A recent study by vacation rental marketing pro Matt Landau suggests that you probably aren’t doing enough to market your vacation rental property.

The study looks at vacation rental occupancy levels based on marketing efforts and budgets. Results showed that higher marketing budgets directly related to more bookings, as did stronger efforts in alternative outlets such as social media. A more comprehensive marketing plan led to more bookings, but most owners simply aren’t jumping on this massive opportunity.

According to the study, 94% of vacation rental owners surveyed believed they could be doing more to promote their rental. That’s a pretty big number — which poses the question: if that many owners know that they aren’t doing enough to market their property, why aren’t they doing more?

Time

It requires a significant amount of time and effort to effectively market your vacation rental property. Many owners have full-time jobs, relying on their vacation rental as a secondary source of income. A marketing strategy featuring analytics-based testing and alternative marketing platforms is beyond the realm of many owners’ time commitments to their rental.

Money

The cost of marketing a vacation rental home can be pricey. According to this study, an individual owner will spend upwards of $1,150 each year to market his home — an investment yielding only average occupancy results. For maximum exposure and effectiveness, owners spent well above that number on marketing.

Guesswork

One of the most common reasons for not doing more to market a rental is simply not knowing how. Even with a wealth of resources available to owners on the internet — the Evolve Blog, Matt Landau’s Vacation Rental Marketing Blog, and the HomeAway Community, to name a few — many owners feel overwhelmed by the options. In a rapidly growing industry there are countless avenues for marketing a rental, leaving many owners hesitant to take on the job alone.

 
What’s stopping you from doing more to market your rental? Are you an owner who likes to do it all yourself? Or do you prefer someone else to take the work off your plate?

Check out Matt’s Vacation Rental Marketing Blog for great tips on how to best promote your home, or follow his musings on Twitter @bookmorenights. Ask about his “Little Black Book” of vacation rental marketing, full of resources for any type of vacation rental owner.