Copy Matters
though you may not think so!
We’re just a few weeks from the first ever (and sold out) ‘in person’ edition of the Vacation Rental World Summit and we’d like to extend this post to our entire community.
Andy McNulty and Jessica Vozel from Guesthook will be among the great speakers we have the honor to have on board this year in Barcelona.
Andy and Jessica want to really give their best in this session on copywriting, so they asked if we could share their thoughts among attendees and the outer community of fellow peers prior to the event.
Would you give us your feedback?
NOTE: We’ll gladly share the recordings of their session after the event with those of you who will help us out, on a special “friends only” broadcast we’ll give you access to, so it’s a win-win.
Andy & Jessica’s Open Letter To You
As the glorious summer fades and guests depart, many vacation rental professionals will start to look inwards (after some down time to recharge of course!)
- How can I improve on last year?
- What do I need to action in the off season?
- What tasks should I prioritise?
What better place to find those answers than during the upcoming conference season?
Whether it’s VRMA, LiveRez, the Airbnb Open, HomeAway’s Summit, or the Vacation Rental World Summit, the purpose is the same: Learn, improve, network and have some fun!
Whilst these events are great places to learn new tricks, you do run the risk of exiting a session having learnt, well, nothing. Either the session title was misleading, or the content wasn’t relevant to your specific setup, or the speakers weren’t engaging.
As speakers at the upcoming VRWS we’re acutely aware that attendees have invested time and money to be present. For that reason we want our session to be as useful and engaging as possible. It’s our goal to ensure that everyone leaves our session with the opinion that it added value to their business.
With this in mind we’re asking all attendees of the VRWS to let us know what they’d like from our session.
We’ll be talking about how to use written content to engage your guests. Here’s the full overview of our session:
Love the Key Points you mentioned above that you’ll be talking about, I think those are exactly the points I need to focus on. I do wonder if anyone reads any of the content or if they just look at the photos. For me to “take action” I enjoy a summary with specific “to do’s” in a 1, 2, 3 format or bulleted… so I can actually input what I am thinking about writing. Wish I could hear everyone and know it will be a great summit, enjoy!
Wendy
http://www.NorthIdahoLakeRentals.com
Thanks for your input and feedback Wendy! We’ll make sure we send you the recordings of the session so you can hopefully make note of Andy and Jessica’s 1,2,3 to do’s 🙂
Hi Wendy, we have some specific (real life) examples where the copy has resulted in an increase in bookings. So we’ll certainly add a case study element to this, identifying the key parts that made the copy successful. Hopefully that will give you more specific actions to take! Sound good?
Andy and Jessica, I was working with both of you earlier and I love what and how you do.
A suggestion for a topic: It was a real challenge for me when I received my first 3 star review, as I didn’t know how to answer it in a professional way. Andy was kind enough to help me and I’m sure that the answer I wrote influences our potential guests in a positive way. This topic may interest many, and the ability of writing an appropriate answer to a negative review may come handy for any VR owner or manager, as even the very best ones might get a bad review one day.
Good luck to both of you on the summit.
Virag from Budapest
Thanks Virag for the kind words and the suggestion. Review responses are tricky, but also a great opportunity to showcase a human touch, if well written. The tricky part is answering a review you disagree with! We wrote a blog post on review responses a while back (it’s on our blog) so we’ll look at recapping the key points. I feel we may need a longer session Antonio!
Yes indeed you are touching key points. What happens also is that most of us are still using vacation rental platforms to get enquiries and what i realised recently is that those platforms keep on proposing other alternative to the “potential” guest we are trying to convince. So I would be really interested in useful tips or idea that we could offer in our first reply to catch the potential guest attention. Many thanks and all the Best !
Thanks Elias. Ah the all-important first response. We get asked this a lot! Asking your potential guest a question and/or showing your human side is key. Jessica is all over this subject so we’ll try our best to weave this in!
Yes, your topics would be worthwhile. I suspect that as the owner of a single property, my property brand and me as the owner who self-manages the property, are very much linked together. I want to make sure my strengths of being a trusting, relationship-based person comes across in my copy. I also assume that my target guests are similar to me so I write with my own needs in mind. I track my conversions (bookings to inquiries). How would I know if I’m being successful? Benchmark data on the VR industry would be helpful.
