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Vacation Rental Marketing Tips: Paid vs. Earned Media

As 2018 approaches, it's an ideal time to reassess your vacation rental marketing strategy. Are your efforts driving the results you need? To make the most of different media types, it's important to develop a cohesive marketing strategy with multiple media types.

Understanding the difference between media types

Vacation rental marketing done well includes a combination of owned, paid and earned media.

Owned media is the content you actually create and own, such as your website blog and social media posts you generate. This is easily the most recognizable type of marketing media. But what about paid and earned media? To employ both paid and earned media as part of your marketing strategy, you must first understand how they are related.

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Earned media refers to publicity gained through promotional efforts other than paid media advertising. This includes things like social media shares and mentions, online reviews, and media mentions.

Paid media such as PPC (pay per click) campaigns also drive traffic to your website and provide brand exposure for your vacation rental property management company. If managed correctly, paid media can lead to an increase in earned media, if managed correctly. 

Since both paid and earned media send visitors to your vacation rental website, it's important to develop a solid strategy for each type. 

Leveraging earned media in vacation rental marketing

Getting a solid team of advocates on your side is key when it comes to amplifying your company's message. According to the Content Marketing Institute, "You must attract the interest of the gatekeepers – influencers, media brands, or your fans – who hold the key to accessing their audiences and talking about your company and publishing your content."

Empowering others to speak on your behalf helps you to gain credibility in the eyes of prospective guests, and allows you to reach a broader audience. One way to do so is by encouraging guests who have had a positive experience in your properties to leave online reviews. Networking with others in the industry through conferences and trade shows and developing relationships with partners in your area are other good places to start.

Developing a paid media strategy for your vacation rental business

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When embarking on a PPC campaign, the first step is to set goals. According to VRMA’s “5 Tips for Better Pay-per-Click Campaigns" recommends clearly defining what you are trying to accomplish (conversions) so you can make the best plan when you go forward with your campaign. Set a target number of conversions you want to generate that you can measure efforts against throughout the campaign.

The same holds true for all your social media marketing efforts. Each piece of content you create should have a clearly defined purpose and prompt a clearly defined action from your viewers. If you do not know which keywords to use for SEO and PPC purposes, take a page from your competition’s playbook. Identifying which keywords are driving traffic to competitor sites will help you choose which keywords to use to drive traffic to your own site.

Popular platforms for paid campaigns include Google AdWords, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn. Remember that the key purpose of paid media is to drive traffic to your website. Therefore, your ads should be placed on the right platforms at the right time. Most importantly, they should contain engaging information that will drive traffic to your site.

Get more bookings with a great vacation rental website 

Of course, outstanding paid and earned media efforts will prove ineffective if your vacation rental website is not up to par when traffic arrives. This is where Kigo’s website design options come into play. Kigo's vacation rental websites are mobile-responsive, SEO optimized, and design to help you drive bookings. Request a demo today!

 

(Editor's note- we have updated and republished this article to benefit readers new to the Kigo blog).

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