Whether you’re a travel agent, OTA, concierge or travel advisor, we know that you are always looking for efficient ways to maximise the volume of enquiries and bookings you receive, especially in peak booking season. We also know there are many different ways to reach your target audience, so we took some time out to round up some of the methods that we have found most effective, along with some further information on how Privadia’s business to business services may be able to help you implement them.
Check out the list below and please feel free to contact us to discuss our bespoke marketing services. We’re here to help!
1. Keep property information up to date
Here at Privadia, we are always updating our portfolio to make sure we have the very best villas that Ibiza has to offer and our dedicated portfolio team are working continuously to ensure all of our property information is kept up-to-date. From the location, through to which coffee capsules the coffee machine takes, we have it covered. It’s also a strict policy that we visit every property we list, undertaking a meticulous inspection, giving you and your guests full peace of mind that our portfolio is kept in good shape.
Whether you are updating your website and systems manually or you’ve integrated with us via XML, one of the first steps towards maximising your bookings is making sure your website and/or back office is displaying the correct property information.
Don’t forget we have a dedicated team here at Privadia HQ who can help you maintain your listings and we also offer a range of different ways to streamline the supply of the information we have. To find out more about this key part to our service please contact Daniel our agency account manager who can advise you on the best way to bring everything up-to-date quickly and efficiently.
2. Have the most up to date rates and pricing
The pricing of our properties is all subject to change across the season. There are regular fluctuations in price due to last minute offers or rate reductions, which we know are a huge selling point for people looking to come to Ibiza. If you manually upload our properties to your website there’s a good chance that this pricing could be out of date, meaning you are at a disadvantage by not featuring the rate reductions and last minute deals.
The best way to check your pricing data is to make contact with our portfolio manager, Sarah, who will be able to send you the most up-to-date version of our rates. Sarah and her team can also work with you to double check the information you already have and can help to highlight the properties that need attention.
In addition, another advantage of integrating our XML feed is that it will automatically keep all the rate data on your website up to date. XML requires some technical resource and support, but in most cases is quite simple and quick to implement. Please contact us for more information on XML by emailing our agency account manager Daniel on daniel@privadia.com.
3. Maximise your social media channels
In today’s world, social media has become a key resource for people who are wanting to find out about holiday destinations and should not be underestimated in regard to its power. With Twitter, Facebook and Instagram becoming places where people shop as well as connect with their peers, getting this aspect of your marketing right could secure a steady rise in enquiries, bookings and revenues.
There are many strategies when it comes to the different social media channels available and through our experienced team of marketers, we can help you devise and implement successful campaigns. We have 1000’s of amazing villa pictures and videos that can be used for social media content and even if you and your team are too busy, we can do it for you! We offer this service 100% free of charge and can even brand the content and campaigns with you company logo.
For more information on our social media marketing services, please contact Daniel on daniel@privadia.com.
4. Maximise the real estate on your website
Are you making the most of your website real estate?
When people land on your homepage, they have already shown enough intent to be classed as warm lead. Whether they have come from a Google search or a third party link, there’s a good chance that they are looking for exactly what you offer… naturally, this is the time to lead them directly to your main products.
Do you have clear visual links on your homepage to the key products you offer? If you have a carousel or other images, are they looking the best they possibly can with a clear call to action? If there are discounts or rate reductions available, are they clearly stated on your website?
With so much competition you have an increasingly small amount of time to capture someone’s interest so make sure your homepage and landing pages are working for you.
Don’t forget, we are on hand to supply any specific image sizes you may need. Or, if you have any other requirements, just let us know. Our team of experienced marketers are always on hand to assist.
5. Capitalise on your email database
With GDPR now in full effect we realise that your email database may have decreased in size over the last few months, but maybe that’s a good thing! Open rates should be at an all-time high with people that genuinely want to receive your emails now opting in and instantly becoming a high-value lead.
With strong targeted email campaigns, you may be able to convert these lists into quick revenues. If you create stunning but simple email campaigns you can stand out among the mass of generic and dull content that’s delivered to consumers daily. Also, make sure you’re linking your email content back to the relevant information on your website, increasing the chances of visitors taking a further look around which in turn will increase the chances of them making an enquiry.
Again, please feel free to contact our marketing team who can help with the content and images you need to create stand out, impactful email campaigns.
6. Turn repeat customers into revenues
This seems like a simple and obvious one, but it’s actually quite surprising how many agents either forget to or don’t have the resource and systems in place to target their existing customers.
In its simplest form, why not try the traditional approach and just pick up the phone. Call every customer that has booked with you in previous years and have a chat about their travel plans for the coming year. If they still haven’t planned this year’s trip away, it could be that one single phone call that converts into a successful booking. Get this right and repeat bookings can constitute a high proportion of your overall yearly revenues.
For more advanced marketers, there are obviously plenty of other ways to help target your existing customers. Social media advertising, retargeting ads, email marketing and even direct mail could be combined to create a fully integrated ‘repeat customers’ campaign.
You may not be aware but we can also offer you a ‘recommended for you’ service based on your customers previous Privadia bookings. We can send you a list of all of your previous year’s bookings with a list of recommended properties for each. This provides you with a ‘ready to go’ email which is relevant to the customer.
Our team of marketers have experience in devising and implementing these tactics and are more than happy to help you do exactly that. Please get in touch and we’ll take it from there.
