This Is How I’m Getting More Direct Bookings

If you're looking to earn more with your short term rental, well, direct bookings is one of those ways you don't have to pay any commissions. And with Airbnb's recent increase to 15.5% and the already really high commissions on all the other sites, it's probably top of mind. But these sites like Airbnb and booking.com know that we are trying to get direct bookings and they are cracking down on those of us trying to get around them. So it's a delicate balance between getting your own guests and making sure that we don't get kicked off on the platforms. Stay tuned as we break down everything you need to know about setting up your direct booking site and how to get your guests booking there instead of on the OTAs.

Well, welcome back to the Short Term Rental Riches podcast. I'm happy you're here again. Why direct bookings? Well, we've talked about this before in past episodes. There's a lot of obvious reasons. For one, you don't have to pay the high commission fees like you do on Airbnb or vrbo. In fact, most of the time you, you'll be paying 0%, which means that 15% that maybe would have gotten taken from your Airbnb commission, that can go right into your pocket, or you could split that and half of that could go into your guest pocket, meaning that they're paying less while you're still earning money. And it's really the starting point to you building a brand or you building a business and not just relying on the OTAs like Airbnb by having your own direct book insight. This of course helps you to diversify your properties. If you're not doing well on one of the OTAs, but you have a steady see guest flow coming in your direct booking site, well then you're not only making more money, but your property and your business is in a safer position. And one more, and this is a really good one, is that your property is worth more money if you have a list of repeat guests or guests coming directly to your direct booking site. If you were to sell your property, for example, you can't transfer your Airbnb account to another owner. That becomes quite complicated. But if you have your own direct booking site and your calendars, let's just say 30 or 40% full, well, you can easily transfer those reservations to a new owner. And you better believe that that's going to increase the price of your property. I do recommend that every single person have a direct booking site. They're really easy to create these days. We've got a couple steps on that in just a second. The reality is that not every property gets as many repeat guests. And so let's break down a few of the ones that it works really well for, and then a couple that it doesn't. First off, if you're a property manager out there and you have a portfolio of properties, well, a lot of times people want to come back and they want to stay with you. But if they're book their next reservation next year and the property they just stayed in is already booked, they're going to look for some other options. And if you don't have those other options on a nice direct booking website, then they might go somewhere else. So this works really well for property managers that have already earned that trust from their guests, and their guests want to come back and stay with them, even if it doesn't happen to be an exact same property. Direct bookings are also really important for luxurious properties. Not just because the overall value of the reservation is higher, meaning that you're going to save more by not paying those commission fees, but guests. Guests want to know more about your property, right? They really want to know the details. The more photos, content that you have about it, the more likely they are to book with you. Vacation rentals are also something that people like to come back to, right? If they have a really good experience, they're going to want to book that for their next family trip. Maybe it's an annual trip, and you better believe that they're going to tell their friends as well. One type of property that's not going to benefit as much is if you happen to have a property that's identical to a lot of other people's properties. Let's say you have a condo in Orlando and there are 300 condos that are literally identical to yours in the neighborhood. And so trying to attract new guests to a property that's identical to all the other ones is a little more challenging. But it doesn't mean that you can't still get a lot of good repeat guests coming in, because we know the hospitality component is super, super important. So if they stayed with you and you did a really good job with the hospitality, it's likely that they will book with you again, if this is a regular vacation that they take. Let's talk about just creating a direct booking website really quick. If you're out there and you're using a PMS program like HostAway or Guesty or Hospitable or any of the major Players out there, they all have a direct booking website that you can set up literally in just a couple minutes. Yes, this is a template form, but you can create custom domains and it already has the back inside. So if someone books through that website, then it goes into your same property management calendar and it goes in all your same systems and automations and everything that you have set up. So that's the first way and that's the easiest. But there is another way that's a little more customizable that most PMS programs will offer and that is what they call a widget. Widget is this little block of website code that you can put on any website you want. And the way it looks on a website is usually a search bar. If you have multiple properties in the pms, you could display multiple in the widget someone will search on there, they'll search for the dates. And even though the housing for your website is fully custom, the block where someone actually books that reservation goes through into the PMS program. So this way allows you to create a beautiful website. You can add as many pages as you want, but still have the ability to allow someone to book really easily and to make sure it goes into all your systems. Now the third way would be to just go completely custom. And this is also much easier than it's ever been. There's tons of people you can find on Upwork and Fiverr to create you websites really easily. You can go on websites like Squarespace for example, that have templates. The challenging piece about creating your own direct booking website not using PMS or their widget is that you are going to need to integrate with your PMS program. And so a lot of PMS programs have what they call an API that's basically a backend door into their software that allows you to see all the