Word of Mouth – The Best Advertising of All!

As a new contributor to this site, I thought that a good way to introduce myself would be to start by talking about how to maximise the investment in advertising that you have already made, by making certain that your holiday maker visitors are thrilled with their stay in your property.  You want your visitors to leave your property having had the best stay of their lives.  You want them to be bubbling with enthusiasm about what a great property they stayed at, how wonderful the area was etc.   So many vacation rental property owners fail to make the most of the little things that visitors appreciate,  in order to keep costs down, that they miss out on the best advertising of all – Word Of Mouth.

Having a vacation property and renting it out to holiday makers is a great way to make a living.  Not only do you have the income from the rentals, you also have the rising value of the property itself.   However, as I mentioned earlier, so many owners are failing to realise that they are being “penny wise and pound foolish” (to use a good old fashioned British saying) and so I am going to give you a list of things to consider that will reap rewards for you – financially as well as in good will.  These tips are aimed at those owners whose property does not come into the “luxury” category.

Your First Job

Take a walk around your property and put yourself in the shoes of your visitor.  If your property is aimed at families for example, think about how they will feel when they arrive at your property.  They will certainly be tired, possibly grumpy (!) and definitely in need of a drink.  Make certain that you have provided a “Welcome Kit” that includes fresh milk, juice, coffee and tea so that everyone can have a sit down and a drink before they tackle unpacking the car.  Please make sure that you don’t buy the cheapest (and therefore nastiest) brands of juice, coffee and tea – they will not be appreciated and you will have wasted your money!  Having stayed at dozens of rental properties for holidays, I can promise you that providing a welcome kit makes a difference to your visitors’ perception of you and your property.  You immediately become someone who cares and not just someone who wants the money.  If you want to go overboard, add some cookies to the kit too and maybe some fruit and add to the delight of the new arrivals.

Second Job

Ok, so now you have happy visitors on day one.  They arrived, you spoiled them, they like you!  How can we make them love you and your property?  Well, a very good idea is to have a visitor’s book.  I don’t mean a boring old “enter your name and where you are from and a brief comment” type of affair, I mean a really valuable thing, sort of like a holiday diary.  Buy a lovely book and make the first few entries yourself (let me finish before you decide that I am asking you to fake it!).  Date the entries and write as if you are a visitor.  Write in there just a few sentences about where you have visited for the day and add a couple of “handy hints”,  for example perhaps you could recommend somewhere to have lunch that was very reasonably priced, or very good value.  Maybe you could write (again very briefly) about somewhere to visit that is less well known and is somewhere that they might miss were you not to mention it – just write a few things that will be good value to a new visitor.  Then, and this is very important, leave spaces for them to start their own brief account of their holiday.  This way, you will end up with a book full of useful hints and tips about staying in your property that are personal to your property or, to put it another way, that money can’t buy.  Get the idea?

Well, I have talked enough for now, but I will be back and will continue with this theme until we have covered all the pointers necessary.

Until next time :)

Posted by sls1365 on Feb 4th, 2010 and filed under Amenities & Furnishings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response by filling following comment form or trackback to this entry from your site

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