Are you ready to take control of your vacation rental business and unlock a world of direct booking success? In this candid episode, I share my personal journey from struggling with saturated listing platforms to building a thriving direct booking empire.
Discover how a chance encounter with a past guest sparked an epiphany, leading me to create a game-changing solution that streamlines your entire direct booking process. From email marketing to social media management, website creation, and guest communication – this all-in-one platform has everything you need to elevate your business and cultivate lasting guest relationships.
I finally realized that direct bookings would be how I could get control of my business. – Jenn Boyles
In this episode, you will expect to:
- Hear my inspiring story of overcoming struggles and seizing opportunities in the vacation rental space.
- Understand the power of direct bookings for maximizing revenue and gaining business control.
- Get a sneak peek at BookDirect Pro, the revolutionary tool I created to simplify your direct booking efforts.
- Learn how to streamline your tech stack and eliminate the need for multiple subscriptions.
- Gain insights from a fellow property manager on how BookDirect Pro has transformed their business.
If you’re ready to break free from listing platform constraints and embrace the freedom of direct bookings, this episode is a must-watch. Join me on this empowering journey towards true business autonomy and guest loyalty.
The key moments in this episode are:
00:00:00 Journey to Direct Bookings
00:00:46 Struggling with Airbnb and Transition to Direct Bookings
00:07:28 Introducing BookDirect Pro
00:09:42 Closing Remarks and Call to Action
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Show notes are available at: https://directbookingsuccess.com/podcast/
JOIN ME FOR A FREE LIVE MASTERCLASS ON SEPTEMBER 12, 2024
In this hour long masterclass, I’ll be teaching you the 4 Steps to More Bookings.
Here’s what you’ll learn on this FREE Live Training:
- Why expanding your guest base is crucial for scaling your vacation rental business
- The secrets to not only capturing their interest but also gathering the crucial details that turn curious visitors into booked guests
- How to craft compelling campaigns that resonate with new guests and drive them to book with you
- The essential tool and templates that will streamline your marketing and supercharge your success
Save your spot now and don’t forget to share this event with your STR friends: https://bookdirectpro.com/nextmasterclass
Direct Booking Success is back for 2024 and this year has gotten even BETTER!
In this 3-day FREE virtual and global summit, you’ll learn how to stop relying on OTAs like Airbnb and make more money with more control. Learn how to increase your direct bookings from industry experts and your fellow property managers.
This summit is completely FREE, Virtual and Global, reserve your seats today: https://directbookingsuccesssummit.com/
Work with Jenn to maintain consistency in your marketing and boost your direct bookings without spending so much money on it: https://directbookingsuccess.com/apply/
The ULTIMATE all-in-one marketing platform for short term rental is finally here! Sign up now and be the first to try it: https://bookdirectpro.com/
FREE GUIDE: 10 Ways to Drive Guests to your Website instead of Airbnb: https://directbookingsuccess.com/10-ways-to-drive-guests-to-your-website-instead-of-airbnb/
Follow Jenn on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/directbookingsuccess
Join Jenn’s free Facebook group – the Marketing Hub: https://www.facebook.com/groups/strmarketinghub
Transcript
On today's episode of the Direct Booking Success Podcast, I'm getting personal. I'm speaking about how I got started with direct bookings and what I've now created to help you do what I've been struggling with for years.
You are listening to the Direct Booking Success Podcast, bringing you all the information you need for your short term rental to stand out from the crowd. I'm your host, Jenn Boyles. As an owner and manager myself, I know how hard it can be to navigate the hospitality industry. I'm here to help so you too can have direct booking success.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Direct Booking Success Podcast.
Today you have me. I'm going to get personal about my experience with direct bookings and an exciting new tool that I've created to help you do what I've been struggling with, too. So let me tell you my story first. In 2015, my ex husband and I bought a chalet in the Alps of Austria. This was our third property we had started hosting a few years earlier with an apartment in France.
We had great success and bookings on Airbnb. We had put it online one morning and in that afternoon we had bookings flooding in. It was enough to make us want to do this whole hosting thing more. But in the year 2015, we weren't going to have the same experience. We had bought an amazing five bed chalet with a games room and a sauna in the most picturesque location in the Austrian Alps.
If you have heard the Sound of Music in your mind, then you are on the right track. In fact, some of the scenes for astounding music were filmed not far from where our chalet was. When we put this property on Airbnb, we didn't have bookings flooding in. In fact, it was pretty awful to begin with. We were super hosts.