Hi Jody, being a former CFO I would love to get my hands on some big data. You have some booking history so that’s certainly one benchmark, i.e. this year vs last year. Do you set yourself goals? For example “Improve my inquiry:booking ratio from 3% to 4% in the next 12 months” or “Increase my monthly bookings by 5% versus the same month last year”. That’s certainly one way to track success. The more challenging issue is benchmarking vs others in your country/region/city because that data is not publicly available.
The topic of how you write, and who you write for, will be covered for sure!
Thanks!
One of the issues I have with these types of sessions is walking away with EXACTLY what I can do to get started. I really appreciate it when I have a “to do list” so that I can tick off each box as I go through the process and know that I am making progress. It is important to me, since I am in another country, that people can trust me AND my brand. I do, also, want to know that people are actually reading my words and not just skimming across (or leaving immediately) so the ability to know that I am reaching my audience is key.
Bonnie
Great feedback Bonnie! Thanks for posting. You’re spot on.
Hi Bonnie, you nailed it, this is exactly why we’re looking for input. Thank you!
mmmmm… I did post earlier as I was sat waiting for our newest arrivals, but it doesn’t seem to have appeared. I will have another try and hope things work out this time.
Some of the ideas coming off the top of my head…
Show a before and after example… have a copy before it was worked on, then show the after example showing what was changed and why
Have a list of positive trigger words (maybe vice versa – negative trigger words) and why they are good/not so good
Create a copy grader/checklist so that you can see what is good about your copy and where it needs to improve
Ensure every participant can takeaway at least one easily actionable idea that can be done *today*
Make sure content is relevant and practical rather than just theoretical
As there are so many variables in where people are at in terms of skill levels, business model and destination type, I think broad brush strokes would be more appropriate to start off, with the possibility of more targeted discussion available as a follow up.
Think that is all the grey matter is giving at the moment… if I come up with any other suggestions I will come back to you!
Bravo Neal! These are great tips! I’m sure @McNultyAndy:disqus will like them very much 🙂
Fantastic list, thanks Neal! The whole point of us soliciting feedback on the session overview was to address your last point: Make sure content is relevant and practical rather than just theoretical. That said, you are 100% correct… there are so many variables in where people are at. We’ll try to find the right balance!
We run a small regional listing site (30+ properties) and I am in the final stage of building a new website. Copywriting is a huge part of that task. I have received a lot of help from Joanna Wiebe’s Copyhacker books on how to write and structure copy. However, Joanna’s target audience are those who copywrite for SaaS companies which usually only have one or two products. I am writing to describe and differentiate 30 holiday homes. When I started several years ago, I tended to write a comprehensive list (bullet points) of what each home contained paying special attention to the kitchen which is what distinguishes a holiday home from a hotel. I would also write a few paragraphs about the “feeling” the home gave me and aimed the copy at the type of person I felt would enjoy the house. It was not too difficult then because we had some pretty unusual homes to list. Today, though, I am finding it difficult to differentiate and write with feeling about generic homes that really do not give me any feeling.
Many home owners are switching from long term unfurnished renting to short term holiday renting. There is nothing particularly “wrong” with their homes, they are priced about right, they could probably be better equipped, they are everywhere but they don’t sing to me. I suppose this is the age old problem for copywriters – making something sing which is tone deaf. I believe every home can sing if the owner were to make the effort but this usually requires some expenditure and that is where we often get stuck. Creating an over-inflated impression might bring in a few extra bookings but it will almost certainly bring disappointment too, which helps no-one – least of all the customer.
Another thing I wonder about is the sales funnel. Most listing sites seem to assume that everyone coming to the site is about to book. That may not be the case. How do you write for those who are ready to book and those who are not even sure about the advantages and benefits of a holiday home compared to a hotel or a resort. How do you structure this on a website?
How do you use copywriting to steer a customer through a website? People are naturally lazy and will avoid doing the work of finding a home that suits them if they can get someone to do it for them. We get people phoning all the time, which is great until they say that they want such and such a house for certain dates and they are a party of 12. Of course, they have not read much about Such and Such House because it only has 4 bedrooms and is already booked!
