Podcasts
VRS207 – Growing Your Vacation Rental Business With Video With Matt Landau
I’ve interviewed Matt Landau of the Vacation Rental Marketing Blog and the Inner Circle numerous times over the past few years, and he never fails to deliver excellent advice on managing our businesses better.
On many of those occasions, Matt has mentioned how important video has become in the marketing mix – to the point of increasing bottom line by at least 10%….and who doesn’t want to do that.
Matt doesn’t mean producing videos on your iphone as you walk around your property, or taking a bunch of still photos, adding music and using a platform to create a ‘video’ production. He is referring to sharing a bit of you – showing your personality, and your perspective on the location your guests will be visiting.
Over the past 6 months Matt’s been travelling extensively across the US and Europe and has talked about these trips on our Travelling Matt series. What I didn’t know when we started this was there was something going on in the background that was revealed as A Sense Of Place – an online TV show.
Tagging along with Matt was a film crew from a Panama-based media company.
The original premise was that we’re in a small minority of people who know what this business is about. There are still a lot of people who have never been exposed to vacation rentals and have no idea what it’s like.
They are fed flashy ads from Home Away and Airbnb, but don’t have a true feeling for the experience. A Sense of Place is about closing the gap between expectations and reality and helping potential guests (and owners) understand more about the nature of this type of accommodation.
On this episode Matt shares how A Sense of Place came about – he credits an Inner Circle member for the title – and why he wanted to use video to get this important message out. He gives a taster of what you’ll see in the first season along with his big takeaways from each location he visited.
While it’s unlikely most owners would have the benefit of a film crew, using video can be the main pillar to take your business to the next level, and Matt also gives a step-by-step explanation of what’s involved to create short digital welcomes.
In this episode you’ll hear about:
- The power of figuring out your guests’ passions and then finding someone to help
- Why this business isn’t all about making money, scaling up or cashing out….it can be more about lifestyle
- The importance of remembering why we got involved in business and why we need to keep our balance
- How A Sense Of Place came about
- How a Georgia property manager came up with a solution that made the lowest occupancy week of the year into the one that became the busiest.
- The steps to create a simple video and the equipment you’ll need
- Why you need to ‘get over yourself’ and just get it out there
- The story of Bitty and Beau’s
Links mentioned on this episode
Jive Systems – Digital Handshake
Blue Ridge Lodging Association
Who's featured in this episode?
