Mark Simpson’s YouTube tutorial ("How to Market Your STR Business") explains practical, low-cost marketing tactics short-term rental (STR) owners can use to increase bookings and profits. Using case studies of two hosts (Justina and Kieran), he emphasizes daily 30-minute marketing activities and six specific tactics: outreach to previous guests, guest surveys, defining guest avatars, creating direct-booking websites, targeted cold-calling to local businesses, and proactive outreach to contractors found in hotel car parks. The video argues that listing on platforms alone won’t guarantee bookings and that targeted, repeatable outreach turns lookers into bookers.
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How about a stay in a mushroom dome? This rustic 100 square foot cabin is nestled in the California woods and boasts over half a billion guests, making it one of the most popular Airbnb rentals on the platform. But if you're dreaming of stargazing in its 10 acres of natural terrain and farmland, you'll need to plan ahead. Because it's currently booked up for the next six months, that isn't a luxury most short term rental owners can boast. However, that's not the typical experience for short term rental owners using the platform to host their properties. Simply listing a short term rental property on Airbnb doesn't guarantee bookings and profits. Occupancy rates, which measure the proportion of days in a month a property is booked, can be as low as 10% or even lower. Why do so many owners neglect property marketing? And just wait for bookings. You're leaving easy money on the table and if the bookings dry up, you're in big trouble. With Justina and Kieran, I introduced daily marketing activities that take just 30 minutes and they've substantially increased bookings, allowing Kieran to invest the extra profits back into his property. And Justina has been able to work on starting up a new management model to her business. Here are the most impactful and easy to implement tactics so you can do the same. Number one Outreach to previous guests. We had an email list that we were gathering. We had a list of people that had stayed with Justina and Kearney. And what we did is we reached out to them, we told them about new properties that we had coming on board. We tell them about new dates that we had coming on board. But essentially we reached out to the people that had already given us money, already stayed with us, already established that know, like and trust to a re established communication. Number two surveys. We wanted to figure out exactly why people were choosing to stay at Justina's properties. She had a selection in leads and we wanted to do a survey to figure out who was the ideal guest, who was kept coming back for more, and why they were staying with Justina in the first place. So by reaching out to the guests and by surveying our guests, we were able to figure out her niche and her audience were contractors and families looking to be relocated. So again, this really helped us in terms of marketing and creating her direct booking website. Guest avatars. Every single person watching this will have a different habitat. Doesn't matter where you are in the world. Doesn't matter whether you look after solo people or huge groups. You've Got a different avatar, which is also basically fancy marketing talk for ideal guests. What we established with both Kearney and Justina is who were the ideal guests, who are the ideal people that were going to walk through the door. But more importantly, before we even went down that route of figuring out it was who was coming to the area. Because the type of guest that goes to Orlando, Florida is different to the type of guest that's coming to Leeds, United Kingdom. So we figured out who is coming to the area, what the property or properties are best suited for, and then we go, okay, so this is who we want to appeal and to be walking through our door. By figuring that out, it made everything so much easier because the copy that we used, the pictures that we use, everything that we could put together on the new website that we're going to talk about in a second, everything was so much easier. Number four, new websites. One thing that was crystal clear with both Justina and Kearney is that their lack of a quality website, one that turns lookers into bookers. So for Justina, we created cozy spaces.co.uk and for Kearney, we built escapebookings.com. both of them were designed to do one thing and one thing only is to turn a looker into a booker. Beautiful pictures, really easy to understand copy speaking to their ideal guests, telling the story about them as a host and an owner, but also as well, what their property or property bring and how they can best suit the guest. Number five, cold calling. What we noticed, especially in leads for Justina's properties, is that there were several businesses that were responsible for sending contractors and subcontractors to the area. What we did is we got the contact information of the best person to speak to at those businesses and we, we dropped a call and we picked up the phone and give them a call. On this phone call, we weren't trying to do the hard sell. All we're doing was introducing ourselves and our portfolio and how we could help. By doing so, we're able to establish relationships and contacts so that in turn, when those businesses need to send their contractors or subcontractors to leads, the next time, they're not going to go and search on booking.com, they're not going to go search on Airbnb. They've got a direct contact in Justina. And number six, and the best one, I'll save this for last, is this one tactic that so many people don't do, but if they start to do it, you'll generate much more business bookings in your area. One night I asked Justina to do me a favor and was to drive around Leeds city centre. Justina was pinpointed to go to four chain hotels and all that she needed to do was to go into the car park between 7pm and 9pm and was to make a note of which company vans were in those car parks, took a picture, got a name, got a number and that was all she was meant to do. She drove around four car parks, came around with five phone numbers. The next day we picked up the phone and we gave them a call. Now the reason why you go between 7 and 9pm Is because that is when the workers have had their day at work, they've packed up the vans and they're having the evening in the hotel. When we called the next day, the whole goal of that was again to introduce our business. We worked out that if they've got three or four rooms in said chain hotel, they're going to be stench spending an extra 30 to 40% than if they'd have stayed with Justina. The reason why this happens is that the person who's booking accommodation is normally a PA or receptionist if they don't have a designated accommodation specialist within their company. And so what they do is they just Simply go to booking.com or Expedia and they'll just book the first thing that they see. The goal of this is to introduce the business and the way that we approach the conversation wasn't to sell, it was to educate and was to explain if they were to book at a short term rental property, a property like Justina's that is designed and set up to work best for contractors, then we get on their radar. This tactic worked really well and resulted in bookings coming from it all I suggest to everybody who's watching this is you do it consistently. If you're lucky enough to have members of your staff that can do this for you, great. But to start off with, you'll have to be the one driving around the car parks, getting down the details and dropping the phone calls in the this was the one tactic that doesn't cost any money. Easy to do and you just got to give up a couple of hours your time, maybe once or twice a month. A solid short term rental marketing strategy can turn lookers into bookers. Your short term rental marketing approach will differ based on the size, location and type of property you're renting out. There's no one size fits all strategy and anyone claiming otherwise is likely to be a questionable guru trying to sell you an inferior product, but the ones I've shared have proven successful for Justina and Kieran, as well as other short term rental owners I've worked with. So if you're heavily reliant on other platforms for your bookings, I want you to give some of my suggestions a try and share your results with me.
