How to use AI in your Vacation Rentals Marketing without Losing your Human Touch with Megan Castor

00:00:00 - Jenn Boyles

Are you finding it tough to create engaging, authentic content for your vacation rental business? It's frustrating when your content feels generic and it lacks personality. Discover how to leverage AI to streamline your content creation process without losing that human touch. Get ready for expert tips and practical advice on this episode of Direct Booking Success Podcast.

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 Direct Booking Success Podcast. I'm Jenn Boyles, your host, and today I have Megan Castor with me now. Megan is a former teacher turned copywriter who combines her love for travel and hospitality with her passion for writing. She creates compelling content and copy for vacation rental brands. Welcome, Megan. It's so good to see you. How are you?

00:01:26 - Megan Castor

Hi. I'm so good. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me on.

00:01:30 - Jenn Boyles

It's a pleasure. It's a real pleasure. Now, you were a teacher before you got into this crazy industry. So can you. Let's start there. You went from little kids to property managers.

00:01:43 - Megan Castor

Yeah.

00:01:44 - Jenn Boyles

Well, how did that happen?

00:01:46 - Megan Castor

I actually was a middle school teacher, so I went from difficult to difficult, right? No, I'm just kidding. I was a middle school teacher for 15 years. I taught special ed, and I had, you know, my two young children. I had Covid happen, the pandemic and everything and just was looking for a way to be more flexible to be with my family and something that kind of worked better for us. And I always wanted to be a teacher, but I also always wanted to be a writer. And so I decided to go down that route and see where it took me. So I started learning about writing and learning about marketing until I kind of felt ready to take that leap. And I'm so glad that I did. As soon as I did, I decided I wanted to travel because I love to travel with my family, and I just naturally fell into vacation rentals as my niche. So I do copywriting and marketing for vacation rental brands mostly, almost exclusively. And it just was natural for me because I love, personally, to stay in vacation rentals. I've always been a guest with my families, and I appreciate it so much, and I'm so passionate about it, just in general, that it was a natural thing for me to write about. I love to write about it. So that's kind of how it came to be. And I love it. It is stressful, right, as every job is, but a lot less stressful than teaching. I'll just put in that.

00:03:11 - Jenn Boyles

Yeah, I bet, I bet. Having all those moody pre teens coming at you. Oh, my goodness. So how do you think your background in teaching has influenced your approach to copywriting?

00:03:24 - Megan Castor

You know, when I was a teacher, I had to use a lot of patience and flexibility, and I use that all the time when working with clients. I work with a variety of clients, so I have to kind of juggle all their varying projects and needs. And some are better at communicating than others. And kind of the way that I communicate and the way that I hope that I explain things is rooted in being a teacher and being able to, you know, just explain what the most important parts are. Like, what do you actually need to know? And then I'll kind of take it from here and do the rest.

00:04:00 - Jenn Boyles

Yeah, I can see that it would be a helpful background to have in this industry, but also in marketing and copywriting because it's that educating teaching side of things that we help our clients with.

00:04:14 - Megan Castor

Yeah, exactly.

00:04:16 - Jenn Boyles

Awesome. Now, I'm going to hit you with this because you're a copywriter. We now have all these great AI tools, and I actually heard someone at a conference go on the mic and say, we don't need copywriters anymore because we've got ChatGPT. Now, this is what a lot of people are thinking. Yeah, real cringe. So let's get into this today because a lot of people are thinking ChatGPT can now do the heavy lifting. I don't even have to know the English language. I can just use ChatGPT to solve everything for me. What are some of the things that totally give it away that you've used ChatGPT?

00:04:59 - Megan Castor

Yeah. So I think for all of us, the more that people use AI, the more obvious it's becoming that they're using it, because it just doesn't sound natural. Right. Like it either lacks personality, doesn't have personal stories in it. It's just kind of vague and generic and missing that, like, human aspects. Right. That makes it a relatable content. When I read something, I want it to be conversational and filled with your personality and filled with your stories and your anecdotes and AI just kind of doesn't do that. It either sounds extra fluffy, if that makes sense. I don't know if you find the same thing. It's just, it sounds very, very formal or the opposite. Like, it sounds totally like they're trying too hard to be informal, basically. Almost like somebody who doesn't quite know the language maybe, and is trying to, or, you know, of the native tongue of where they're in visiting, and they're trying to use slang and idioms and things like that, but they're kind of just doing it a little off where you notice, like, oh, you're not from around here. It just kind of feels like you're not from around here. There's something like off about it where you can't put your finger on it.

