In this bustling era of online platforms and endless vacation rental options, finding your property’s unique selling point has become the key to standing out from the crowd and ensuring a steady stream of satisfied guests.
Many travelers yearn for more than just a place to rest their weary heads. They seek a special experience that immerses them in the spirit of their chosen destination. By identifying and embracing the unique selling point of your vacation rental, you can tap into the desires of discerning travelers and elevate your property to new heights.
On July 12, 2023, Neil Graham, a Content Marketing Specialist at Lodgify, and Heather Bayer, the host of the Vacation Rental Success podcast and the co-founder of the Vacation Rental Formula Business School, presented an insightful webinar on identifying your property’s unique selling point and captivating potential guests with your one-of-a-kind features and experiences.
Whether you’re a seasoned vacation rental owner or just starting out, the webinar is your compass to discover the hidden gem within your property. This recap aims to offer those who attended and those who missed the webinar the opportunity to view it at their convenience. You will find the webinar recording, a breakdown of all the topics discussed, some valuable tips, and a selection of the best questions from the Q&A section.
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Webinar recording
Webinar recap
The webinar, which had over 500 registered attendees, kicked off with Neil’s presentation about Lodgify’s main and latest features, such as the updated mobile app, the recent integration with Google Vacation Rentals, the newest additions to Lodgify’s third-party apps marketplace, and our recently released summer 2023 industry report.
Heather Bayer was then invited to begin her amazing presentation on finding the unique selling point for vacation rentals, which covered the following:
- How to identify the unique selling point of your property
- Maximizing the benefits of micro niches
- Understanding what your target guest is looking for
- Developing marketing strategies to reach a specific audience
It’s better to be different than it is to be better
Heather began her presentation with a quote from Sally Hogshead from How to Fascinate to explain how vital it is to stand out in a crowded market. Heather then gave us a wide range of examples of different niches that vacation rental managers can maximize. Heather spoke about targeting the pet-friendly market and how to really focus on those guests who desire a vacation tailored to their pets’ needs.
She also gave us some superb stats regarding the market, such as how 50% of all travelers take their pets on vacation and how there are more pets than children in European households.
Macro vs micro niche
Heather then explained how there are macro niches, generally a larger niche like the pet-friendly market, and micro niches, much more specific markets. One of the examples Heather gave us was of the accessible vacation market and how hosts can provide specialized amenities and facilities such as a beach wheelchair or team up with local businesses that can organize accessible activities.
She shared with the audience a curious example of the pickleball niche and how this market had grown in just the last few years, with several vacation rental businesses now offering this experience. In addition, she revealed that the ornithology tourism market is worth $57.9 billion and that birdwatching could be an extremely profitable market if hosts can target the right type of birdwatcher.
How to find and maximize your USP
In order to make this strategy successful, Heather gave us a step-by-step guide on how to do it as well as further inspiration for reaching your audience. The main steps discussed were:
- Choose your niche
- Do the research
- Identify your target market
- Create content that resonates
- Go where they go
As she ended her presentation, she gave us one last example of a unique, luxury micro niche from Wander, “Every person who stays gets a Tesla.”
Q&A session
Question: I understand micro niches, but I’m not looking for high turnover, instead, low turnover and high yield. What luxury micro niches exist?
Heather: Give a Tesla!… I don’t know of any other company that will put a Tesla in the garage for every set of guests.
Question: How do we find the niche, and how do we know what keywords to use to market it?
Heather: You have to dig deep and find out what you’re passionate about. If you’re passionate about gardening and your property has a garden, a great niche there would be to have a vegetable garden and encourage guests to come and enjoy their passion as well.
To start with SEO, think about who you want to target and what questions they would ask. You can use ChatGPT and ask it to be this person, and ask it, ‘What are you looking for in a vacation?’. ChatGPT will come back to you and give you keywords in the language used by that specific persona.
Question: What do you suggest as a niche for the property manager managing multiple homes?
Heather: It’s likely you’re going to be in a macro niche of some sort, and you need to think about how you’re going to be different. Perhaps targeting the accessibility market and providing beach wheelchairs because nobody else is doing that in the market.
Question: We have beautiful panoramic views, would photography be a niche?
Heather: Absolutely. Instead of just saying, ‘We’ve got great views’, target photographers. Perhaps they don’t know about your property because you haven’t targeted them directly.
Question: How do you market something you don’t know much about?
Heather: If you don’t know much about it, then learn it and learn it more than the competition around you. For example, it wouldn’t take you long to learn about birdwatching and then use that information to target those guests.
How to contact our speaker
If you have any more questions or would like more information about the Vacation Rental Business School, you can check it out here.
Furthermore, if you’d like more information about finding your niche, you can check the specific course here.
You can also download Heather’s presentation from the webinar here.
We hope this webinar was insightful and valuable to all hosts or aspiring hosts looking to stand out in a crowded market in the short-term rental industry. Thank you once again to Heather for a wonderful presentation, and thank you to everyone who attended.
To learn more about how Lodgify can help your vacation rental business, sign up for our 7-day free trial or book a demo call here: https://use.lodgify.com/start
Looking for more vacation rental insights? Download our latest industry report for summer trends and how to make the most of them.
Don’t see the form to download the Industry Report? Click here.