7. Consider retargeting ads
This is one for slightly more tech savvy agents and companies, but we have seen this generate some amazing results. Imagine that somebody lands on your website and starts interacting with your site…then they are interrupted or distracted meaning that could be the last you’ll ever hear from them. This is potentially a lost sale, but with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Google retargeting you can continue advertising to these customers even though they have left your website. There’s a very good reason why the likes of ASOS, Jet2 and AirBnB are masters of this technology. No doubt you have noticed when you view a range of items on the ASOS site, those same items are almost instantly following you around the internet for days or even weeks to come.
Why not make that ideal property booking follow your potential customer around the interest in a very similar way, giving clear calls to action to revisit and snap it up while they still have the option to!
As retargeting requires a little technical resource to implement, please feel free to contact us to see if we can help out. We also have reliable contacts in the digital marketing sector who can assist with your retargeting ad campaigns.
8. Apply an effective SEO strategy
SEO is one of those things where everyone has a conflicting opinion. Put simply it is how well you can convince Google that your site should be at the top of that all important page one of the search results. Every time you slip down a position or page on a particular search term, the traffic to your site will decrease significantly. However there are ways to move up the rankings using keywords, alt tags, original content and a range of back-end development techniques. This is not an overnight solution but the sooner you start to implement an effective SEO strategy, the sooner you will start to see the results. Then once you have that all important stong ranking, the traffic just keeps on coming.
For a highly detailed report on the best SEO tactics for villa rental agents, please check out our recent guest blog from the UK based Google Partner and search marketing agency Adrac. CTO Kim Kinlin highlights key way to implement an effective SEO strategy here.
9. Highlight the benefits of your business
We know we are in a competitive industry with literally 1000’s of companies to competing for holidaymakers, not to mention HUGE players like Expedia and Airbnb who make it very difficult for you to stand out.
However and although this may be obvious, are you clearly highlighting the key benefits that the guests will get if they book with you? What might seem obvious to you as industry people may not be obvious to your potential guests.
To help with this, here are just a few of the advantages and benefits of working with Privadia which you can pass on to your customers.
Over 200 luxury villa options available
Fully vetted properties – we’ve personally visited and inspected every villa
Clear directions provided for all our villas
Digital Villa Manual in form of an app, available to all guests in your group
Full concierge service available both prior and during your stay
Many years of local experience, providing unprecedented advice and recommendations for restaurants, attractions, sightseeing, suitable areas to stay and more
10. PPC/Google Adwords campaigns
You can also pay to boost your ranking on Google, making your company appear above all of the organic listings on the first page of a search. Now as previously mentioned a solid SEO strategy can be the perfect long-term solution to improve your overall rankings…but if you want instant results, the answer is to pay for PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising. The way this works is pretty simple, you set your daily budget and select the words you want to rank for. Google will then ‘bid’ to keep you at the top of the page 1 rankings until your budget for that day is spent in full.
The listings you see on this image are all advertisers that have paid to be at the top of the google search for ‘Ibiza Villas’
Icon Ibiza will have paid the most for their ad so will therefore appear at the top of this list. If AKVillas increase their daily budget or maximum bid there’s a chance that they will take the top spot… but for now, Icon Ibiza is going to be taking a majority of the traffic from this particular search term. You can find out more information about PPC campaigns and advertising on this google page here. Again if there is any way we can assist you please feel free to get in touch.
11. Paid social media advertising
Facebook ads manager has some pretty impressive targeting options. Say you want to target people between the ages of 25-35 living in your local area who have an interest in Ibiza…you can do exactly that. All you need to to do is decide what content you are going to boost and a set a budget that you willing to spend. It’s then very important that the landing page that you are directing people to is directly relevant to the topic of your advert. If it isn’t people will click the advert and not be immediately engaged with your content which creates high bounce rates and low conversions.
Keep your paid ads short and sweet, with the majority of your content being on the page or blog you are linking to. We also recommend using a small testing budget for adverts before going all guns blazing and adding more of your marketing spend. If you spend 10€ and get 100 impressions and 5 clicks you know roughly what you will get for 100€ giving you a potential cost per conversion. It’s always wise to go smaller with budgets, test 3-4 adverts then spend more on your best performing ads.
There are many articles that you can read about social media marketing including this one from Facebook about the more basic functions of their ads manager. We also have Daniel on hand to help if you have any questions you may have about Ibiza focused marketing. His email is daniel@privadia.com
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So there we have it. Our favourite methods of how you can maximise your summer booking season…and more importantly how we can help you along the way. Here is a rundown of all of the points we have mentioned and who to contact here at Privadia for more information or assistance. We are looking forward to hearing from you!
Keep property information up to date – daniel@privadia.com / sarah@privadia.com
Have the most up to date rates and pricing – Sarah@privadia.com
Maximise your social media channels – daniel@privadia.com
Maximise the real estate on your website – daniel@privadia.com
Capitalise on your email database – daniel@privadia.com
Turn repeat customers into revenues – daniel@privadia.com
Consider retargeting ads – daniel@privadia.com
Apply an effective SEO strategy – daniel@privadia.com
Highlight the benefits of your business – daniel@privadia.com
PPC/Google Adwords campaigns – daniel@privadia.com
Paid social media advertising – daniel@privadia.com