I think photographs rank first in their ability to attract bookings. They have captions which cause me difficulties. For example, a picture of a swimming pool. It seems slightly redundant to have a caption saying “Swimming Pool”. OK, so we put “Sparkling Swimming Pool” but I still have another 20 pools to caption and a lot of them have no particular feature to latch onto.
Sometimes I wonder if I provide too much information. Should I go the Clint Eastwood route and prune all unnecessary dialogue and more or less rely on the images alone and a short list of the essential facilities e.g. number of bedrooms and bathrooms etc.
“I believe every home can sing if the owner were to make the effort but this usually requires some expenditure and that is where we often get stuck. Creating an over-inflated impression might bring in a few extra bookings but it will almost certainly bring disappointment too, which helps no-one – least of all the customer.” Couldn’t agree more, Nick.
Very challenging and interesting question, the one on the sales funnel, as well as the others. I think there’s some great food for thought for @McNultyAndy:disqus
Wow Nick, great thoughts/questions. Sorry it’s taken me so long to reply.
I do agree that differentiation can be tricky for the kind of homes you’re describing: functional, if not inspiring. They can feel like a commodity, not unlike the challenge of describing a stay in a perfectly functional brand hotel.
2 rules:
1. Don’t dress it up. Keep it honest and keep it real. As you say, the short-term gain will hit you when the reviews come in. Also try not to view a lack of “wow” as an issue or obstacle. Think about cleanliness, comfort, simplicity, and a hassle-free experience. Location can also play a part in differentiation. Not every guest is looking for the sweeping vista. Most, though, will be looking for honesty and an easy experience.
2. The property is just one aspect of a stay with you. What do you bring to the table that your competitor agency/manager doesn’t? Think about that hassle-free experience I mentioned. I bet you don’t categorise yourself or your approach to guests as bland or average 🙂
We’ll definitely touch on this in the session!
You’ve also asked about how to structure content on a website to cater for different guest characters and browsing habits. Firstly, I don’t think you’ll ever rid yourself of the lazy reader who asks you about a home that’s booked or a home that is simply not suitable for them. Human nature!
BUT there is a way to write for the different types of browser habits…
Rather than me write lots of content here that some may not read (!) take a look at this episode from my favourite series on the web: Moz’s Whiteboard Friday (the inspiration for our own Webinar Friday BTW):
https://moz.com/blog/how-to-write-for-the-web-a-new-approach-for-increased-engagement-whiteboard-friday
There is some discussion about one of Dejan’s tactics from an SEO perspective but that’s distraction. My advice (and certainly what Dejan is ultimately advocating) is a clean layout, minimal text to start, with obvious links or calls to action that take those who are interested towards deeper content.
Finally… never rely on images alone. No doubt they pique the interest but the way you organise and present your content (not just words, but design, usability, etc) will take a guest towards conversion!
Love this Nick and we’ll be using it in Barcelona! Thank you.
Great insight Andy! Truly honored to have you and Jessica share your golden nuggets at the Vacation Rental World Summit! Can’t wait to hear you live.
Looking forward to it Antonio!
Thank you very much Andy for your detailed reply. You are absolutely right about not getting too caught up on the WOW factor but making use of the more mundane things that do also make a big difference to the overall experience.
I have never really talked about the input that we, as agents, bring to the customer. I do use testimonials that have mentioned our role and how we have helped but I should, perhaps, be a bit more specific about the benefits of using our website and booking through us.
Thanks for the Dan Petrovic link – I had seen it before and then forgotten about it. Only 16% of web visitors really read through to the end – that is a sobering thought.
Writing for the web really does need to be approached in a much smarter way. Doing it well, though, is a lot of work – as Dan said, he did 500 revisions to get his original article down to 400 primary words with the rest available by link and popup. I think one way that a similar technique could be used is by using the mouse rollover function on images where a small box pops up with some text in it. For example, an image of a swimming pool could go beyond describing itself as a swimming pool and talk about keeping the kids entertained and having lunch beside the pool and so on.
Yes his revisions took a long time because of what he was trying to. That is, reworking a huge amount of text for an experiment.
I wouldn’t advocate the same approach for VR owners/managers. Instead I would be moving the deeper text onto pages that link from other pages. For example the home page would have clear and succinct messaging with links to move people (who want to) deeper into the site.
Thanks Nick!
One sentence is a good summary and take away : Sharp logos; great photos; intuitive web design; a sense of purpose?