Author Posted on Categories Analytics, Blogging, Email Marketing, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media As the New Year starts to kick-off, companies ask themselves a few questions about their vacation rental digital marketing efforts.
“Is this the year I create that new marketing plan I always
Author Posted on Categories Analytics, Email Marketing, Industry News There are many moving parts to GDPR, but the three main points are listed below:
Users must consent to the processing of their personal data and companies must explain how data is collected and the intention for utilizing data.
Users have the right for their personal data to be deleted/forgotten.
If a website experiences a data breach, it must be reported within 72 hours.
We know GDPR can be confusing, but for our customers primarily operating and marketing within the United States, this is what GDPR means for you:
=&0=& We have created a new privacy policy that can be adopted by our customers. This revised privacy policy was specifically developed in response to GDPR, providing website users with more in-depth information on how their personal data may be collected and used.
Readily Available Contact & Data Controller Information:=&1=&=&2=&
Opt-Choice for Email Marketing: Upon completing a contact form on your website, users should have the ability to opt-in if they wish to receive further emails from your company.
Author Posted on Categories Email Marketing, Vacation Rental Marketing Make sure you are mobile friendly. We live in a world where everything is at our fingertips in this little device called a smartphone. If your marketing plan doesn’t revolve around this device then you should look at revising it. Some statistics say that over 60% of emails opened are on a mobile device so your design and methodology should revolve highly around mobile. At ICND we are always updating our custom email templates and improving them for mobile usage. In many ways this goes beyond just pixel size.
Have the right focus and goals. Don’t try to make bookings with an email. The point of sending an email is to drive traffic to your website, not to make bookings. Although we can attribute bookings to email campaigns through analytics to show the value and return on investment, this should not be the goal when designing and planning. Because of this, you want to make sure your brand is consistent across the board. For example, if your email talks about a specific vacation rental special, when your buyer clicks through to the website they will expect to know more. Whether that is in the form of rental properties, information about the specifics of the vacation special, or how they can receive the discount in the near future, you will need to make sure they know what to do. Focus on driving traffic and let your website do it’s thing.
Create
Author Posted on Categories Email Marketing, Vacation Rental Marketing Cart abandonment in vacation rental marketing terms is when a user gets to a check-out page and then leaves for various reasons. (There really are not “carts” for the rental industry.)
On average cart abandonment is responsible for over 82% of lost sales every year, that’s a huge number! However, ICND clients have been able to turn that negative statistic into revenue due to some of the tools they have access too. Some clients are recapturing 20% of the abandoned traffic which results to an average of $50,000 per month recaptured that otherwise would be lost; that adds up to $600,000 per year in generated revenue from a simple process.
The magic is in the tools we use and it starts with our booking engine. Our booking engine sends out a “reminder” email, much like Amazon, if the user didn’t complete their purchase. There could be many reason’s someone abandon’s their booking. Maybe they want to compare pricing, maybe they get distracted. Who knows.
Here’s how it works:
Step 1: The consumer reaches the “Booking” page and starts entering information.
Step 2: For some reason, they don’t book but the information is recorded and stored in your database.
Step 3: After a certain amount of time, if they don’t convert, the system automatically sends a follow-up email to remind them to come back and book.
But what’s awesome is we offer a back-end dashboard that tracks ALL of these emails:
We all know a user will visit your website multiple times before booking. That’s just how it is. So what if we made it easier on them to return and BOOK? That’s why ICND was proactive to introduce this concept to the VRM industry and the results have been exceptional.
If a potential guest abandons their checkout, we ALSO have a nifty little gadget that shows them the unit they abandoned once they RETURN to the site.
Author Posted on Categories Email Marketing As email marketing professionals, we know the value of a great active list to send to. After all, if you’re not collecting new email addresses, then how are you growing your email database over time?
At ICND, we’ve spent lots of time working on the tactical part of email marketing messages: what’s the best time to send, what segment do we send the message to and what do we include to generate the most clicks? But, at the end of the day, email lists with more members get more clicks.
In short, bigger (lists) are always better (for your traffic and bookings).
With that in mind, we set out to help a client reach their email marketing goals — encourage more bookings, drive action and get more traffic to their website. At first, we added our typical email strategy: tracking capture points, optimizing copy and CTAs and creating urgency to sign up for this client’s newsletter.
It worked — we were gaining new email addresses but sadly also losing email addresses too. For every few emails we added to the list, one may unsubscribe during the next marketing message we sent.
Let me be honest — the list growth for this client was fairly stagnant.
Armed with this information, we set out to help grow their list with a plan designed to garner more attention, signups and results.
If you’ve been on any e-commerce website or blog over the past few years, you’ve probably seen the trend of email popups dominating your screen. Large, in your face modals are all the rage. As we’ve learned, there is a good reason for that: They work.
