for the reasons you mentioned. I called my prospect a handful of times to test it and it worked almost always.
I attended the Summit last year and started taking your “Bespoke Reply” course. Although I have not been able to implement ALL of your recommendations, those tips I am using have catapulted my response rate to 43% in July — Thanks Antonio!!! I am looking forward to this year’s Summit.
Love it, Paula! Hope we can get you to increase it even more this year!