00:06:19 - Jenn Boyles

It and you're just like, yeah, no, I hear you. And some of the words that it uses, like game changer. And, you know, what are some of your favorite ones that ChatGPT likes to throw out and the other AI tools?

00:06:33 - Megan Castor

I don't know, because I don't use it that way. Like I just immediately see it and just go, no, I don't use it to write for me. And I think that's the whole point here, is I do use it as I think people should, but I use it in parts of the writing process, more so as a helper and not as a writer, because it is not a good writer, in my humble opinion. Great.

00:07:00 - Jenn Boyles

Good. Well, we've laid that to rest. So let's talk about how to actually use tools like ChatGPT in our content creation. So what are some of the ideas of how we can actually use it effectively?

00:07:14 - Megan Castor

Yeah, so like I said, hospitality in particular, it goes for everybody, really. But especially for hospitality and vacation rentals, short term rentals, you're all about the human touch. Your whole business is centered around being genuine and authentic and building connections with your guests and your owners. And when you use AI to write the content for you, you're kind of losing that genuine, authentic aspect of your business. It doesn't, it doesn't match with what you're doing in person. Right. So I would never recommend that you replace your writers, whether that's yourself or you have someone. I would never recommend replacing them with a computer because it just can't do those same human things that you're doing in your business. But you can use it to just save massive amounts of time, really, and speed along the process of creating your content. So whether that's you or someone in your marketing department, they can use it to do things like market research, content planning and brainstorming and outlining and all kinds of other things like that without actually using what it spits out. That does sound too generic or too formal or too informal or not quite right. It's hard to get it to sound like you and to get it to sound like a person, but you can use it to give you lots of ideas. And that's mostly what I use it for as a writer. When you're stuck in a creative rut and you can't think of anything, you can't think of the word, or you can't think of something to post about, or you can't think of a way to do something, it's kind of there as your like, cool coworker that you can just like, ask whatever question without bothering them. Yeah, that's kind of how I would use it.

00:09:09 - Jenn Boyles

Yeah, no, I think that's great. I always think of ChatGPT as my assistant. It's not there to replace what I'm writing, but it's there to help me brainstorming. And I think the more of us that work on our own, by ourselves, for ourselves, we don't always have those people that work with us or our assistants, our vas or people we work with that are in different places. We're not sitting in an office every day and we're not having brainstorming meetings like you would have done if you're in an office. So having that, that assistant you can call on at any time to help with that. So the brainstorming, the outlines, I guess, subject lines and headlines, it would help with.

00:09:53 - Megan Castor

Yeah, yeah. So I mean, really, all of those things I would recommend. When you're starting out using AI, just as a general rule, the more information you can give it, the more background you can give it, the better your output is going to be. So before we even talk about brainstorming, outlining and all of those things, I would recommend just going in there and telling it like everything you can and starting the conversation there. You kind of have to think of it like a conversation, right? It's not Google, it's not a search engine. You don't have to put in three words and get an output. You can have a conversation with it. You can say, we're a vacation rental brand. This is where we specialize in. This is where we're located. Here's what sets us apart. This is our mission. We want to create content with this in mind. This is who our audience is. You can go and tell it like all of these things and then just say something to the effect of, let me know when you're ready for my question and it will say, okay, I understand. I'm ready for your question. So you can get all of that stuff out to be able to get better results for yourself in anything you ask, whether that's subject lines, headlines, brainstorming, anything like that. And then some of them. Now, ChatGPT was like remembering conversations, which is a cool update. But in the past, I would say, and depending on what you're using and what version, you know, literally copy it, paste that, put it in a word document, and then you can use it again. Once you have perfected, like, what it is that you want to tell it.

00:11:30 - Jenn Boyles

We go from people who want to use it all the time for everything to the other side where people are completely afraid of it and don't know how to get into it. And I have a little mini course called the DBS AI content sprint, and I've run it a couple of times in person, and it's been amazing to see people's faces and their eyes light up when they actually start to get content back from ChatGPT that aligns with them and their business. And because if you do just go to it as a brand new account, it knows nothing about you, it's all about the seasoning and starting to get to know you the same way that you would onboard a VA or a personal assistant or a staff member, they're coming into it blind. They don't know who you are or what you're wanting. So it's getting that message across, but getting it to give you more personalized results and not the mass market results.