We had tons of five star reviews with our other properties. We loved Airbnb, and with the success we'd had previously, we thought we knew it all. But the problem was that we bought with our hearts and not our heads. The area was completely saturated with options for guests. The other buildings in the town were guest houses, BnBs, hotels, and our place was beautiful.
But so many of the others in the area were too. We just weren't standing out on Airbnb. The bookings weren't coming in. We had a mortgage to pay. I was living a thousand kilometers away and had a full time job.
It was very stressful. And then one day I had a wake up call. Literally a wake up call. A past guest rang asking to come back and to book outside of Airbnb. Now remember, I was a super host and I followed Airbnbs process to the letter.
I had figured that Airbnb would just bring in all the bookings we needed. It had done it before. However, I needed that booking. I needed that money. So I said yes.
This is when the penny dropped. It was a huge wake up call for me. This moment sparked the realization that we were sitting on a gold mine, a gold mine of repeat guests and we weren't doing anything about it. We had no system in place to manage these inquiries. So I put something in place.
I finally realized that direct bookings would be how I could get control of my business. The process was chaotic and time consuming. It was a real challenge managing the relationship with guests, the emails and all the marketing. I started to do without a streamlined system, but I patched things together. The first thing I did was to contact all past guests.
I didn't wait until I had that great system in place. I needed to find out who was interested in coming back and if this would work. The response I received was so inspiring. So many people wanted to come back but hadn't known if we were still open after we bought the place from the original owners. There was confusion there and they would love to come back.
Once I had all of these bookings coming in, I knew it was time to create a better system. I created a website and really got into the branding of our business. Then I started marketing to new guests and it seemed that every time I wanted to do something new in my marketing, I had to purchase a new online tool, another subscription for what I wanted more money. My web hosting was one, my email marketing was another. I wanted to schedule social posts, so this required another tool.
And every time a guest would respond to a social post or reply to an email, I had to go searching for their response on all these different platforms. This situation carried on for years. In fact, I started a fourth vacation rental business in a different country with 80% direct bookings. Use the same tools. But in the back of my mind I knew there must be a better way, there must be an easier way to do this and a less expensive one.
So fast forward to December 2023. I was seeing a real need to help property managers with their tech stacks, putting together the software and the tools that would help them with their direct bookings. And I was having a conversation with my business coach, brainstorming some ideas about how I could do this. When she suggested that instead of patching together all of these multiple tools like I've been doing for years for others to use. Why don't I just create one myself?
Something that ticks all the boxes. Something streamlined, something targeted for vacation rentals. Now you can guess my first reaction was what? I can do that. And then I thought back to when that first return guest rang up asking to book a return stay at the chalet.
What I had done then required a leap of faith, and what I needed to do now also required a leap of faith. So I did it. I went out and I created Book Direct Pro. This is the only marketing system you'll ever need and the one thing I wished I had had back in 2015. Book Direct Pro is built for vacation rental property managers and owners by a property manager and owner. Me.
One of the property managers using Book Direct Pro had this to say about her experience with 21 short term rentals. I barely had time for advertising and promotion and our direct booking suffered for it. Book Direct Pro has made it easy with everything in one place. I can send emails, post to social media and build my tribe all in one place. So thank you Laura from Rock Springs BnB.
There are so many features of book direct pro that I'm not going to get into all of them today. I don't want to put you to sleep just writing it or listing out a whole list of features. I do want to tell you about the top four, though. Number one, email marketing. You can create, send and automate stunning email campaigns that drive bookings and keep your potential guests engaged.
Number two, social media. You can plan, schedule and publish your social media posts to keep your audience engaged and group together. All of your favorite platforms. Number three, communications hub. You can keep your communication simple and effective from your all in one communications hub where messages from social, email and sms come together in one place.
Number four, website builder. Build your own website, blog and landing pages using professionally designed templates specifically for short term rental hosts and vacation rental property managers. They seamlessly integrate with your choice of PM's your property management software. Book Direct Pro is the must have tool for you if you want to grow your direct bookings. I have created what I want to use for my own business, so if you're interested in checking it out, head to the website bookdirectpro.com
You'll see that there's an upcoming masterclass to help you use Book Direct Pro. Go to the fullest and get your hands on my templates to help get you more guests booking. You want them booking with you, don't you? Instead of Airbnb, I hope to see you there. So thank you for tuning in today.
If you feel like Direct Booking Success or the podcast could really help someone you know, please share the links with them. I'll see you next time. Until then, go out and take action for your own direct booking success.
Hey, thanks for listening to the Direct Booking Success Podcast. For more information about this episode and others, head to the website directbookingsuccess.com/podcast.
See you next time.