fields in there, like the calendar and the pricing, for example. And so you would need someone that's familiar with this, that's experienced, that can plug in those specific features, and that when a reservation comes in, it shows up in your pms. Again, much easier to do than it ever has been before. And this would allow you to have have the most fully customizable option as well. And this is very likely going to save you 1 to 2% on every booking because you'll need to check with your PMS. But most PMS programs charge a percentage 1.5 to 2% for a direct booking if you're using their template or if you are using their widget. So while you might spend a little bit More money to create this website up front, you're going to be saving on the back end. Now, either way you set up your direct booking website, you're going to need a way for people to pay. And we've talked about this before, the most popular solution in the short term rental industry is from Stripe. Now I already did a whole episode on this, everything you need to know, including how you can save a full 1% if you're using Stripe. Go back and check out episode 307. We break down all the details in a really quick summary. Let's talk about some design elements for a second. What do you actually need on your direct booking website? Well, the first one and the most important is contact info. You need a way for your guests, guests or your potential guests to get in touch with you, right? You better have your phone number on there, you better have your email. You could even have a little chat widget sales bot in there. And of course you need someone responding on the other end. If this is not something you want to do, or if you're already busy with a full time job or family or whatever it happens to be, our team would love to partner up with you. We've been doing this for years. Over a decade we've managed tens of thousands of guests. You can find out more by going to striches.com there's a little partner with us button and we'll jump on a phone call and see if it's a good fit. The second piece you're going to want on your website is something to entice your guest to book directly. So if you're charging less on your direct booking website, which you should be because you don't have the commissions, that is a big incentive for your guests to book directly. But they don't always know that, right? So you want to make sure that it's very clear this is the lowest price you'll find for our property. Whatever it happens to be, you need to remind your guests that they are going to be saving some money. They book directly with you. You might also consider enticing them by offering them special perks. If they book directly, they get check in two hours early or maybe they get to stay two hours later. Up to you. There's a lot of incentives that you could add. Again, you just want to make sure that they're visible on your website and it's going to help that conversion. The more content you have on your website. Well, the longer a guest or potential guest is going to stay on your website, the longer they stay on their website, the more they're going to remember it, the higher chance that they will book with you directly. So consider having some content on your local area, your guidebook, recommendations and about section about you, the owners, whoever it happens to be a section of about how you care about your guest and your hospitality. You want to have reviews on there. You want to have lots and lots of things that are going to allow the guests to trust you without actually talking to you beforehand. Now, let's talk about SEO for a quick second. I'm not an SEO expert, but the quick summary is there is a certain way to set up your website with keywords that rank better on Google and the different search engines. So maybe you use the word Airbnb versus short term rental, for example, if more people are searching for Airbnb, then it's more likely they're going to find your website versus whether you have that text written as short term rental, for example. That's the idea of SEO. We want to have these keywords that people are searching for. But times have changed, right? I don't know about you, but I'm hardly using Google at all, if at all these days because I just use AI. And I'm sure you've noticed when you use AI like ChatGPT, search results show a website. And so there's a different type of organic indexing or searching going on now. And that's what comes from AI. And I'm not an expert on this. From my understanding, AI is searching more for content than it is specific words. So make sure you have some content on your website, about your property, about the local area, and that's going to help more people find you through the new AI tools. One other step you're going to want to take is to create a Google business profile. Google is amazing because they're going to advertise your property, you're going to show up on Google Maps, but you can't book through Google Maps. And so you, you have to have the direct booking website and Google is going to link to that direct booking website. So by having a more prominent profile in Google Maps with more reviews, then you're going to show up to more people and that means more opportunity for people to book directly. Now let's talk about capturing more repeat guests. The reality is a lot of you will be getting your initial direct bookings from repeat guests. They are five times more likely to book with you direct if they've already stayed at your property. Now, there's quite a few ways to do this but we have to do this in a careful way. If you're advertising on Airbnb or any of the sites that you have your own direct booking website, they will take down your profile. I know people personally that this has happened to. I have one friend that was accidentally including his website in emails that went out to Vrbo. He had more than a handful or 10 emails that went out and he is no longer able to list on vrbo. And he has a very, very nice property. Imagine the loss of visibility from a site like vrbo that spends millions of dollars marketing your property that you no longer have. So we've got to be on how we actually advertise to our guests. So how can we do this? Well, there's lots of ways we can do it right at our property. Right. I've always suggested to have a magnet right on the fridge with a QR code that someone can scan. It says, hey, book with us next time. You'll save money. We have special perks. Whatever it happens to be. Everyone sees the fridge usually right when they're staying at your property. But there's also some other really clever ways that we've talked about in the past as well, like StayFi, for example, where before someone can use