00:12:35 - Megan Castor

And I think that's a good point too, because if you already have something written up that you share with new buyers or with a va about, like, what your brand is all about, you can copy and paste that into the ChatGPT or whichever you're using and not reinvent the wheel, right? Because that's what it's all about, is saving time and not reinventing the wheel. Every time you go to do something, I highly recommend doing something to that effect where you do try to personalize it. Because if you go in and you say, can you give me a subject line for this? Like, it will, but it may not resonate with your audience, it may not match your brand values, it may not match the personality in the way that your brand normally emails people. Like the kinds of things that you normally say, like do you use slang, do you use informal language? Or do you like to be more, I guess, professional in your communication? Like, everybody's a little bit different. So if you go in there and you say, give me a subject line without giving any background info, it's not going to give you great results. And I think a lot of people do that and that's why they don't like using AI, because they just do try a basic command like that without giving all the background info.

00:13:53 - Jenn Boyles

What is the process that we should do? You suggest that we take with ChatGPT if we're coming to it, we're brand new. We want to use it in our vacation rental business to help with brainstorming and outlines of our content, emails, social posts, blog posts, all those kinds of things. How should we start?

00:14:12 - Megan Castor

I'm not going to say I'm an expert or anything like that. I don't think anyone is an expert on AI because it's so new and I'm not using it for all the ways that it could be used. Really. It's really an awesome tool. But just for content in general, I would just recommend starting with, like I said, introduce yourself, give the things that are important and then start asking questions. I mean, you can ask it to do market research for you. You can ask it to list out your audience's pain points and their goals and their desires and things that are holding them back from reaching their goals. You know, common truths about the industry that they can relate to that you could use for social media posts, all of those things to like give you a better idea about your audience before you even start creating the content just for your own self. And then you can use that information that it gives you. You can say, okay, now take that information about my audience and create whatever. So I would recommend starting with that first where you really have it, almost do the work for you and go from there. But disclaimer, sometimes the information you get is going to be outdated depending on what version you're using. So I always, always recommend double checking any information it gives you with your own research and what you know to be true about your audience and kind of go from there. I even have a friend who actually is trying to be an AI expert, right? She's as much of an AI expert as anyone I know because she's really, really honed in on that. And she will say, you can have an interview, you can say to ChatGPT, ask me any questions you have about this before you get started and it will ask you questions so you can really get it to understand what you want. It's pretty cool.

00:16:02 - Jenn Boyles

That is a great tip because it's a conversation. I think that's a lot of pitfalls. I think some people just put in their thing, take the information out and go, okay, I'm done. But it is a two way street. It's a conversation. And as you hone that, and it can go terribly wrong, too, because ChatGPT likes to also make things up, not just have outdated information, it also likes to make things up. And so you have to really keep an eye on that. So how should we sort through the ideas that ChatGPT gives out?

00:16:39 - Megan Castor

You know, I think that's a really good point as far as not replacing your humans with ChatGPT, because, like, you would fire someone who just made things up, right? So I think you need, at the very least, a person who's wielding this technology, who truly understands your industry, your brand and your audience, and knows the context of, like, what's going on in the world around you at the time. You know, ChatGPT isn't a person. It doesn't understand context, but it's not going to take into consideration what's going on with an election or what's going on with anything else and apply that to the content it's giving you here and figure out what makes sense to write about at this time. Your human has to do that, right? You have to do that. So I think you have to sift through what it gives you. I never take anything it gives me and just use it. It just never is quite right. Right. But it gives me ideas. And we were kind of talking about that earlier, like, the brainstorming aspect of it for me as writer and a marketing person, it gives you lots of ideas, and some of those are going to be terrible ideas, but some of them will be good. And even when it doesn't give me good ideas, sometimes those suggestions spark something else in my brain. I'm like, oh, I could do this. So I almost very rarely actually use the ideas it gives me, but the ideas it gives me give me more ideas that make sense. So it's just like an awesome brainstorming tool.

00:18:24 - Jenn Boyles

Yeah, no, same. It will give me ideas and I'll go, yeah, actually, you're hitting on something that I hadn't thought about. And I go back to it and I think if anybody read my chats in ChatGPT, they would think, you think this is a real person, don't you? Because I'm very polite.

