Consider this scenario: You painfully managed to build two or three rentable units in Quintana Roo, Mexico, risking everything for the expat dream. If you picked right, you’re on the shore front, or next to a natural park, relevant landmark, or downtown a “Pueblo Magico”; Congratulations. What’s next?
Without consulting a pro, you’ll list your awesome property on Airbnb because “you’ve got this”. You’ll even make a Facebook page, and a great Airbnb profile. You’ll soon find out that is not enough. If you follow that only path, you’ll get decent revenue in high season but will be empty in low season, it can be as bad as affecting your bottom line.
We tend to be sentimental about our properties. They embody our dreams. If you’re into yoga, you’ll try to market your place as a yoga retreat. You are into cave diving your thing will be accommodation + diving packages. “Learn to Kite surf with the property owner!” would be another example. Even teaching languages. Any experience that can be attached is a great marketing asset.
You love your place so much that you already have a name for it, and its most probably wrong from a marketing perspective on today’s social media environment. You consulted with friends and family, everyone but someone knowledgeable. One really can mess up branding from the beginning with something as apparently harmless as picking the name.
Do you have a strategic marketing plan? Don’t feel bad if you don’t, most of your competition doesn’t either, that can be your edge if you hire a marketing consultant. One that will help you to come up with a new name if what you picked isn’t viable yet respecting your dream’s spirit.
Next, with your input, make a professional vector logo, that can be used for any possible aspect of your marketing, either online, printed, embroidered, laser engraved, etc.
Someone to help you build the IT infrastructure so you and your staff can collaborate in real time, including corporate email addresses, collaboration tools such as Dropbox or Google Drive. And train your staff (receptionists and channel managers) to use every tool.
I can do all that for you and more: Develop a website for you indexing it properly with Google search engines in order to achieve best SEO. I will train your staff to take advantage of Google Business tools to manage communication, collaboration, marketing, search engine optimization, map geolocation among other things.
You need more than one channel, Airbnb on its own won’t be enough. Yet using a second or third distribution channel brings two daunting challenges: You’ll need new software to coordinate your reservations and avoid overbooking, an expensive mistake.
“Overbooking, I wish!” You might say. But it’s possible: You could be closer to 100% year-round. I will help you implement the necessary software to consolidate your channels or “OTA’s” like Expedia, Hotels.com and many more. Dramatically increasing your sales. I will train you and your staff to use it all.
The other daunting challenge is that now you’ll have to start charging your guests credit cards, that involves obstacles that I can help you overcome, such as implementing the right software/hardware solution to charge credit cards on site. And the best way to hookup PayPal, not only with your website but your social media accounts and shops. This will involve taxes and banking. I will work with you and your accountant to assure compliance.
You’ll need to start throwing some money at social media ads. Not much really. I can help you design your social media paid campaigns in Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram; or any other that is relevant to your brand.
The channels will also be chosen considering your brand and dream, they don’t necessarily need to be Booking and Expedia. There are many specialized niche channels that will capture the market you crave. And they are compatible with the software that I will implement for you to consolidate them.
You’re not in the accommodation business? Let’s say you’re dive shop. Same thing applies. I can build a reservation engine in your website and turn it into a fully functional money maker.
Please contact me if you want to sit and talk or set up a conference, I will be happy to answer your questions.