In Spring of 2015, we added a popup modal for our client located in a popular beach destination along the South Carolina coast. The popup modal didn’t just come up on first page load but instead had a careful set of rules set before it would show to the potential guest.
Author Posted on Categories Email Marketing, Vacation Rental Marketing The Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation, better known as “CASL”, has been put into place recently by the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) regarding any and ALL emails sent to your clients in Canada.
Have you ever received an inquiry or booking from someone in Canada? Then yes, this applies to you.
Do you think you may receive an inquiry or booking from someone in Canada? Yes, this applies to you.
*Keep in mind that all of the below, while they are good practice, only apply to your Canadian clients and their email addresses. No need to change what you’re doing for your US or other client’s emails.
#1) Consent: You must receive “consent” from the person you are sending an email to. This could be implied or expressed consent.
Implied consent could mean a business relationship such as a booking or inquiry of a property online.
Expressed consent is like someone subscribing to your list or asking to be on your list. This could be oral, written or electronic but it must be clear who and what they are subscribing to.
#2) Identification: At the point in which you are acquiring an email and consent, you must identify the name of the business, contact info (address, phone, email, web address), and be sure to make this “clear and prominent”.
#3) Unsubscribe: You must always be sure to allow someone to unsubscribe at any time, allow this function at no cost and perform the unsubscribe action in 10 days or less. Pretty easy here, you should be doing this anyways.
While this is tiered, penalties of up to $10 million per violation may be applied and are enforced by the CRTC. If I interpreted this correctly, these penalties will not be enforced until July 1st, 2017; so we have 3 years.
1) If someone books a property, this is a business relationship and gives you implied consent, however, this only gives you the ability to email this person for up to 24 months.
2) If a person inquires about a property, this is again implied consent, but you are only authorized to email this person for 6 months.
3) If you include in your terms the act of entering their email address is giving you consent to include them in your email marketing, and it must be “clear & prominent”, then this implied consent gives you the ability to send email to them for 24 months.
4) You often see or use check boxes to auto opt-in subscribers with it already checked. Now, they need to check that box to opt in rather than them un-checking the box to opt-out.
It is the burden of the sender to provide proof of consent: This means that you should start tracking the submit date and expiration date of consent. Other key information to track would be the source or webpage consent was given, booking number, IP address, and a “last update” field. If someone inquires or books again, this resets the expiration of consent to email.
Refer a Friend
Author Posted on Categories Email Marketing This is a vacation rental company who sent a recent eblast offering specials and featuring specific homes. The majority of people are clicking on one of the areas that boasts “up to 40% off!” No big shock there, people are always looking for a deal.
Below the 40% off offer, there are 8 featured homes (which we have blurred out for privacy). This is where it gets interesting. Each featured home has a photo, the name of the home, and a button that says “view availability”. On each home, more people clicked on the photo than the view availability button. We are always preaching how you need a call to action, which is still extremely important. But it is also important to make sure photos and other areas are linked as well. The more opportunities you give people to click the better!
If you’re interested in more information about email marketing and how it can help you, contact your account rep today! Don’t have an account rep yet? Contact us at info@icoastalnet.com
Author Posted on Categories Analytics, Email Marketing, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Vacation Rental Marketing Studies have shown (Framingham Heart Study) that men who regularly vacation are 32% less likely to die of heart related illnesses compared to men who do not take a regular vacation. What’s worse is that women who don’t vacation twice a year are 8 times MORE likely to suffer from a heart related illness. These studies reinforce the notion that happier, healthier people across the board, know that rest and relaxation are vital to their health.
The question is: are you capturing every demographic the correct way?
Today’s marketing tools make it easier than ever to target specific demographics:
Facebook Targeted Ads– Facebook ads have come a long way in terms of targeting. Users of Facebook today are revealing more and more information within their own profiles that Facebook has tactfully gained access to who each user is. If one bedroom condos are a large part of your inventory still in stock, the ability to create an ad specifically toward those in relationships with less than 2 children as well as including the unmarried and married with less than 2 children, ensures that those in your target segment are the only ones who are viewing such an ad.
Facebook Post Targeting– Did you know you can cater a post to specific demographics? Much like Facebook ads, specific post targeting allows you to display certain posts to current fans that you wish to capture. Suppose there are a number of units you’d like to see booked for an upcoming weekend. Depending on your vacation rental price points, wouldn’t it make sense to target to those solely within a day’s drive? Creating a targeted post highlighting this facet has the potential to yield higher results.
Segmented
Author Posted on Categories Email Marketing You’ve heard it before. Email Marketing is an easy and in expensive way to stay in front of your consumer. Keep them in the know, and keep you on their mind. It’s a tried and true method,
Author Posted on Categories Email Marketing Nothing. It's still there in force. It might not be the coolest kid on the block, but it's still the biggest on the playground. So, yeah…everyone is talking about social media, but forget
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