00:18:40 - Megan Castor

You're like, thank you.

00:18:41 - Jenn Boyles

Yes, I say thank you. And although one day it wasn't coming back with what I wanted, I didn't want any colons in something. And I said it was for some title ideas and I didn't want any colons. So what they did is they just took out the colons but just wrote the same words. And so then I put in caps, you are not listening to me, and asked it again, did that work? It did actually. I sort of yelled at it in text speak and it did work, but I was just getting frustrated because I was like, hang on a second, you're not listening. And I think that what people sometimes don't understand is that it's a conversation, it's gonna get it wrong because it's only going by what you've said. And if you haven't given it the right context or enough context, in my instructions said no colons, but I probably should have said something else that would have helped it with why or what I was doing.

00:19:36 - Megan Castor

You didn't think to give those directions?

00:19:39 - Jenn Boyles

Well, that's it.

00:19:40 - Megan Castor

That's why sometimes it's hard to get it to give you exactly what you want because you would just assume it would have realized what you meant. Yes, but it doesn't because it's a computer.

00:19:50 - Jenn Boyles

That's exactly it. It is a computer. It's only, it's like crap in, crap out. So if you don't give it, there's an analogy, crap in, crap out.

00:20:00 - Megan Castor

Yeah.

00:20:00 - Jenn Boyles

If you don't give it all that context and it's, it's sometimes not things that you've thought about when it gives you a response and you're like, oh, I should have mentioned this, go back, refine it, edit what you've said. If you start to get off on a weird tangent, go back and you can edit it.

00:20:19 - Megan Castor

Right.

00:20:19 - Jenn Boyles

Bring it back. Which I do often, actually. If it goes a little bit off, bring it back to what you're talking about.

00:20:27 - Megan Castor

Yeah, I mean, that's the whole point, right, is that you can, like, I'll often use it for outlining. So I know what I want my blog to be about, but I ask it to create a blog outline for such and such topics, written for such and such an audience to help them do whatever. And I'll tell it what to include, but it'll give me an outline. But I very rarely actually use that outline the way it is. Right. So then I will ask them to edit it. I'll say, give me an outline now. But I don't want this topic included. I want this topic included. So you can add, delete, edit what it gives you and you should. Because at the end of the day, and this is one of the other parts about AI, is if I ask it to create a blog about the best places to travel in Myrtle beach, the best places to go with kids or something. And I want it to start creating content about that. And my competitor in Myrtle beach also goes to ChatGPT and says, I want a blog about the places to go in Myrtle beach. Who's to say the ChatGPT is not giving you the exact same information? And it likely is, because really, it's just compiling, it's not coming up with anything new, right? It's just compiling information from the Internet and putting it together for you, whether it's accurate or not, whether it's exactly what you were looking for or not. And it's doing the same thing for everybody else. So if you really want to be original, you need to go in and edit and tweak and delete and move stuff around and add in all that human creativity that makes your content unique, because it's your stories, it's your personal experiences, it's your knowledge of those hidden spots that the Internet doesn't know about but you know about because you're a local. That's the stuff that makes your content appealing and interesting and relevant to your audience. So you always have to go in and edit.

00:22:31 - Jenn Boyles

No, and I think that's the key from this whole episode, is that it does not replace humans and use it, but edit it as you go.

00:22:43 - Megan Castor

Yes. Yeah. And the same thing, like with the headlines and things like that you were mentioning, it wasn't giving it to you the way you wanted it. And I would highly recommend using it to write headlines for you, to suggest them for you, not to write them for you. But I will always say, like, I am writing a blog about this. This is what it talks about. Can you give me ten headline ideas for this blog? And I will never use what it actually gives me. Like, it'll give me ten, it'll spit them out and I will never find one in that list that I'm like, yes, that is the headline I am going to use. Like, it never happens. But what happens is I take the, it always does the colons, doesn't it?

00:23:27 - Jenn Boyles

Yes, it does. And that's a dead giveaway now that you're using ChatGPT is that colon, and I'm trying to get away from it, you know, I don't want the colon anymore.

00:23:37 - Megan Castor

Yeah, I don't. But I'll take pieces from that first part before the colon and that last part after the colon, and I will rearrange myself, but it'll come up with some good words that I wouldn't think of that I'm like, oh, yeah, I like that word. And other ones that I'm like, cringe, you know, because everything is the ultimate guide to whatever.

