If you’re new to holiday letting, advertising your holiday home will be high on your list of things to do. By creating a marketing strategy, you’re setting your holiday let business up for success and for profitable bookings.
If you decide to holiday let your second home with Manor Cottages, we can take care of the marketing for you. What’s more, we’re part of the Sykes Holiday Cottages family so we know a thing or two about successful holiday letting.
Read our guide on how to advertise your property as a holiday let to secure bookings and maximise your revenue.
Location
Firstly, depending on where your property is located, this will be a big consideration into how you advertise your holiday home.
If your property is in a popular Cotswold village or on the doorstep of a busy high street, signage outside of your holiday home can work wonders to attract attention. Property plaques are great and by adding a QR code, people can scan as they pass to check out the interiors and information. If you have a listed property, a window sticker would work equally as well.
If your property is located outside of a popular area, you will need to work harder to advertise. By using our below tips or appointing a holiday let agency like Manor Cottages, all can help.
Audience
Similarly, to location considerations, you will need to identify your target market for your holiday let. If you have a 1 bedroom property that sleeps two, you’ll likely want to appeal to couples seeking a romantic break. If your property is 2 bedrooms or more, you’ll attract more families so ensure your property is set up for them and ensure the features reflect this.
By accepting dogs you’ll open your property to more bookings. Having pet bowls, treats, towels and blankets available for guests to use will create a great impression. Properties accepting pets earn on average 4 extra bookings and 18% more revenue per year.
Photography
A good photo is worth a thousand words and so in turn, to sell your holiday property to potential guests you’ll want to impress with high quality photography. Stage your property with props such as magazines and teapots, buy fresh flowers, ensure the garden is looking at its best so guests can visualise themselves here.
At Manor Cottages, our property consultants take property photos of the highest standard as part of the service, if required.
Property descriptions
Alongside your photography, you’ll need to write an outstanding property description about the features of your holiday let. If you want to advertise your holiday home to welcome guests, they’ll want to know everything from parking to if towels and bedlinen are included.
Along with the facilities of your property, it’s great to include information about the location, attractions and local shops so guests can make an informed decision before committing to booking. In turn, properties that have a thorough property description tend to do very well in terms of feedback and repeat booking.
At Manor Cottages, we have an entire head office team who are dedicated to optimising your property description with keywords for maximum discovery.
Pricing
Lots of potential new owners and current owners who holiday let are often unsure about how to price their property. It’s important to not price yourself out of the market but equally maximise your revenue.
At Manor Cottages you can choose whether to opt for owner pricing, that’s led by you or, you can opt for dynamic pricing which changes due to seasonality and demand. Our head office team of pricing experts will guide you on how to price your property taking into account the area, other properties similar to yours and features.
Listings
If you’re choosing to stand alone, you should consider the costs and upkeep of a website or at the least set up a Google My Business page for your property (which you can do as well as list with an agency). This in turn begs the question of whether to create social media accounts for your property for maximum discoverability. Again, the admin of looking after such can be a time restraint.
Deciding whether to list or partner with local authority or interest pages online can also be helpful but can incur a cost. Therefore, you’ll want to set aside a marketing budget for your property.
Partnerships can be a successful marketing channel to approach but one that takes dedication and commitment. At Manor Cottages we have a fantastic working relationship with Visit the Cotswolds who showcase our properties through e-newsletter campaigns, social media including TikTok, competitions, influencers and our own channels.
Properties listed with Manor Cottages benefit for national marketing campaigns that our parent company Sykes Holiday Cottages run, along with blogs, travel guides, PPC and paid social activity.
Using a holiday let agent
If you’re short on time, holiday letting your property with a reputable holiday let agency like Manor Cottages can take the stress away.
We have over 30 years of industry experience and what’s more our parent company is Sykes Holiday Cottages – an industry leader in holiday letting. Therefore, we operate dynamic pricing (should you wish), share with you all our holiday letting secrets and optimise your property across a variety of platforms.
With over 500 partners from Airbnb, booking.com and TripAdvisor, we can multi-list your holiday let across not only the Manor Cottages and Sykes Holiday Cottages website, but also on as many as you choose.
With a local team and office based in the Cotswolds, we’re only a phone call away and our property consultants are more than happy to pay you a visit with no-obligation advice.