Your ideal guest will only find you if you do THIS

Okay, everybody, welcome to the Boostly Podcast, where I like to give hosts just like you the tools, the tactics to training, and the confidence to get more bookings. I've got some special little videos to show you. So over about a month ago, I interviewed Brian and Katie from Overlooked to Overbooked. And a large part of the reason why you aren't getting bookings is because you aren't trying to appeal to, to your ideal guest. And there's so many ways that you are missing out on some things that you don't even realize. Number one, it could be your pictures, it could be the terminology that you use, and it could be. It could be a certain rearrangement of photographs on your listings. So I wanted to take this zoom call that we did with Brian and Katie, part of my coaching group, and I wanted to break it down into little segments and I wanted to post it in the daily podcast because it was so good. It's so good. So please do go and check out Brian and Katie from Overlooked to Overbooked. Go do a Google search for them and really pay attention to what you're going to get access to here in these short little daily segments of the Boostly podcast. I would love to know your feedback when you're listening and watching this. So leave a comment below@markusly.co.uk or at Boostly UK on all of the socials. But for now, I'm going to just flip my screen. You're going to see Brian and Katie from Overlooked to Overbook talking about customer avatar photos and all of the above. Thank you so much for tuning in and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow for another episode.

We've been talking about this, but I wanted to put it like, right on paper or on a screen. Your ideal guest only exists to the extent that you communicate that to them in images and words in your listings and websites. So we could do this exercise all day long, but if it doesn't translate into you changing something, you know how you're getting across to people on your listings and on your website, it's all for not. It really has no effect whatsoever. So it's all about the execution. Take execution over cleverness every day, right? So you need to be able to find a way to take that picture or write that caption so that it gets in the head of the person that you claim that you're trying to pull in.

Right? And so sometimes you're lucky enough to really have a very specific type. Like on the extreme end, your rental. And then your photos are Kind of easy, right? Like what you put in your listing because immediately like, boom, it's right there. You have a space themed rental or if you happen to be on a living dairy farm and this is an experience you give to your guests, then again, it's a little bit easier for you, right? You're the taller basketball player. You have to work a little less to try to figure out who's going to come here because automatically your setting is going to attract a certain kind of person. But beyond that, all of this comes back to your, your photos and the stuff that you photograph. To try to differentiate if you're not one of those people becomes one of the essential differences between real estate photography and vacation rental photography. And I just wanted to point this out because we obviously give a lot of advice about the technical quality of photos like keep your line straight and have your white balance, right? But we really do want to emphasize, and we've moved towards this more and more emotion over perfection, right? Because a realtor, all they have to do, I'm not saying this is super easy, but basically all they have to do is get people to an open house, right? They've got it, man. And then if they don't like that particular house, they have a whole portfolio that they can show off and move on to the next place. But you're the host, you guys, you need to sell your rental online as is what you see is what you get, right? So you really want to get that emotional appeal, the sense of yearning over. And then thinking about your avatar, you want to think about all the things that you need to tell them in a way that's attractive and it's kind of a balancing act to be informational but also create the sense of yearning. So this is a town close to Nice called Es. And here's a, here's a photo that you could use saying. And then also immediately exclude some people saying, you will have to climb quite a bit to get to my rental, right? So you're going to explain to them that you need to, going to need to be okay with stairs. But here's this gorgeous setting and then you can obviously move on to different photos and explain other things. If you have kids, you do get kid centric photos, right? So you're going to show off a crib where it's not the sexiest photo that's out there, but you're kind of, it's still well composed and all this stuff, but you're showing off a crib. So it has a function, it has a purpose. You can show off games. This is a stuff that a realtor would never in a million years put in there. Why would they? You know, you're selling an empty base to someone, but you want to show off stuff that your whole family can do, or that the kids can take beach stuff with them, that you provide this stuff to them. This is important in vacation rental listings. If you want to say, oh, I'm great for a family. Well, are you? Are you really showing that you're great for families? Another way to create a sense of yearning. Older people like games, too. So these point of view shots, you have a fire going, you have games, and no, it's not a technically perfect photo. You could straighten the lines and do a white balance thing, but who cares? Look at the hot chocolate by the fire. It's just great. So, again, thinking about, well, what would your guests enjoy doing? Are they gonna stay in? Are they gonna be out? This is again, like more of the. This will probably appeal to a lot of people, but we're getting to more specific stuff. You do wanna show off your amenities, right? Everybody's gonna love coffee. This isn't a kid thing. This is for the adults, right? If you offer a big deck where your whole family can have a barbecue, maybe show off the awesome grill that you have. And then, of course, you're going to show off the deck too, but you're again pulling attention to all the stuff that you're promising that they can experience in your rental. Then we get to the hammock thing. So again, a point of view. You can come and relax and read here on this hammock. So thinking about, what are all these things that your guests would enjoy? What do I have? What can I provide that will provide this awesome relaxing experience or, you know, romantic getaway for couples, a glass of wine or something. This is again, this is not a kid thing. So setting the stage for your avatar, trying to think about, where are they going to sit, what are they going to view, what are they going to experience? What is it? You're going to try to get the feeling into the photo.

Just very quick. Sorry, Kate.

Yeah, go ahead.

Two things that I hope everybody has paid attention to. If you could just go back two slides. The hammock with the sea. Look at what's placed on the hammock is a book that's half read. You know, it's. It's not so much a case of having just the picture with the picture is fantastic. But by placing the book and then on the next image, there's the bottle of open wine with two glasses. You know, this is, this is like ninja level thinking that you need to be doing because everybody has that picture. But are you going to the extent of setting the scene? Which is, which is fantastic. Case. I love these images. So thank you again.

Right. And this is something that actually differentiates again, hotel photos and real estate photos from vacation rentals. Vacation rental photos. We try to evoke the sense that all it's missing is the guest. It's. It's just ready. You don't even need to pull out the wine glasses and stuff. And it's implied that maybe these aren't there as you enter the door, but they could be here. But the photo, you want to have it be as if you're just kind of like, like go right through the screen and just, just be there. Everything is ready. Same thing with the hammock. And then just from a technical perspective, we realized that pillow actually opens up the hammock a little bit. So it's not this skinny little thing. So this is something we thought about like, well, how do we make this even more cozy looking? So that's what we did with Brian. Brian golfing in Montana. I usually say don't put people in your photos, but if you're showing off an activity in a public place, I think it's okay. But this is again, appealing to a certain kind of crowd. Look at this scenery here. Something that you can come and do. So think of outside your rental. Think about activities that you can do here. Just setting little pillows. Not pillows, but towels at the foot of the sun chairs. Again, it's just adding a tiny bit of hospitality. Where it's not empty, it's not as sort of plain. It's still a gorgeous setting. But now you're thinking like, oh, I could be there with that towel. It's those little staging things that can make a difference too. And here, kayaks. If you offer kayaks in your rental, you can go more of an adventure thing. Definitely show it in the photos. Don't just list the stuff in the amenities, show them in photos.