00:24:01 - Jenn Boyles

Definitely. Yes, yes. No, I totally understand. So can you tell us a bit more about your services that you provide for vacation rental?

00:24:10 - Megan Castor

Oh, yeah, yeah. So, like I said, I work with vacation rental brands, property managers and others in the industry as well. And I do a lot of different copywriting services, actually. I work on website copy, email marketing and newsletters and blog content. I've written many, many, many property descriptions, and I do kind of all of the writing for them for you. Whatever writing you don't want to do, basically, I can do, and I do a variety of things, you know, where it's just the words and you take it on and you can design it and make it your own. And I also do things like full service email where I will design the emails for you, I'll get them sent out, all that stuff. So, you know, I have done with you and done for you, but I'm just really here to help because I love vacation rentals personally, and I just want to help people really connect with their guests and owners and build up the industry, you know, and, and show off what's so wonderful about you all who truly care, because there's quite a bit of variety out there, and sometimes you just don't have the time to put into your marketing the way you know that probably you should. I totally get that. I think we all do. There's always more to be done. And so I'm just kind of here to help speed along the process and get some of that stuff going. So you can get your properties booked.

00:25:43 - Jenn Boyles

Yeah, no, and that's what the bottom line is. We want more direct bookings and marketing is how we do it. And it's the content creation and the writing that I think, you know, I'm just thinking of my clients, people that have come into this industry, and they're like, okay, I want to be a property manager. I want to be an owner operator. The hospitality gene, I've got it. I love helping people and doing the changeovers and talking to guests and all that kind of stuff. And then they go, yeah, but I also have to be an accountant and, oh, I know, a marketer. And, you know, my least favorite part.

00:26:24 - Megan Castor

My own business is being an accountant. Yeah. It's so much more. So many more hats than you think you need to wear.

00:26:32 - Jenn Boyles

Yeah. So I think it's really good when you're able to bring in others to sort of help support you in that because you're an expert copywriter. And so bringing you in saves the person who is struggling with it.

00:26:47 - Megan Castor

Right? Yeah, I mean, that's the whole point, right? Is like you love your brand, you love your business, you love the hospitality aspect, and maybe you don't love writing. And that's okay. That's why we're talking about this. You can use ChatGPT to help you come up with ideas. And at the end of the day, if you still don't have the time or still don't want to write it yourself, then you can always call somebody like me and we'll help you out.

00:27:14 - Jenn Boyles

Yeah, great. And you've got a gift for everyone listening, don't you?

00:27:18 - Megan Castor

Yeah.

00:27:19 - Jenn Boyles

Yes.

00:27:19 - Megan Castor

I have a guide to using AI to help you enhance your content creation. So it'll walk you through a whole bunch of prompts to help you plan out your content, come up with headlines and subject lines, blogs, all of that. So I've got some prompts in there just to give you some ideas to speed along your process and make it a little easier for you. So yeah, great.

00:27:45 - Jenn Boyles

And I'll put the link for that in the show notes. So if you're interested in that, go ahead to the show notes. And where can people get in touch with you? Megan?

00:27:54 - Megan Castor

Yeah, so my website is Meganagency.com and you can find me on LinkedIn and Instagram. On LinkedIn, I'm slash Megan Castor. And on Instagram, I'm @thevacationrentalcopywriter.

00:28:09 - Jenn Boyles

Great. I'll put those links, yeah, perfect. I will put those links in the show notes so that everyone, and thank you so much, Megan, for coming on today.

00:28:19 - Megan Castor

Thank you, Jenn. I had so much fun chatting with you.

00:28:21 - Jenn Boyles

Thank you, Megan, for joining me today. A lot of great advice and some really good tips. If you enjoyed this episode and you want to learn more about creating content to help drive more direct bookings, then listen up. Direct Booking Success is back for its fourth year. On October 8 to 10th, 2024. This global, completely virtual event will be packed full of educational presentations from property managers and industry experts, including the one and only Megan Castor. So head to the website directbookingsuccesssummit.com to sign up for this free, exciting event. In the next episode of the Direct Booking Success Podcast, I'm going to dive into how you can be your own worst enemy when it comes to achieving the success you want and what you can do about it. Until then go out and take action for your own Direct Booking Success.

00:29:23 - Jenn Boyles

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.