the Internet at your property, they log in through Stay Fi, which is one option. They see a splash page that has beautiful image of your property, whatever it happens to be, and they have to enter their email before they access the Internet. And the nice thing about having a device like this is that all of your guests would have to go through this. So if you have a big vacation home with 15 guests or it can maybe can sleep 20, well, then you have the opportunity to collect 20 emails. And not just the one from the person booking. I met with StayFi CEO that was episode 245. He's got lots of good tips and tricks in there. I highly suggest you go back and check that one out if you're interested in installing a device like that. And I also met with Mark Simpson from boostly episode 248. He's been really well known for creating direct bookings for a long time, and he also has a few strategies and some more insight in some of the tactics that we're talking about today. If you're new to the channel, you can find all of our prior episodes@str riches.com we've also got a ton of free ebooks, guides, our house rules, you name it. We have tons of resources for you there. And if you've been enjoying the show, well, I'd really appreciate it if you wouldn't mind giving us a thumbs up. And if you know someone that you think find value in this, if you wouldn't mind just taking a screenshot, sending it over to them, it's going to help them, but also help us continue to grow the show. Another way you can get your direct booking information in front of your guests is through your digital guidebook. We highly recommend having a digital guidebook. There's a bunch of options out there. We're currently using one from Charge Automation, but we used to use hostfully. A lot of the PMS programs have them built in. You'll want to make sure you have your direct booking contact info there and it's displayed in a really nice way. This is a course outside of the booking platform. So after, after you've received an Airbnb reservation or after you've received a VRBO reservation, you're sending your guest a link, they open the link and within the link they can see your direct booking website. There's also some great devices now like touchstay, which is a tablet that you can have directly in your property. It's an easy way to offer upsells, but it's also an easy way for someone to know that you have a direct booking website. So one of the benefits of capturing all of your guest data is that you own that data, right? You're going to have it forever and so you want to take advantage of that. You want to have some sort of email campaign, some sort of follow up setup. Stayfi has some built in tools to help you with these email campaigns. But if you want to take it one step further, you could transfer all these emails into a CRM program like ActiveCampaign for example, where you can connect with your guests on a regular basis. You can connect with them through social media platforms and really just stay in front of them, stay front of mind, so when they're booking their next vacation, they remember your property. Lastly, I want to talk about social media because there's a lot of mixed feelings out there. I have some personal stories I'll share real quickly, but the thought is that you can pay an influencer, you can do a ton of marketing and that's going to drive a lot of people to your direct booking website and then you're going to earn more money. But is that the reality? Not really. There are some situations where this can work really well. One of those are those super unique properties. So the challenge with having influencers advertise your property is that A lot of times they're not really local to that property. Their audience is in another country or their audience is interested in clothes or something, but not necessarily staying or traveling in short term rentals. So if you do go the influencer route, you really want to make sure that there's someone in the hospitality space, someone maybe they're local, that has a local following. Otherwise, the reality of someone traveling across the country to stay in your property is not that likely unless it happens to be a really unique property. My partner Justin had an influencer stay at his hotel not too long ago that had a lot of followers. If I recall correctly, it was well over a million and no results. So they advertised. He has a beautiful hotel among other properties in his portfolio and nothing really came to show from it. One way that you can know is when you advertise for social media, you can add a direct booking discount or add some sort of referral code so that someone coming from social media can plug that into your direct booking website and then you know for sure, without a doubt they found you through that social media platform. So that's my advice on social media. Of course, it's always really helpful to have more content, more photos, videos, stories about your property. You can post those on social media, but you can also post them directly on your website. If you're listening to this and you're like, tim, I don't believe you, I disagree. Well, then the only thing I would ask is that you have a way of knowing exactly where they came from. In this case, that would be a discount code or some sort of referral code. And if you happen to go as far as paying for ads and paying for media, then this will be a really good way to see if it was worth that money. Okay, well, let's wrap it up real quick. We talked about quite a bit. The benefits of having a direct booking website are very obvious. The types of properties that work well is little less obvious. We know that the more of a commodity type property you have, the less helpful a direct booking website's going to be. We talked about creating the direct booking website. The easiest route is directly through a PMS or using the widget. Or you can go and create your own direct booking website. You're of course going to need a payment processor. We talked about some design elements. SEO is not what it used to be. So if you're going down that avenue, check out a couple other YouTube videos and look into how people are finding your properties now through AI. And lastly, just one more reminder, make sure that you are not blatantly advertising your property directly through the OTAY platforms. If you have your logo on all your photos and you have your name and your website in the descriptions, well, then you are at risk. Most of the time they do give you a warning, but not always. So just make sure you're prepared for the consequences. If you're going around the OTAs, I hope that gave you some more insight. Until next time, I hope you have a fabulous week.